bradfordbiking.co.uk

Placed an order in for some new forks at my local bike shop today “All Terrain Cycles”. Cost me a little more then I was hoping for but am sure it will be well worth it, shaving off a good 680Grams off my bike which is more then I expected.
I should weigh my bike to see the total weight of it, would be interesting to find out.
I am also hoping to find a good use for the pushlock as I don’t lock the fork as much as I should do, as well as that am hoping Iv made the right choice to go with air over coil. As soon as there arrive  I will of course let you guys/girls know of my first impressions of the fork along with some photos.
And when the forks are fitted I will also let you know how I thought there preformed on the trials.

Here is a link for more information about the forks if your interested.
http://www.allterraincycles.co.uk/product/106387.html

As I said said before in a previous post I went and bought my self some SPD’s for the first time.

Today I put them to the real test and did a local route with Andy P,Matthew and Julie. Even tho I fell a stunning 4 times which i might add is unusual for. I cant really blame the new pedals, but its more likely to be just me. Most of the time it was my back wheel spinning out in the mud.

My real concern was not been able to clip out when needed, but out of some miracle I managed every time, and to my surprise some times I did not have to think about it

So far am enjoying been clipped in and it sure is helping with the long hills.

Only time will tell

I have been debating for a while now to either go clipless or not. Well on Thursday Matthew convinced me that was the way to go. So I went out and ordered some cheeps clipless pedals(thank you Matthew for picking them up). I have never doubted that there where better then platforms and gave you more power while cycling but I was not confident about the idea of been attached to the bike and not been able to put my foot down when needed. So far its been going okay and I have had a few close calls and just managed to clip out. I am a little nervous about the ride on Sunday been the first off road route I will of done with clipless. Tomorrow am going to be cycling into work. so I hope this will help me get used to them. I am expecting a few painful falls. Lets see what happens.

Well we did it again but making a few small changes to the route.

This time we started in howarth heading towards satires lane and along the water which brought up at the back of the windmills near Ogden we contained on towards the old roman road down into Ogden. From here we could follow the same route as we did the week before which took us in a circle so we could head back the way we came along the waterway and down satires lane.

I got to say we could not of picked a worst day for the weather as it was it throwing it down with rain. Even tho we were wet to the skin and frozen we really did enjoy are selves.

Third group ride of the year and were starting to get back into the swing of things.
The route was a just under 15 miles from our start location in Thornton heading towards Ogden Reservoir on the road.
At Ogden we started off with a long gentle slope which can get tricky in places as its gets rocky and muddy in placed depending on the time of the year you go. After that there is small downhill where you can either choose to go down a rocky track with quite a few ruts in there or down the muddy track on your right.
from there we went along a waterway until we met with the road going up by the windmills, we continued down here till we game across a guest house, going left at the guest house will take you down an roman road which is very rocky so be careful not to let your inner clip you rim. This will then lead back to Ogden Reservoir where you can go back on your self back to where you started.
I must say I did enjoy this route and will be going it again.

Pictures Available here

Small Video Comming Soon

Elevation Data

People Who Attended

Antony
Matthew
Julie

My new chainset arrived on time as expected and I have to say, excellent service from chainreaction. Will defiantly be ordering from there again.

So here is where the fun begins. Now if any of you read my other Post with the issue that I had little to no thread inside my crank, making it near impossible to pull my crank off, well this issue just got a whole lot worse. This time I tried to pull it off it striped all of the thread leaving with no thread for the crank puller to grip onto making it impossible for me to remove the crank.

Just places an order for a new crank for my bike after the last incident with tightening up the bottom bracket.

The crank set I ordered is a Downhill RaceFace Diabolus Chainset
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=4191

You may be thinking why a downhill chainset when I rally don’t to down hilling.
Of course it will add unnecessary extra weight to my bike the total weight for the Bottom Bracket rings and crank at a  1197g , but am willing to leave with that.

The model designed for all style mountain biking was only 245 Grams lighter then the Downhill chain set, but the downhill chainset is a lot stronger. And since I have a habit of bashing my chainset of rocks I thought I might as well get one stronger then I need.

I was thinking of trying to compensate the weight by trying to lighten up the load by upgrading other components on my bike, such as forks and handlebars

I have been getting this knocking noise when I pedal for a while and I have not really done anything about it until it started getting worse. So on Friday, I decided I’ve had enough.

I have asked a few people of what the problem could be. I was 90% sure it was my bottom bracket as that’s where the sound seemed to come from.

Most of the people I asked said it sounded like a loose bottom bracket and is most likely to be that but I should try to eliminate the other possibilities first, such as the pedals or crank.

Not knowing how to remove the bottom bracket, as I have never done it before and not having all tools, I asked Matthew to give me a hand.

This weeks Sunday morning ride was a short but good ride around Haworth and Stanbury, we set off from Andy’s house just after 9:10 riding up Mytholmes Lane, then right at the top on to North Street/West Lane, this was a bit of a slog for me, seemed to be having an off day. We took the left fork onto Cemetery Road and cycled to the end and turn right down the hill (41mph) then across the top of the dam then turned left on to Sun Lane and up the hill to Stanbury, once through Stanbury we turn left onto a single track lane (Back Lane), after about half a mile the road turned into a dirt track which we continued on for a further mile at this point we turned left through a gate and completely off road down the hill to the stone bridge at Bronte Falls. We crossed the bridge and climbed the other side till we reach the track that lead us back to cemetery Road and then retraced our run back to Andy’s house, 5.8 miles in total.

Now will probably be a good time to mention my new toy, I’ve got a Sporty cam to video our outings, this being the first one, there was plenty of learning, hopefully they’ll get better as we get more practice, but for now here’s our first one please remember to use the right click and save target rather then just clicking on the link

Small Video 19mb

Haworth Photos Available Here

It was our first real bike ride of the year, and what a windy day it was. Even though it was not cold, around 10c the wind sure did make it feel colder than it was.

We left Keighley around 10:15 and got to High Wind Bank near Kilnsey at round 10:45.
We stopped off at the same spot as we did last time (when we went to Kettlewell) which is in the middle of a field. Surprisingly this time round, there were no cows trying to mount each other.
A lot of this ride was on road and uphill the first part was from grass parking area between Kilnsey and Harkswick to Halton Gill, just under 7 miles which started off as small incline.