My Genesis Io singlespeed.
I bought it as a reasonably cheap gap-fill to do both commuting duties (I’d had to retire my knackered commuting bike) and off-road (my Cove Stiffee needed new forks and a load of other bits) for a time.

Turns out I liked riding it so much, I sold my Cove when it was fixed and haven’t ridden a geared or suspended bike since.
I bought another Genesis – a Fortitude SS for offroading and still use the Io for commuting and the odd road ride.

Cougar wrote:

Good christ, really? That’s a CD every three days.

a) where are you storing them all and,

b) assuming you spend 50% of your waking time listening to music, an album is lasting you 24 hours.

A year’s Spotify subscription would pay for itself inside of a month.

I’ve got a load of shelves and drawers full. Finding time to do them all justice is the hard part. (But I do have music playing almost all the time I’m in the house and awake – and I rip new albums to my pc at work, so I can play them there too.)
I tend to keep new albums in CD wallets so they’re easy to grab.

I’ll admit I do have a bit of an addiction – I’ll buy the odd album I don’t like for the sake of completeness. 😳

I still buy all my music on CD. A download just isn’t the same as far as I’m concerned. I like to have something tangible for my hard-earned.
Reckon I purchase between 6 and 10 albums a month.
Don’t buy many duff ones as you can find samples online of most albums if you think you might be taking a risk and check them out first.

Liked that a lot!

Somehow managed to totally miss you, Singlespeedstu!

It’s not a matter of being clumsy or an oaf. If we were all aces and could hit every line all the time everywhere and didn’t brake much then all we’d need ever need is 1.8″ Tiogas.

But some of us make mistakes and maybe get a bit off line or have to brake harder, and bigger grippier tyres are more forgiving

I don’t think it’s about being aces and having huge talent – just depends on the type of rider you are and what you enjoy most.
I’ve no doubt aggro tyres can be pushed way harder on the downs at Cannock and will let you get away with it a bit more when you’re really ragging it, but I’d rather take it a bit easier downhill than suffer the extra weight and drag up the climbs.
There are loads of riders using the tyres you mention, but they aren’t for everyone, that was my point.

You’ll be on your ear quicker than you can say Nobby Nic. Cannock’s unique geology requires something grippy and stable on the front have a look at HRII, Spesh Butcher Control, maybe a 2.5 Minion or a 2.4 Betty

Has it occurred to you that maybe, some riders wouldn’t be prepared to handicap their climbing and flat ground speed by fitting those massive tractor tyres?
I’m another Cannock regular and I’d never run anything approaching a downhill tyre for general trail riding – waymarked or cheeky.

The o.p. stated he wanted to keep weight and rolling resistance as low as possible – with reasonable grip…

It sure does!

Nice blog entry DrP.
That was my first SS gathering and I wasn’t sure what to expect (of the race part at least!).
I thought I’d see how it went and how I was feeling before deciding how to tackle it, but once we were off I had to give it my best shot really. Pretty pleased with myself, despite a last lap crash, when tiredness was setting in. 🙄
The course was pretty good fun – even the sections that were mis-routed and ran anti instead of clockwise ran o.k. The one bit that killed me (oddly) was the long straight top section coming back to Tackeroo from climbing out after the steep drop. I just couldn’t seem to get back up to speed there. I guess my legs were heavy from the climb and rollercoaster bits.
Look forward to another SSUK event in the future!

Camera doing a stunning job of de-gnarrifying the trail there

Indeed!
It wasn’t particularly difficult, but it’s one of those dodgy-looking drops with a few line choices, that can lead to a refusal if you don’t go straight down without thinking too much about it!

That was a whole lot of fun! Thanks Keef, Taz and all who helped. Proper ale on tap too!
Course was good fun. Nice drop to keep you on your toes, ace twisty singletrack and great company – singlespeeders really are the nicest bunch of mentalists you could hope to meet. 😉

More interested in the Schurter / Absalon battle myself. 😉

We do seem to keep producing juniors who show promise, but then the jump in ability needed to do well in the elite races seems to be too much for many of them.

Wheres the course at? Will you be sending riders along normal stuff with signs or taped off or what,

The course is at Tackeroo, Scruff – although the camping isn’t.
Don’t know how it’ll be marked out though…

XC racing – what’s not to like? 😀

The Midlands XC Series has been pretty successful over the past couple of years.
There are some great videos which give you a flavour of the events:

I think you have to adopt a B line type course if you want a wider field. Here for instance we’ve been looking at designing courses that can be open to all, even fitting two courses in. We have the space and time but not manpower/kit to spend x amount of days putting it together. It’s something for the future though as the estate I’m working with are willing to invest for use as a venue for xc/cx if the first couple of years go ok.

That’s another thing – why all the emphasis on “building” a course these days?
There are plenty of trails around that are suitable without having to construct anything.

Perhaps it’s an elitist attitude from the past that has caused the unpopularity. Certainly you ask most riders and they wouldn’t dream of racing XC, a lot do have a go at DH though.

I think it depends on what you’re used to – I’d say exactly the same about DH racing.

