The next challenge

Not since the L2P ride I did in 2006 have I had a sort of incentive to keep riding for a purpose.  I agree its good to keep fit but I find it much more of a kick if I have to aim for something, then I have no choice but to do something about it.  These days it is so easy to say "not today" when i had plans to go out on the bike, whereas if I had set up a challenge, or indeed entered one, then "not today" cannot apply otherwise you are just going to cause problems for yourself by not being prepared.

This is what was going through my mind when I was browsing the web and came across the Kilotogo website.  They specialize in events called Sportives.  Sportives from what I understand, however you are free to look it up yourself, are not necessarily races nor are they fundraisers, but purely challenges, sometimes against the clock, to finish a ride within a certain time.

There are famous ones like the L'Etape Du Tour.  This is where you can ride an actual stage of the Tour de France.  There is a catch with it though, as the sportive is to climb one of the cols, such as Tourmalet or Alpe D'Huez and such like.  In other words monster climbs, not necessarily nasty gradients, although some are, but you climb for mile after mile after mile.   Something you cannot do very much in the UK.  For me this is waay too difficult for my fitness, but I would like to think that one day....

Anyway back to reality.  There are many UK-based ones, quite a few run by many companies not necessarily Kilotogo.  A very well known one in the north of England is called the Cheshire Cat, which incorporates a notorious climb called Mow Cop (youtube has plenty of videos of this climb!).  Even though its not quite a Col climb, it does claim many victims who succumb to the gradient and push.

I wanted to do something of significance to me, and I had seen cycling rides around Pembrokeshire (where I grew up) but nothing was forthcoming, until that is, I came across the Kilotogo website, which had the National Trust Pembrokeshire Challenge Ride.  I had, maybe foolishly, opted for the 80 Mile loop which was the biggest but it holds significance for me as part of it goes through the village I went to school and where I spent many years as a child growing up.

If you click on the link, it will show in greater detail about the route itself, however I do have local knowledge to a certain degree, which is not as good as it used to be as I have not lived in the area since 1997.  Knowing full well I can cope with 60 miles with minimal feeding and liquid (my own fault, not by design), plus the fact I have not ridden with anyone before now, I've always gone solo out on bike rides on the road mainly down to convenience and happy that I can cope with my own pace but unsure if I rode with fitter people I'd be struggling and not feel good about it.

The profile of the route is this: (provided by the kilotogo website)

As you can see, its pretty undulating until around the 45 mile mark, it starts to climb for a few miles, and this is where I know where it is on the road as it is quite near where I grew up, so I can sort of psyche myself up for the climbs, but also know on the other side is a few miles of flat to downhill so you can recover and take it a bit easier.

I have since found out that there is another event in Pembrokeshire for the avid cyclist and that is the Tour of Pembrokeshire, which is a cyclosportive (more or less the same) however the distances are greater, with the longest being 117miles, including the climb  on the B4329 north towards Cardigan which has 650ft of climbing in 1.5miles, and isn't a nice experience in a car never mind a bicycle!  This wouldn't be so bad if this was near the beginning of the sportive but it's not.  The big loop which encompasses the majority of the county is here.

Maybe in 2012... :)

15 Mile Lunchtime Loop

Endomondo Mountain biking Workout

Lunchtime 11 mile loop (road)

11 Mile Lunchtime Loop

Pennington Flash Loop

Endomondo Mountain biking Workout

Training Routes (road)

Since I would love to be able to go out in the morning and just find my way around the north west and come home when I felt like it, this isn't really an option since I have a family and family life is the most important thing. Therefore, I have to pick routes out from home which are loops of differing lengths and times to suit depending on how long I can go out for, how long I WANT to go out for and the type of route I feel like doing.

Even thought the first mile or so from home is always the same, I can turn off and go in different directions and end up at the opposite ends of the county to the other loops fairly quickly.

