24/12 Pics

A couple of people have kindly sent me pictures of myself at the race last weekend.

At the start.

In control.

Looking concerned

After the thunderstorm

I Love, I Hate.

Back, and at least partially rested from twentyfour12.com.

What a fantastic course. Plenty of technical riding, and little in the way of riding round fields. In Keith Bontrager's words "a course for mountain bikers".

It started off as a hot dusty day, though in the afternoon there was a large thunderstorm which turned some of the course into rivers of mud. Later in the day/evening it mostly dried out again

My bike,I love, it performed flawlessly.

I hate getting mud in my shorts.

For the record I did the 12 hour solo and came 17th with 10 laps. Running a fixed gear of 38:20.

Thanks of course to my helpers, Ann and the kids.

Love Hate (2)

Not much to say, except a slightly better picture, and a change of bars and stem.

It rides well, looking forward to 24/12 on Saturday.

Love Hate

My Dialled Bikes Love Hate frame arrived yesterday. I've swapped most of the other bits over from other bikes to get it built up without more expense.

Rubbish picture, as my camera seems to have given up on focussing properly.



Rides nicely though a shorter stem and some low risers would be better.

Off to Delamere later to give it a decent test ride.

No more Mr Angry

As the process of selling our house has gone on longer and longer, so my normally calm(ish) teperament had become somewhat edgy. I needed a distraction.

The Monday night guys I ride with were talking about their team entry for the twentyfour12 mountain bike race, so I decided to try and concentrate my energy in to getting an entry for that.

I'd bravely thought of entering the solo 24 hour event, until I realised that there was a solo 12 hour, which will probably suffice when it comes to a challenge, and the inevitable pain and suffering. So the entry is in the post.

Embarassingly I have to own up to not actually owning a bike that one could race, so I've ordered a "Love Hate" frame from Dialled Bikes got some cheap RC31 forks from the Singletrackworld classifieds and the other bits I'll swap over from my Surly.

All of which should be here tomorrow, or early next week.

......and breathe

Another bike

Still nowhere near completing on our house, so we've bought another bike.



A replacement for Ann's Giant, which though still functional, was a little tired after our 6 years of ownership. The new bike again a cyclo-cross bike is a Lemond Poprad. Ann hasn't ridden it yet, though of course I've taken it for a swift urban test ride. Well all I can say is wow. Stiff and light, much faster accelerating than my Cross Check or the Giant.

I look forward to racing it. It's debut will hopefully be at the Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross race which I've sent an entry off for. Been to see the race a number of times and forgotten to enter it more times than I care to remember. Anyway 38 miles and 5000 feet of ascent and descent over Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-Ghent, at the end of September hopefully await.

Check
Dave Haygarth's blog on the Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross race