Yes, it’s another bike. Yes, I’m a silly boy. What can I say? It’s an addiction…

We [myself, Brett, Adam, Justin and Steve] visited Gethin, South Wales on Sunday, for the second weekend in succession. Despite some grey skies in the morning, it brightened up nicely, leaving us with a grippy, fun course on which to pilot our downhill bikes. “Alpine Olly” was back in force, riding the bike properly again. The top and open sections provided the most entertainment. They’re ace fun once you learn the right lines through the tight, twisting switchbacks. The rock garden is still a real challenge and shows what long-travel bikes are really made for. A great day all-round.

This was probably the last time we’d see Adam on a downhill bike for a while. There’s a short video of him too [AVI, 4.26mb]. This weekend he leaves Cheltenham to spend 12 months doing a digital effects masters degree down in Bournemouth. Good luck dude!

I’m sure I used to round that corner and dread that climb. I’d get to the top with my lungs fighting my heart to see which would escape out of my chest first. These days I just round that corner and pedal a bit harder until I get to the top. I actually enjoy that bit of trail these days. Clearly I’m getting fitter.

Part of it is down to riding singlespeed, I’m sure. You just can’t say “sod it”, stick it in bottom gear and then spin all the way up. You have to attack the climb. It’s all or nothing, and nothing is an admission of defeat and a walk to the top. That’s not to say that I don’t admit defeat from time to time, but more often than not, I’m getting up the climb in one go, or at least forcing myself to get back on and ride the rest of the way instead of walking.

Speaking of the singlespeed, I’m trying to put thoughts of shiny new bikes out of my mind by attempting to tame this beastie. I’ve always felt that it was a bit too big for me. These days I’m not so sure. It’s a bit long in the top tube, but since I cannibalised the shorter stem from the downhill bike and moved the seat forward a bit, it’s become somewhat easier to ride. It’s by no means perfect, but i’m no longer quite as stretched out as I was, so it’s a load more confident through the tight singletrack and I can actually ride it down some of the steeper stuff. Bonus!

Of course, I still want the shiny new bike aswell…

It still needs a disc-brake compatible back wheel (v-brakes are 100% of poo), some nice new forks, and another seatpost, even if only to stop the infernal creak that’s emanating from the RaceFace XY at the moment. It’s fine until you get a bit of dirt in there, at which point it creaks and cracks loudly over every little bump. Grumble. Clearly I’m just far too hardcore for it.

It’s late July 2005 and The Hills Have Eyes monkeys [Adam, Alex, Anton, Brett, Charlie, Gary, Gaz, Nick, Olly, Rob, Stu] hit Morzine in the French Alps.

We ride bikes like nutters. We do over 200 miles, nearly all downhill, over the course of two weeks. We rail berms, fly off drops, ride see-saws, and rule the singletrack. We fall off a lot. We kneel at the altar of body armour. We kill several pairs of forks, a rear shock, countless tyres, gear cables, chains, brake pads and other myriad parts. We spend an obscene amount of money on replacements (Yes Brett, we mean you). We make silly BWAAAARRRRRP engine noises as we fly down the trails. We celebrate my birthday. We’re given free drinks by friendly bar staff. We fly from one mountain to the next on the Fantasticable. We think Anne-Caro is a vindictive cow to have come up with that track. We chat to old friends in the pub. We eat too much food. We take pictures. We throw each other in hedges. We have an awful lot of fun.

We come home. We are depressed. We are really looking forward to the next time.

Update: We take more photos.

I’ve been back from the Alps for three days now. Boy oh boy, did the post-holiday depression kick in today. It’s fine all the time I’m distracted by telling people all about the holiday, or even reminiscing with my fellow holiday-makers, but as soon as I have to think about anything else, I just bog down and want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep.

