Back In The Saddle

Its happened; after a year or so of failing to find the time to ride my bike, let alone complete my quest to ride all of the hundred greatest cycling climbs, I finally managed to bump start my efforts back into life.

After a Friday afternoon spent stuck in traffic (I'm convinced our motorway network is fundamentally broken) I found myself in the not exactly inspiring Chadderton on the outskirts of Oldham. After spending six hours in the car I was pretty knackered (I am out of practice afterall) but I had the comfort of a Travelshack and a cheap burger from a dodgy local takeaway to look forward to before riding two climbs the following day.

Like every Travelshack I've ever stayed in I had an appalling nights sleep. Why do they always crank the heating up to blast furnace levels? Surely the staff should know that if you walk into a room and your eyeballs instantly dry up the heating is probably on too high. Despite turning the heating in the room completely off I still woke up feeling drier than a mummies armpit the next morning. The ferocity of the heating was matched only by the volume of the police cars that seem to patrol the area in packs, at high speed, with their sirens on. I can only assume Oldham was on fire, or being invaded by aliens judging from the level of frenzied police activity. Maybe it was just a normal Friday night in Oldham. I didn't intend to find out; I had a nights sleep to try and salvage.

You know you're on a cycling trip when this is the view from bed...

The next morning I was up before it was light and heading to Ramsbottom to ride the infamous climb called The Rake. There will be a more detailed update complete with my legendary bad camera work to follow so I won't go into too much depth here apart from saying that I managed to complete the climb and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Ramsbottom didn't inspire me all that much though. Its a town that seems to be completely surrounded by urban motorways and the whole area struck me as pretty grim.

The Rake was followed by a short drive along yet more grim stretches of motorway to the more rural setting of Sabden where I got to ride the Nick of Pendle. Not viewed as being as tough a climb as The Rake it still looked pretty fearsome, especially when viewed from the road that heads into Sabden across the other side of the valley, but once again I didn't find it too bad to ride. Sure, I was never going to set a fast time but I'm fairly happy with my latest efforts; they bode well for my more concentrated efforts to tick off the remaining 19 climbs (yes, I'm slowly getting there) next year. My recent training seems have been worthwhile and I actually have some vestige of form to develop over the winter months.

I still have a few more summits to aim for but the weekend was encouraging

I have the hell of video editing to reacquaint myself with but hopefully in a week or so I should have the videos completed and up on the site. Don't worry, despite me being happy with my riding they will still come complete with their normal sound track of me wheezing as the scenery wobbles past very slowly. Watch this space.

The Revenant

Ok ok, I'm not quite back from the dead but it feels like this blog is.

It finally had to happen; I'm back in the hill climbing game. Well I say game, I'm about to start hurting myself in public, which in the minds of many non-cyclists would count as self harming, but I'm strangely looking forward to it.

I suppose I should explain about the vast expanse of time that has passed between this and my last blog post. I was working for myself and quite frankly that took up all of my time and money. If cycling is an obsession self employment leads to an even more all consuming one. Quite simply I had no room for anything other than work, and finding work. Cycling, whilst still a passion of mine, had to take a back seat and any spare time was eaten up by work. After two years of self employment I was starting to realise that without taking huge financial risks I would face real problems in growing my business to a point where I could have a decent life outside of work again. I was good at what I did but struggling to get the big break through I felt I needed. Plus, my social life, my hobbies and everything else that was important to me was being shoved ever further into the back ground.

At the start of 2016 I made the decision to seek out full time employment again. I've learned a hell of a lot by working for myself and don't regret any of the time spent trying to build my own business but that first free weekend when I started a new job working for somebody else, when I had no work commitments and all the time I wanted to ride my bike...boy was that ever sweet. Suffice to say I've found another job and I'm working hard to get my cycling back on track, if I ever was on track in the first place. 

One thing I need to tackle is the 21 remaining hill climbs. I dusted off the little black book of pain the other day and vowed to never let it get dusty again. I've built a new bike and have planned a trip away to bag at least a couple of climbs before the year is out. I don't intend to try and complete the remaining climbs this year; autumn is too close for that as well as the prospect of appalling weather in the hills, but I feel I do need to kick things off and test my form ahead of an all out effort early next year. Watch this space for news on the climbs I decide to tackle.

New approach, new bike. Sort of.

About a year and a half ago I bought a cheap frame and fork from Planet X. I liked the idea of a lightish road frame with decent tyre clearances and disc brake compatibility. What I ended up buying was a London Road frameset from a production run that has achieved notoriety for poor tolerances and build quality. My frame certainly ain't too pretty up close but I decided to persevere with it. My plan was to finally call time on my beloved Surly Karate Monkey frame and use its parts on the new frame. It would make for a cheap and quick build. 

                                                             

           Yep, thats apparently a bottom bracket thread...brute force won out in the end

Well, it was a cheap build but a wonky bottom bracket thread and seat tube like a clowns pocket made for a fair bit of swearing during the process. I'm still working to resolve the seat tube issues but the speed and responsiveness of the frame makes up for it. I'm not intending to use this bike for the 100 climbs. My faithful old Uncle John is still in my mind the best tool for the job but the London Road is growing on me. I even like climbing the steep stuff with flat handle bars. Time will tell if it ever gets to be ridden very slowly up a steep hill somewhere in the North of England but with a few tweaks it will make a good spare/ standby bike.

Over exposure hides the cheapness

My hill climbing efforts will restart this month with The Rake and Nick of Pendle being the climbs I've decided to test the water with. As ever I'm under prepared and probably not in the right form but what the hell, I've got to get going somehow. Now, where did I leave my charger for the helmet cam?