Thursday nightride

We did Theos new reverse dorny loop. it was good to see 3 singlespeeds out. colin flew over from uxbridge asdid Pedro and roy. It turned in to a bit of a high speed race fest with poor old roy and frances hanging on the back. belive it or not i was to blame for instigating it! LOL

My first 29er ride

We went to Trail Junkies on Saturday for G to take a test ride on a Titus Eleven. 

When we got there the bloke that owns the shop threw a Kona Unit 2-9 at me for me to have a ride on.

It's a bit agricultural, and it certainly turned some heads as we rode through Streatley and Goring.  There's something about these 29er things that just don't look "right" (even to Joe Public).  It felt a bit like riding a grown up MTB. 

It had normal tyres on but it gripped well in the wet sticky mud.  It took a while to wind up but once it was going it span along quite well.  I got up all the hills I pointed it at but it did somehow feel like hard work.  Solid forks were no problem on the 25km ride we were doing, even when banging down a flight of steps.  The brakes had been upgraded from cable disks to Magura Marta hydraulic discs and they were superb.  I'm not sure how it would manage through tight single track but I didn't get the feeling that it was going to be a problem as it turned in well whenever I asked it to (this was no XC rocket no matter what the wheel size).

There's no conclusion to this report other than I won't be dashing to the shop to buy a 29er but I wouldn't miss out on the opportunity to ride one again as it was a lot of fun.  It made me want to have a go on a cyclocross bike as that's got the big wheels and stuff but it isn't as clumpy.

I'd worked out a route from the shop (see below) it's a bit of a bridleway special but it's got a great flight of steps in it.

Matt

TrailJunkies ride - WDMBC Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

A good sunday

what a good singlespeed weekend. Theo and Matt completing the downs link singlespeed to the sea (and return) and myself and 2 club members going over to chobham common and doing a loop.this was my ride

i am dissapointed i could not make the downs link ride though. got a night ride this week with Big colin and doing the Bucks classic 30k loop with a ride up to denham from the malt shovel. then its the Big trip to Spain with the club
                                                                        

Then there is Matts and Theos account:

Number one in an (hopefully) infrequent series.

The “Downs Link” is a cycle path on a disused railway line that links the North and South Downs Ways.

The West Drayton Single Speeders decided to use it as a route to get from Guildford to the coast at Shoreham. As we didn’t have a lift back from Shoreham we decided to ride it in both directions, a distance of about 70 miles.

For some reason both Peter Manley and Dave Walford had urgent business elsewhere. So only theo and Matt actually rode. Now those of you have ever ridden a single speed MTB will know that they are quite limited in the top speed department, so this this was going to take some time.It can only be described as a “Good training ride”. Every twenty minutes or so something exciting would happen, like the track would bend slightly or we would come to a gate.

Apart from that it was characterized by:

• Monotonous flatness
• Monotonous straightness
• Monotonous cadence
• Monotonous speed
• Ride time 5:45
• Average speed 19.1 km/h

Marginally more interesting than the turbo trainer or Hillingdon, but imagine doing either of those for 6 hours. I’m not sure either of us was actually that physically tired, I think we were more like hypnotized by the ride. So kind of quite fun, in a Zen-like way.Now we’ve finished we are actually quite tempted to do it again sometime.
Oh yes we will !