I went to a great big family party on Saturday. It was great fun, but very hard work – I’d landed in the UK at about 11pm, got home at about 2am, got out of bed at around 8am, travelled across the country, arrived at the party at around midday and then spent roughly the next 11 hours catching up with various branches of the family (along with various family friends). Thankfully, they’ve given up on the good old Hey, I haven’t seen you since you were this tall! line of conversation and instead wanted to hear all about my adventures, or tell me all about theirs.

This is all well and good, but unless they’ve experienced a similarly extreme sport (I hate that phrase), it’s very hard to give them an idea of just what it’s like.

The Coke Habit

You see, a decent downhill bike can cost as much as a substantial narcotic habit to build up and maintain. Of course you don’t need to spend that much, but the pimp value always helps. Get it right though, and it can deliver an incredible rush. There’s bits of trail that I think back to now and they send tingles right up my spine.

It’s very hard to describe it. I tend to liken it to a roller-coaster, but one where you’re in charge of just how fast it goes and just how hard it pushes through the corners. It’s up to you to push it that bit faster, brake that bit later, and deliver the all important adrenalin kick.

Flying into a right-hander, completely off the brakes, letting the bike go airborne over the fly-off, twisting it beneath you before landing in the left-hander that follows, letting the wheels drift slightly across the track before setting up for the next corner. I’m sat here with a massive grin on my face just thinking about it.

Or there’s the times when you follow a quick rider – someone whose ability you respect and aspire to – into a trail, and they don’t get away from you, all the way down. Then there’s the very rare moments when they move over to let a faster rider through, and that faster rider is you.

Times like that, where it all comes together perfectly, are what it’s all about. When you get “the flow”, there is really very little else that can match up.

Bikes rock, 100% of fact.

I had a bike maintenance disaster this morning. Brett went one better this afternoon.

I woke up late, leaving myself about an hour to replace the drivetrain on the Cove before Owen arrived to go out for a ride. Not to worry – it’s only a chainring, cog and chain. Easy peasy, except for one small problem. One of the bolts holding the chainring in place point blank refused to budge. I got the new cog on the back, the new chain went on fine, but that chainring bolt didn’t want to know. In the end I gave up, left the old chainring on and we went out anyway.

Now, considering Owen hasn’t ridden his bike in about six months and professes to have done sod all exercise in the meantime, he showed few signs of the blatant unfitness he was claiming. Sure he was slow, but there was no sign of the nearly throwing up that we saw last time. I guess it was the promise of candy shrimps as a reward for getting to the top – that and not wanting to be shown up too much by some mentalist on a singlespeed… ahem. We got fantastic sunshine without it ever getting too hot, which always seems to make the singletrack flow that much better. A good ride all round I think.

We got back and I cleaned my bike for the first time in weeks. Simoniz Back-to-Black does really a fantastic job of making your bike shiny again doesn’t it? I’d noticed a bit of play in my rear hub while having my nightmare earlier on and also wanted to change the oil in my forks. The final descent on today’s ride finally convinced me that a five inch travel suspension fork is useless if it doesn’t actually use any of that travel.

I stripped the hub down for the first time in years. It’s seen plenty of riding (not to mention jet-washing) in the meantime, but while the grease looked old and used, it was still clean. The bearings were in pretty much perfect condition. Sealing that good is the reason why you spend that little bit extra on a Shimano XT hub instead of a Deore. They work, and as long as you look after them, they’ll continue to work for a long while. Clean out the old grease, put in a load of thick, gloopy new stuff, put it all back together and it’s rock solid again. Lovely. I’m not looking forward to opening the Deore hub on the front though…

After that I changed the oil in the forks – some ageing Marzocchi Z1 Drop-Off’s. They’re really showing their age on the outside, but within the stanchions they appear to be as good as new. Top caps off, springs out, drain the oil away, new oil in, springs in, top caps on. Adjust to suit and you’re sorted again. They’re showing an instant improvement – in that they actually seem to absorb the odd bump now. Bonus!

In the meantime, Brett tried the same thing with his significantly more complex Marzocchi 888R forks. Things didn’t go altogether to plan. Top caps undone, pour old oil out, all fine so far. Try to remove top-caps from damper-rods… ARSE! Brett manages to break the top off of one of the damper rods. He is not a happy bunny.

