A belated Happy Easter to all!
It’s the morning after the long weekend before, and I’m sure we’re not alone when we say that most of us in the office are feeling just a little less motivated than usual. How’s your office? Subdued? Filled with folks looking longingly out the window towards the hills over yonder? Ours too.
But no need to sulk. Instead, we shall sit here with our coffee and tea mugs for just a little longer and gently ease ourselves into this shorter four-day working week by reminiscing over our travel adventures from the Easter break. And indeed the Singletrack team did travel over this past week! Some more than others…
Yes, it appeared that Chipps wasn’t happy with being back home in the UK for more than five days, so he grabbed his passport, jumped on a plane, and set off for California for some factory tours and company visits on his way to Sea Otter (stay tuned for loads of new product stories coming this week). He didn’t get much further than Santa Cruz though, where he stumbled across the above gig poster on the sidewalk.
While we’re all just a tad jealous of Chipps’ overseas junket (the good news is that it’s currently raining in California, so that makes us all feel better), we’re going to celebrate his adventures by kicking back with some DJ Shadow, who Chipps went to go watch last night in concert. The jerk.
So get your headphones in, click the play button, and enjoy some beats while we take you through the Mond…err…Tuesday Morning Debrief!
Starting off the week, it’s Ross’s birthday! So join us in wishing a very happy Birthday to our favourite lego-man and northern pie-eater!
“Al fresco lunch date booked in with our friends, in the heart of the Lakes… sun shining, easter holidays, the roads were rammed, poor planning! So we took the scenic route, 40km of dusty, classic Lakeland trail, a cheeky KLB Monumental with lunch, you could forgive me for feeling more than a little bit summery.” – Ben Gerrish.
“It’s been a few months of feeling like life being on hold with house moving a proposed move in January soon turned to February and then finally April. A week after moving in it was so nice to be out on my bike. With my girls being with Grandparents I escaped the unpacking and wallpaper stripping for a quick 90 minute ride straight out the front door. I stuck with what was already familiar, tried and tested to just see how long my loop would take me – will it fit as a naptime ride or a summertime evening ride once the girls are in bed. It will. I’ve more plans for exploring and finding my way round the many trails of the valley, I’m really happy we have finally moved.” – Katherine Compton.
“An Easter Weekend in Shropshire (a wholly under rated corner of the country). After Sunday lunch I took the gravel bike and this ‘map’, copied from the road map. It went broadly according to plan, although a brief stop at Blazing Bikes was needed when an anticipated cross roads wasn’t there. A bit of nose following, a spot of ‘that bridleway through the trees looks too lovely to miss’, and a lot of hills (not shown on the road map) later, I rolled in to Craven Arms to meet the kids. They were happily playing at the best indoor play place ever, where adults are encouraged to play too. Although I had to force myself down the ‘drop slides’, using the same deep-breath-and-just-do-it technique I usually save for new challenges on mountain bike skills courses. Approximately 1/4 of the Dirty Reiver climb and distance covered without difficulty…next weekend might just be possible after all.” – Hannah.
“Spent most of the weekend on the North York Moors where the sheep, gates and punctures were plentiful. Finished it off with a very pleasant Dark Peak pootle with Mr Barrett.” – Rachel Sokal.
In a joining of forces over the weekend, Rachel Sokal invited me out for a brief tour around the Dark Peak side of the Peak District. I’ve not had a lot of experience riding the Peaks, so it was brilliant having a tour guide to show me around without me getting hopelessly lost on my own. I can’t remember all the trails we rode (I’ve a goldfish memo…wait, what were we talking about?), though I believe we rode over Mam Tor and along a brilliant trail called ‘The Beast’. Good times indeed!
Further up north in Scotland, half man/half wolverine, Pete Scullion, shot this adrenaline-fuelled edit of him slipping and sliding down some snowy rocky goodness on Beinn Dorain. It’s quite rare that GoPro footage looks this nuts!
More riding of the mountains, but this time in the Lake District. James Vincent shot this #certifiedbanger while pulling his best ninja-moves to escape the clutches of a family Easter weekend for a brief moment of freedom. Nice work Jimbo!
Our resident street-rat, Rob, recently got his singlespeed back together and has been ‘gramming about it ever since. It took him a whole week to strip the paint and sand it back for that effortlessly cool look that Rob works so hard to achieve. Can take a photo one-handed but!
Down south during her 30-days-of-biking mission, Adele Mitchell got a loan of a Cube e-MTB to rip around on. And as you do when you ride an e-MTB, you end up lending it to all of your e-curious riding mates. The above video should give you a pretty good idea of what most people experience the first time they ride an e-bike or e-MTB.
And back up north in the land of proper ale and pies, our Fearless Leader, Mark, got out on two wheels for a riding adventure around Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. Splendid!
To finish off this jumbled edition of the Monday Morning Debrief – you know, given that today is in fact Tuesday, and we missed our on Fresh Goods Friday Live last week because of the Good Friday public holiday – we don’t have our usual Live video for you to watch. So instead of that, we have an even better video for all you procrastinators out there. It’s a 3-hour live DJ set from Maceo Plex from DGTL music festival in Amsterdam that was shot over the weekend.
For anyone who doesn’t like music over 120 beats-per-minute, best not click play on this one.
ST Out.
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Easter went without a hitch for a change – Purchased a CX bike, loaded up the panniers and went on a 100 mile weekend ride with wild camping for 2 nights. Cold at night but well worth the time away from tech and general day to day life.
Good score @danrandon!
Love it when things (mostly) go according to plan, and sounds like you had a ripper Easter weekend!
Wil