The end of March bought with it a fractured elbow and 4 weeks off the bike, should have been six but more on that later.
This did bring with it the opportunity to do all the bike maintenance i'd been meaning to do since winter turned it's cold soggy back on us, so after lightening my wallet of a lot of hard earned wedge bits started arriving, some new Chainrings for my Stylo chainset an Sram pg990 red cassette (swapped from XT to see if it will last longer) new Jockey wheels as mine had started to look like tiny ninja stars , XT front mech plus chain and some Crank Brothers Candy pedals amazing what you can wear out over seven months!
The parts were all fitted the bike was completely spotless and that was two weeks done. What now?
Well after a further two weeks of doing nothing my body and mind were aching with the desire to go and kick start the adrenalin glands, against all the advice of the doctors I loaded up the car and pointed it toward the glorious Surrey Hills where I met up with my brother-in-law (Adam), heavily strapped up we headed in to the Hills Holmbury Hill to be precise, Adam was waxing lyrical about a few trails in particular Yogurt pots and Barry knows best so we headed out to thrash a few loops off.
After the ride up we headed for Yogurt Pots, This trail is like a ribbon of dirt flowing down a channel swooping from the left to the right up the sides all the while assisted by gravity almost a twisting run of mini wall rides all the way down, It was on! the grin was wide across my face and the talk soon turned to analyzing the run just completed as we spun back up for three or four more runs, with my eye now well and truely in and my arm thumping Adam took me round some unknown trails before heading eagly over to Barry Knows Best. (Check out the vid at the top of the page)
The trail starts with a couple of drops which against all my instincts I had to force myself to keep my wheels on the ground because of my aching elbow, it then heads on to some tighter rooty single track which traverses down the side of the hill for the next two or three minutes taking in some absolutely perfect burms as you near the bottom, another run and then off to Peaslake, you must go here if your in the area and sample the home made pork and leek sausage roll from the post office, (Mmmm Pork and Leek sausage roll said in a Homer Simpson dribbling voice stylee) with our appetites contented we head back up Holmbury for some more unknown trails a couple more runs of Yogurt Pots and then a spin over to Telegraph road for a final run back to where we begun.
Telegraph road as the name suggests runs down the side of the hill following the telegraph poles skimming constantly over roots which are relentless, this trail gets pretty rapid and once the speed increases it feels like the trail is trying to push you faster to try to throw you off, it's loose bumpy and grin inducing as we enter the trees nearing the end my feet and palms are cramping up and then there was the car.
With my arm truly battered I headed home with familiar emotions, sad to leave but happy to know that riding bliss can be found just a couple of hours away.
That is about the sum of the riding done since fracturing my elbow, fitness permitting I'm hoping to enter Mud, Sweat and Gears next race at Tunstall, never raced nor rode the trails there but can't let that stop me, I might see some of you there and hopefully can get back in to writing this blog.
ReatinRides on.
Schwalbe is the bicycle tyre brand name of the Bohle company which has been in business since 1922, they have been producing tyres specifically for bikes and wheelchairs since 1973, the current chairmans (Ralph Bohle) great uncle was the co founder of a much renowend bicycle manufacturer in Birmingham so the company has a strong British tradition. I've never run Schwalbe tyres but when I saw them with quite a hefty reduction on a certain Yorkshire based bike producers website I decided it was time to bite the bullet. I plumped for the 26x 2.25 Triple Evo Compound, the tyres instantly got on my good side as out of the packaging and onto the scales they came up 30grams less than was stated on the web site 515grams each instead of 545grams, even better as in total they are about 300grams ligter than my current tyres. Fitting them was completely painless, to my delight they slipped on easily with no need for a tyre lever, I always take this to be the sign of a quality tyre, with them mounted and the rotation arrows pointing the right direction it does seem like the front is pointing the wrong way as the side lugs seem to point outwards from their leading edge but no doubt Schwalbe know better than I do about which way to mount a tyre. ( I may turn it round if it annoys me enough just to see if it changes the feel of the tyre at all). Out on the road the 2.25 tyre width doesn't seem overly draggy and handles just fine, they make a nice humming noise on smooth tarmac and as an added bonus that I wasn't expecting under heavy braking on the road these tyres seem to grip the surface ferociously, in turn it feels like my disc brakes have more power so on road this tyre has proved perfect, of course on road is not what this tyre is about. East Anglia has been blessed (from a bikers point of view) with a very little rain which has meant all the trails are bone dry and dusty, these tyres certainly have plenty of grip when climbing you can feel the rear tyre digging in even when out the saddle climbing and at speed downhill nice and smooth. Where I think these tyres really excel is the control it gives you, it hooks up great on berms but what I like most about it is the way it gives you a feeling of exactly what the bike is doing underneath you. The last couple of pairs of tyres I had were Panaracer Fire xc pros and I really liked them but they had a tendancy to offer masses of grip then when you got to the limit of the grip the tyre would snap out from underneath you causing panic foot dabs and a fear of really pushing it while clipped in. 