It’s funny (well, it’s not really), but he seems to be doing everything in his power to ruin his upcoming mountain biking holiday. First he dislocates his shoulder with only three weeks to go. It appears to be healing very well, but then with just two weeks remaining he dislocates his forks internals. One has to ask, what more can go wrong?

I haven’t written much here for a while have I? Every so often I get into a cycle of I really should post something but I don’t really have anything interesting to say, which of course isn’t the case at all. I’ve got plenty to say, I just can’t be arsed to actually write it. Its also partially because I’ve gone right off the design of this place again, but can’t seem to get myself together to to anything about it. I was described as terminally lethargic once. I’m going to get all predictable on you now and talk about mountain bikes.

This time last week, I was recovering from an epic cross-country ride with Lord Simon Everitt and Stu Bond. It was the hottest day of the year so far, so obviously we set off on our bikes shortly after midday.

Interesting point here. Si’s XC bike is an old Yeti DH-6. A few years ago, this would have been considered a state of the art downhill bike, yet here he is, with a single crown fork on the front riding it for miles on end. I was on my Cove Stiffee single speed, so our bikes couldn’t have been much more different if they tried.

We got to the furthest point from home – Cranham woods – and myself and Stu were really suffering. I wasn’t dealing with the heat very well and Stu was very dehydrated, so we decided to head down to the pub to fill up with water. Si’s phone goes – its Gary. My flatmate, Brett, is in casualty, having dislocated his shoulder. He was on hist first run, hit the first corner too quick, lost the front end and down he went. Winner! While Si is on the phone, a car goes past and suddenly just spears off of the road. Most bizarre.

It took us bloody ages to get home. Si was an absolute dynamo and didn’t appear to tire at all, but I was absolutely knackered by the time we got back. The highlight of the return journey was bombing down Leckhampton at significantly higher than the speed limit. Always good for a laugh.

We finished off the day with a barbecue at Si’s place, which was nice.

Since then, I seem to have picked up a minor addiction to XC riding. I’m enjoying it again like I haven’t for years. I went out on Tuesday and Thursday nights and then again today. Ker-ray-zee dude! Its partially down to my DH bike being in desperate need of attention, but even if that was fully working, I wouldn’t be riding it nearly this much.

Today it was my turn to be the dynamo, though I went out on my own so there was nobody there to witness it. There was virtually nobody else out on the trails at all – I guess they’re all either hiding from the mud or they’re at SSMM.

I rode up Leckhampton Hill, down the other side, up some hill whose name I have no idea of (the other side of the Seven Springs junction), across and down again, then back up Lecky, then down the other side out towards Birdlip, rode a load of cheeky singletrack over there, found the world’s muddiest bridleway, saw some wild deer on the path, got lost for a while, eventually popped out somewhere I recognised, rode back up Lecky again, down the other side towards Cheltenham, and finally saw another rider – Alex, braving the mud and pushing his DH bike up the trails towards me.

I was feeling a bit tired by this point so after chatting for a while headed off down the tramway and then blatted across town and back home.

I can see myself going out for a similar ride tomorrow too, though the single speed is in need of some attention now too. The drive train is well and truly shagged so a trip to the LBS might be needed in the morning.

Looking back, there was one particular track where I’m quite glad I was on my own. I had the Kaiser Chiefs playing loud on my MP3 player, and was riding no-handed down the trail, singing along and air-guitaring like a maniac. I must have looked mildly silly to say the least. I was having great fun though.

Right now, I’m listening to Glastonbury 2005 on Radio 1. Annie Nightingale and Annie Mac are hosting an afternoon of biggup jungly massive dance music live from the festival – they’ve just a set from the Plump DJs on and now the Evil Nine are on. I’ve got it on very loud and I’m enjoying it loads.

Oh, and Owen – my bike was very muddy before I went out and it’s significantly muddier now. Guess what? It still works! Surprise!