Agreed – but people seem to differentiate between ‘XC’ and ‘trail’ riding

I find that odd too. XC means cross-country after all… 😆
Perhaps most people see XC as just meaning XC Racing – whereas others – like myself, see it as trail riding, where you don’t get off and push up hills or sit around at the top before heading down, or session jumps – as well as just the racing part.

XC has remained popular pretty much ever where else, so it must be something about the UK mtb culture. Personally I think the likes of the mags (MBUK in particular) moving away from XC and then slagging it had a major effect on the youngsters

Yup.

Respect and Kudos to the guys/gals doing XC as the skills and fitness involved are massive, but why is XC so ‘different’ to mainstream MTBing?

That’s the odd thing – because to me, that is mainstream MTBing (although I don’t race anymore.) That’s how it was when I started and it’s still what I’m into now.
I just don’t get the whole DH / Freeride / Enduro thing – it’s as far away from what I like about cycling as BMX and motocross. Just alien to me.

A few places are making an effort to boost the difficulty of the courses – more in line with what you might find on the international circuit:

Can’t get there until Saturday, so see you all tomorrow!

I think there are lots of reasons, but the main one is that XC racing is hard work and there seems to be a slacker-attitude in this country where riding up hill is concerned, then there’s all the XC / 29ers / hardtails are gay nonsense.
It saddens me as I love watching the XC world cups etc and we don’t have anyone able to compete at that level now, nevermind challenge for a place!
Maybe there’s more to British Cycling steering promising youngsters towards the road than I thought, as there’s a healthy bunch of up and coming roadies – but then, road racing is enjoying huge popularity now.

There are some decent young riders coming through though – like Alex Welburn, who’s just taken the Midlands XC series. He’s fast as yer like and has the handling skills to back it up. 🙂
Lets have some more please!

33:19

That’s beautiful! Fantastic playing. 😀

I never got on with Fires.
Lost my front wheel a fair few times, totally unexpectedly when hitting moderate mud. A good all-rounder needs better mud performance than these in the UK.
(Saying that, I know people who swore by them, but they didn’t work for me.)

I used to do a bit of road racing back when there were only 3 cats and no power meters.
Circuit races and crits were never good for me. I just couldn’t hold that kind of flat out speed. I particularly remember getting dropped off the back of the bunch at Castle Coombe one time, with a few laps still to go and feeling pretty low.
I was used to training with the same guys and beating a lot of them on hills and sprints, but they seemed to be able to up their performance a notch when racing and I couldn’t.
Hilly courses suited me better, but it wasn’t long before I packed in road racing and concentrated on XC.

I enjoyed it very much.
Oh yeah – remind me never to attempt that ride. 😉

I love the smell!

I went to Jamie’s Italian in Birmingham once.
Long wait to be seated, but it was peak time so fair enough, I guess.
Had whitebait as a starter – which was really good – then the gas went off in the whole of the building, so no more meals could be cooked.
Got the starter and bottle of wine for free – so can’t complain.
Keep meaning to go back and try again, but not managed it yet.

I’ve only ridden it once in May 2013 and that was in really awful conditions, where most of the trail was like a shallow river. Even more annoying because it followed a long dry spell where it was dusty and ideal to ride, but I couldn’t get up there.

That said and despite seeing off both sets of brake pads on both of our bikes and a face plant into the water where the front wheel sank up to the axle in mud, it was an amazing ride and I’d certainly do it again even in those conditions.

I can only dream of what it must be like after a dry spell. Utter perfection I imagine!

Plenty of Sram equipped bikes too, as well as Shimano & Campag.

Just remembered – loved the ” I’m a Firkin Bar-steward” shirts!

Dogbolter, oh yes! I used to frequent the Flapper & Firkin in Brum, back in the day.

See ya then DezB.
I’ll leave you to your pop-chart techno, eh. 😉

I did buy that album on CD but was disappointed.
I never really liked anything by Underworld except maybe Rez. Not “proper techno” enough for my tastes.

Can’t believe the hype around Born Slippy especially. It begins nicely enough, then the beat comes in… o.k. when’s it going to kick off though??? … more beats and stupid vocals with no groove to speak of…. is it going to get going in a minute??? … oh it’s finished. Meh.

There’s always a bit of ribbing goes on between riding buddies, especially gears vs SS, the usual 29er clown bike stuff etc.

Must admit though, that sounded a little O.T.T.
I think I’d have been angry too.

St. Vincent.
Just amazing. 😀

Loved Lily Allen and Elbow. The Horrors were pretty decent.
Glad Metallica went off a storm in the face of all the negativity in the media. A solid set and pretty tight, although I’ve never been a huge fan of James Hetfield’s vocals live.
Arcade Fire were awful, IMO and although Kasabian & Kaiser Chiefs put the effort in, neither held my interest for long. Didn’t watch much else.
Wish Richie Hawtin’s set had been broadcast and System7 / Gong!

I love watching road racing! Especially the Grand Tours and some of the Classics. I’ll happily sit watching live coverage of the TDF all day.
I also love watching cyclocross and XC racing, but find watching DH racing pretty boring.

Go figure. 😉

(I don’t include criteriums / city-centre racing in the above. There has to be some challenging terrain. Don’t like track racing either, pretty much for that reason.)