I use a couple of websites to plan the route I want to do, but I do not tend to re-plan it once I have done it once or twice since by then I should know the route/time/distance off by heart.

The main one I use is Mapmyride.com. I have been using this website for a few years now to plan short routes, long routes, undulating routes, hilly routes, easy routes, you name it. A new-ish feature that it provides is to be able to follow roads. This means that when you are drawing your route, you do not need to click at each bend in the road and roundabout to draw, you just click at various points and it will draw round the roads for you. Sometimes it will draw the shortest route which in reality is not feasible due to side streets and so forth when you want to go down the main road, but you can "pull" the route out to the main road and the website adjusts accordingly.

One of the main reasons I use mapmyride, besides the fact it does route mapping (which you can save to view later or to share to other people), is that it gives you elevation details. This means you can see how hilly both to climb or descend the road is, so you can gauge your energy to not be wasted by the time you hit the big climbs!

An alternative website I use, is Endomondo. This is a newer website for me, ever since I was given an IPhone as my work phone. Previously I had a HTC Snap which had god-awful GPS signals if it did not see the sky without obstruction (which made putting it in your pocket a no no!). The iPhone will pick up the signal and work fine with it even if its inside a rucksack or pocket, which is ideal for cycling.

Whereas both websites can plan routes, endomondo does not give the functionality to follow roads so you have to literally click on every corner to get the route mapped.

Since it is a work phone I won't pay for more advanced apps to follow routes, therefore I will use the device to track my progress so I can check it when i get home.  I currently use a cycle computer on the bike to do the tracking for me which is just as good as a personal trainer as there is nothing worse than seeing your average speed drop or even your current speed drop!

Loops
Local <60 minute loop
This loop is one of my favourites since its fairly short at just over 13 miles, and is not very taxing except for the first half mile which is a climb past Chorley Hospital, which considering is less than a minute since leaving the house, is not the ideal way to start a ride to warm up.  This loop then heads down the A6 through Chorley, which can be quite interesting during my more convenient night rides. then turn towards Wigan at Fredericks Ice Cream shop.  This road is not as well used as the A6 but does have some nutters who use it as a rat run between Wigan and Chorley.  I turn off this road towards Coppull at Jolly Tar Lane, which then takes me into the back of Coppull, which I then head through Coppull and out towards Charnock Richard on the A49.  I stay on this road for a few miles, enjoying the decent downhill on Charnock brow, heading into Euxton, then I head towards Chorley through Euxton and via Astley Village and home.  I do this in between 45-50 mins depending on traffic lights and my condition, not forgetting traffic volume and speed as well.

25-ish mile loop
This loop begins the same as the above but turns onto Runshaw Lane in Euxton, and head towards Leyland, going past Worden Park, then head towards the bottom end of Leyland and follow Leyland Lane north towards Bamber Bridge then stay on the A6 all the way back to Chorley and head home past the hospital.  This is not a good loop to do with a southerly wind as the A6 can be quite open and is awful to cycle into wind on that road, so I tend to cut it short and go down the A49 then through Buckshaw Village and home.

58 Mile 4hr Loop
This ride can be summarised by the following.  Chorley > Horwich (via chorley new road NOT A6) > Aspull > Wigan > Orrell > Skelmersdale > Ormskirk > Southport > Bretherton (skim past it) > Leyland > Buckshaw Village > Home.
This loop was done recently and I stopped twice for 10 mins then 2 mins

Work-based loops

More recently I have begun to take my singlespeed bike to work to go out for an hour during lunchtime, especially since the more recent weather is a lot milder and cycle friendly without 15 layers and balaclava!


These loops are limited since it has to incorporate getting changed into and out of cycle clothing in the lunch hour.  Therefore 3 loops have been marked, one being around Pennington flash, but the other two are the same except for the longer one which is an extension of the shorter one.


Pennington Flash Loop
This is more suited to the singlespeed or even a mountain bike but not the road bike since the paths are rocky and muddy in places and not suited to anything but mountain bikes or anything that's not got road-biased tyres.  Luckily it has been dry recently and I have been using the singlespeed with the kenda tyres and its been OK, I did have to push at one point because it was too muddy but I went out today and it was all rideable. (I have shared the route on a separate post so you can see the loop on the map)

11 Mile Loop
This loop goes through Newton Le Willows > Earlestown, and heads towards St Helens and loops back round the back of Newton and back to the office.  It has no gradients to note but is good to get the legs spinning, especially on a single speed.

15 Mile Loop
This extends the existing 11 mile loop a bit further towards Sutton (south of St Helens.) and is more suited to the road bike if its to be covered within the lunch hour, however I have done this on the single speed and was back within an hour but only just.

Building a wheel from scratch

Building your own wheel for the first time is something I now believe every keen cyclist who does some sort of maintenance should try at least once, and see it through from start to finish. Even if you don't do it completely yourself and get a specialist to finish it off (ie truing) it is still a very gratifying experience to have a wheel on your bike with components you chose and put together yourself.

This decision was made for me after an "incident" at Lee Quarry on my Banshee. Front wheel beyond repair, but still salvageable with the hub only, since you are not advised to re-use spokes once tensioned and the rim was, well, bent!

Ideally a Hope Pro 2 hub would have been on the bike since its classed as "bling" and a well known brand. This tied in with the fact that they are made in the north west kind of pulls you to keep local businesses going. This was but a pipe dream since the Hope hubs are a teensy bit out of my price range, and 2nd hand ones were going for a fair whack on eBay, which just goes to show their quality and following.

So, the alternative but by no means second best option, were Superstar Components (you will no doubt hear this mentioned quite a few times across my blogs!) They had a deal on their evo switch front hubs which were in red, which is a bonus since half of my bike is red already. So I snapped one up, after selling old bits n bobs on eBay. Next step was to source a rim. You cannot buy spokes until the very last as measurements from both the hub rim decide which length spokes you need, but I will cover that later.

After some eBay searching, I came across some El Gallo rims. Since the postage was nearly a fiver irrespective of how many you ordered, I ordered 2! This was on the off-chance I came into some money or I broke the rear wheel too. These arrived much to my delight, however I was not out of the woods yet as a crucial figure is needed from the rim in order for the spoke lengths to be accurate.. ERD, or Effective Rim Diameter, which, according to the infamous Sheldon Brown, is "This is the rim diameter measured at the nipple seats in the spoke holes, plus the thickness of the two nipple heads. The E.R.D. is needed for calculating the correct spoke length." link to the original information is here. In fact Sheldon Brown is the source of all cycling knowledge for me and a thousand others!


I had to obtain the ERD for the rim from the seller who in turn contacted the manufacturer as you cannot get this wrong or the spokes wont fit and/or the wheel wont be true.


Since the Superstar website included the measurements of the hub, that bit was done for me. All that there was left to do was use the information gathered from the hub and the rim and put them onto the DT Swiss spoke calculator website. It will ask you all the information you need and will give you the required spoke lengths for each side of the wheel. Do not assume the spoke lengths are the same on both sides as they more often than not are a few mm different. Also make note which side is which when building as it will soon become obvious your wheel will be one sided and not centred on the hub.


I ordered the spokes based on the results from Chain Reaction Cycles, another regular website that I visit for parts and spares who have a reputation and service which is second to none. After some advice I opted for the DT Swiss Competition Spokes in black. These came with brass nipples (stop giggling!), which are ideal for wheel adjustment after a few months/years since they do not rust or seize on the rim or spoke.


Once all the pieces were back home, I reluctantly began the lacing process. I will not go into why and wherefores as I will leave that to Sheldon Brown's Wheel Building page. So here is the progress of my first wheel build.



Thats it, done, around an hour after reading on how to do it, stopping to pick up nipples and spokes going everywhere, its done.. (or so I thought!)

The next day I took it to Paul Hewitt Cycles in Leyland who I have used before to true it. £17 (inc rim tape) later, followed by a little hint that I had laced it incorrectly! I had gone the wrong way and not followed the rim eyes which were sided. Lesson learnt!

So, that was the front wheel done, albeit after some relacing by Paul Hewitt!. For about 4 months, I had a rim in the house, with no bike to give it to, until I had started to build up the Singlespeed Townsend bike, and had more to sell on eBay, and since the items were selling well, I decided to buy the remaining bits for the rear wheel, however the rear hub was a lot more expensive than the front and took a lot more selling to get there, but get there I did.

The pictures don't look much different to the front wheel but I assure you its different. (plus I had learned my lesson and dont it right this time!)



And the result of the hard work..

Current Collection

Since buying the original bike I had ridden to Paris on back in 2006, I have since come to own and still have 4 bikes.

• Giant Rincon '06
• Raleigh Dyna-Tech 500 (year unknown)
• Carrera Banshe (year unsure!)
• Townsend 21sp MTB (now a singlespeed commuter)
• Ribble Road Bike (owned for a month or so)

Raleigh Dyna-Tech 500
I was quite happy having one bike as a do it all go anywhere type, however I had soon come to realise that I needed something a bit more road-biased so that I could go out and enjoy road riding a bit more without the huff and puff of heaving a heavy mountain bike on road tyres around. Since I am not what you would say easily succumbed to the new market for bicycles, I therefore trawled ebay for a suitable candidate.

I initially spotted an old classic Ribble bike for 50 quid but it was in Knott End (north of the Fylde peninsula) which is a fair old way from Chorley. Nonetheless I won it and was eager to bring it home, but soon realised the pitfalls of buying "green". I did not find out what frame I should be getting and this one was obviously too big. Could not even straddle the top bar without tiptoe! However I took it out for a ride for a mile or so and realised two things. Firstly that it was too big, but more importantly that I had now confirmed I definitely wanted a road bike.

So, more trawling through ebay and after being outbid on a few, I won an old-ish Raleigh Dyna-Tech for £100! Bonus being it was a mile away! So I went to fetch it and was overjoyed as it was in pristine condition.. (ie never ridden much!)

Brought it home and this is what I got for £100.
As you can see it was in pretty good condition, although I could not find out its age. It even came with its own pump (which i still have!)

The tyres seemed ok although a bit worn and weathered, brakes ok, although the brake cables/drivetrain needed some attention but for the money I think I grabbed a bargain. Trawling though ebay these days you'd be hard pressed to find a bike in this condition for that money these days.



Shortly after I bought this bike, we moved house, and it was put in the garage for a month or two whilst the house was being sorted, however after going out on it and putting some miles underneath the tyres, realised that some issues had crept in. Notably the bottom bracket had seen better days, as had the cassette and chain, and also the brake cables (gear seemed ok). However since the bottom bracket was pre-cartridge and had probably been in there since built, the cranks would not budge and had to resort to shoving a wedge between the crank arm and the bottom bracket and giving it a whack! This relieved the crank arm of its duty for the time being but gave myself and my mate (with said wedge) an opportunity to examine the issue (worn bearings etc. etc.) and find out it would take a cartridge bottom bracket (much much easier to replace) I also ordered a new cassette, chain, and brake inners and they were put on and the bike felt like new! But then the wheels were not running quite true so I took them to Paul Hewitt Cycles in Leyland and they trued both wheels for me and now I had a bike in good order.

Carrera Banshee
Back in October 2009, I had to have an operation on my foot to correct a bent toe, called a Stainsby Procedure. (google it if you have the stomach!). This meant I was out of action of any kind for at least a month.. which turned out to be 2 months off work, with the first month incapable of unsupported mobility as I had a big pin stuck in my foot for 4 weeks and had to use crutches to go anywhere. The second month was spent recuperating and rejoining the population as I had become used to spending the day in the house, I didn't like going out, and the first time I went to Tesco for the first time freaked me out!

Anyway, since I had a lot of time on my hands and I had been thinking about getting a full suspension bike for a while now, I had dreamt of getting one which was new-ish, had bling kit on it and was the dogs. However I had to be realistic and buy something which would not put me in debt much less at the expense of the family, joking aside!. Back to old faithful Ebay once again, and after much trawling and convincing the other half this was worth going for, I won a full suspension bike (albeit it needed some work on it to get to my standard!) for £135. A lot of you would think this is waay too cheap, however on looking on similar bikes of the same make and model I got mine a lot cheaper than what it should have gone for. On reflection I think I used the bidding at the last minute to my advantage and not go silly.

Of course there is a BUT in this story, and this BUT was the fact that this bike was in Yeovil, Somerset, which is around 250 miles away! Not only that, I could not drive so I had to convince mrs B to get in the car at 7am on a sunday morning with our kids in the back on their DS' and drive for 5hrs down through most of England to pickup a bike. After many hours and a fry up on the M5 we eventually got there on a rainy and windy sunday lunchtime.. and this is what I got for my efforts.
The only difference between this picture and the day it arrived home is the grips. Everything else is how I got it.

Maybe the person selling it knew what was wrong with it or was
obvlivious, but back then even to someone like me who did very little bike maintenance or parts replacement knew something was amiss.


The biggest issue was that it had a 8sp shifter and a 9sp cassette! Another issue I had to contend with was this had SRAM kit on it, and I have never used SRAM before, only Shimano. This meant I had to learn how it shifted and worked compared to Shimano which was on the Raleigh and the Giant.

However this was not going to put me off, so I made a shopping list of bits this bike would need If i was going to use and abuse it on a regular basis. Other bits I bought mainly for aesthetic reasons but they have their uses, I did not buy something purely for its colour if an item on the bike did the job already.

So this is what I replaced (part 1)

• Lock On Grips
• Azonic Strip Bar
• Deity Components Stem
• Charge Spoon Saddle
• Sram X7 Rear Mech
• Sram X7 Rear Shifter
• Sram X7 Front Shifter
• Maxxis Minions DHR and DHF Tyres
• New SRAM Cassette
• KMC Chain
• Shimano Double and Bash Cranks
• Bottom Bracket

A colleague had bought himself some Lyriks to go on his Specialized FSR and had longer Toras than I had so I have "borrowed" these from him, such a generous chap!

However in the process of swapping forks, realised the headset on mine was a bit faffed too, so a quick trip to Merlin Cycles in Buckshaw Village saw myself a new FSA headset with fork fitted. I did not want a star screw in the fork, don't ask why I don't remember now, so I opted for a Hope Head Doctor which works just as well and looks better. Yes I admit this item was probably the only aesthetic bit I got for it.

The timeline gets a bit fuzzy now so from the initial rebuild to now, here is what's been done to it since.

• Raceface Hollowtech BB
• Shimano Hollowtech Cranks
• Blackspire Stinger Chain guide
• Superstar Components Mag Pedals
• Superstar Hubs with El Gallo rims with DT Swiss Competition Spokes (front and rear)
• Hayes Nine Brakes (previously had tektro cable disc)
• Superstar 203mm Rotor (front)
• 185mm Rear Rotor
• Hope Seat Clamp
• RRP Neoguard

I originally bought the new front wheel as I had managed to "taco" my front wheel on the ride back to the car in Lee Quarry.

As you can see I must have whacked it pretty hard to bend it that badly, however I did not come off lightly, I managed to face-plant too but luckily it was on dirt not tarmac otherwise it would have been a different story altogether. Had this not occurred I would have been quite happy to run the bike as is, however I had no choice. Considering they were stock hubs and had seen better days, PLUS Superstar Components were doing a sale, I could not turn down the offer.

I managed to source some rims from Ebay, but brand new, and for the price I bought two! To save cost, I built the wheel myself, but i will cover that in another blog.

So as it stands now the Banshee looks like this.















The only problem that remains on this bike and has been in existence for a while is jumping gears, and I think its down to alignment ever since I crashed it (one of many) in gisburn and bent the mech. It is on my to-do list :)

Townsend Singlespeed
For a while I have been keeping an eye on a mailing list called Freecycle (now known as Freegle) for various items of interest. Mainly old consoles and bike-related tat! In the past I have managed to get a Playstation 1 and 2, Gamecube and a Garden shed, of which lasted until it got back to the house and realised it was in too poor a condition to be put together, so out came the saw and made firewood for the fire basket during the summer months.

I have been keeping an eye on some of the bikes because they will more than likely have some working parts that can be used as donors, or even clean them up and keep them or bin them if too far gone, after all I paid nothing except petrol to get them. Therefore during the preparation to go out to play at Delamere Forest, I received an email saying this person was getting rid of an old Townsend mountain bike, and since their location was fairly close to ours, I thought why not, and asked to be considered. No sooner than I hit send, that I got a reply saying its mine if I want it.

The problem was getting the bike home, since my own bike (the carrera) was on the bike rack on the roof, and I didn't know whether the Townsend would fit in the Golf. Considering the muck on the Carrera I didn't fancy putting that in the boot instead. So when I got there, I was again pleasantly surprised at the condition of the bike. Granted it needed a damn good clean and bits and bobs doing to it, but it was free so I was not going to complain.

I do not have a picture of the bike as it arrived, however, this is work in progress of it going from a 21speed mountain bike to a Singlespeed.

As you can see its bright yellow, it has Panaracer Mach SS tyres which are fairly worn but still have life left in them. The grips were worn but usable for the time being.

This left me in a bit of a dilemma. was it worth spending money on it or bin it.

After speaking to a friend who is a seasoned cyclist and has many bikes in various guises, convinced me that I should head down the singlespeed route.



I had thought about going singlespeed for a while but did not want to convert any of my existing bikes as i like the choice of having gears, whereas that choice would be taken away with a SS.

So first things first, I had the bottom bracket replaced as the existing one was dead, then bought new singlespeed might cranks from ebay (new) which were 38 teeth. Then bought a Superstar Components singlespeed kit (£10) which gave me a 16 tooth cog with spacers to align with the front crank. Although the most common combination is 2:1 (which would mean I would need either a 32 tooth crank up front or change the cog to 19t, I felt that this combination was a good compromise between being able to ride on the road with some speed, but also be able to go offroad, nothing too sinistar, canal paths and bridleways would suffice. It also meant that it would climb fairly well too, plus the fact that it had bullhorn bars, I could hold them comfortably whilst out of the saddle on hills.

So the shopping list for this was as follows:

• Mighty 38T cranks
• Bottom Bracket (courtesy of the one from the giant)
• Singlespeed chain (supplied by said friend)
• Superstar Components Singlespeed kit
• Superstar Components Chain Tensioner (since removed)
• Charlie the Bikemonger Half links (invaluable!)
• Yellow and Black Bar Tape
• Shorter Reach Stem
• Iron Horse Saddle (not my greatest moments, too wide! but cheap)
• Mudguards (provided by same generous friend!)

All in all about 50 quid I would think give or take, and considering the bike cost me nothing, I think thats a good bargain. I have since taken the Panaracer tyres off and replaced them with more road friendly Kenda Kwest tyres I used on the Giant on the Paris trip. This give a lot less rolling resistance and are perfect for commuting to work.

On the left you can see the new bar tape and stem (ebay!), and on the right shows the singlespeed kit mounted, however this has since been removed in favour of a straight chain from crank to cog. (hence the use of the half links from charlie the bike monger)