Just a Short One

But sweet as a Nut!   Lovely crisp clear winters day, still a bit blowy, but frankly, any day when it’s not raining/snowing/foggy is a bonus at this time of year.   Finished the CaadX’s conversion to winter roadie now, front mudguard fitted and the road pedals back on.   I hate swapping pedals – it’s pretty much a given that every time I swap a pedal out, I end up with the chainring embedded in my thumb.   One day I’ll stop being such a tart and put gloves on before performing the simple task!

Anyway – Strava for todays ride is here

And So, onto the Road Tyres…

Swapped to the Schwalbe Durano‘s last night – Did it make a difference ?…   Did Jack Elam have a squint!

First impressions are that the CaadX rides “like a bike” – just how I wanted, a little more stable geometry than the Dolan as befits the longer wheelbase and clearances, but still nippy enough to handle well.   The Brakes are starting to bed in properly as well now, and if the weather had have been a little less horrible (25mph winds and large threatening black clouds in a 4-5°c temperature) I’d have probably done the full loop.   As the weather was awful, I pretty much set out for a short 16km loop, but despite the weather being minging, I ended up taking an extra add-on, and bumping the distance up a little more – purely because the bike was so enjoyable to ride.

Strava for the ride is here

I also managed pre-ride to get the rear mudguard fitted…

Took a little fettling to get the stays to clear the rear disc brake, and to sort out the bracketry to cope with the CaadX’s slightly strange stay bracing arrangements.

Back to (Nearly) Normal Riding

Slightly truncated version of my usual long loop today, added in the “gratuitous loop around warmfield” just for gits and shiggles, and fully intended hitting the complete 50km special, but weakened at the last hurdle and went home for a mug of hot chocolate instead.

Last ride for now on the ‘cross tyres – fitted the Schwalbe Durano’s this evening, reducing rolling resistance substantially, plus losing maybe 300g from each hoop as the “sammy slicks” were the wire beaded variant and weighed as much as the wheel they were fitted to (or so it seemed at least!)

Flickr for the ride is here

Back on the Mixed Stuff

and I don’t mean a pint of mild and bitter.   Mixed as in some roads, some sustrans and a bit of old towpath.   Sunny, Bright, Cold enough to have me misjusdge my clothing and have to loop back home at around 10 miles for an additional jersey and Gilet.   7°c my arse…

Strava stuff here, though it really doesn’t tell the whole story.

Soggy Sunday

Things I Have Learned today.

1. Don’t get all Excited about getting out for a proper long ride and forget your drinks bottle.
2. Weather Forecasts of Sunny Dry Cold Mornings are seldom correct.
3. Sammy Slicks aren’t slick, and kick up lots of spray from the road.
4. After 2 hours of Salt Spray from the front wheel, you really miss having a Drink with you.
5. Theres a reason I spent Months getting my road shoes set up properly with orthotics etc. and frankly, I should have swapped to road pedals and shoes for a 3 hour ride, rather than sticking with the SPD’s
6. Despite all the above, I really, REALLY enjoyed my morning out on the bike…

Strava stuff for it is here, in case anyone’s interested.

Sunny Saturday…

After a couple of hours of further fettling (trying to actually get the brakes to a state where they will Stop me, rather than just slow me down a bit!) I decided to get out while the sun was still shining – after all, there can’t be all that many days left this year where we’re going to get that happening.

Just a nice steady 36km or so – including a quite wonderful spin around the backroads up behind the Water Tower at Ackworth.   Beautiful autumn colours, and lovely low angle sunlight to complement them.   Couldn’t help wishing I’d a video camera with me, to show people that it’s really not all that “Grim up North”…

Forecast for tomorrow is more of the same, weather wise, and riding wise, hopefully I want to clock up 3-4 hours saddle time – it’s been a while since I got a proper bit of distance in the legs.

CaadX gets its wheels off the Tarmac

Yep – things went well enough yesterday to drop a little light off-tarmac action into the mix today

Very enjoyable – in a slightly nadgery and worrying way owing to the Sammy Slicks that are fitted…   they’re not bad on tarmac,  and i’m sure they’d be lovely on dry gravel roads, but on wet leaves. they do tend to leave you with your arse looking like a cooking apple…

Ride stuff on Strava here

 

 

 

Pictures of Cross Things, and a Quick Shakedown Ride

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay – I promised pictures, didn’t I…

Thought i’d better get the “beauty shots” in before taking it out for an inaugural ride – mainly as the roads out there are boggin!

And here‘s where I went – you’ll notice it was all on the road today – as a shakedown, I didn’t actually fancy finding out there was a problem with something while in the middle of a 4 mile long muddy path and needing to walk back home through it.

 

Parcel Stress

Spent the day in the house, waiting for  the delivery of my New Cannondale CaadX 105 Disc Cyclocrosser from the lovely people at Wheelbase in Staveley.

Finally arrived around 3pm – so by the time I’d checked it thoroughly it was too dark to do anything more than ride around the block once, just to say i’d ridden it, then bring it in and stare at it all evening instead of watching some dross on the TV.

Pictures tomorrow, I promise…

 

 

 

Catchup Time

Missed Logging for a while… Lots of other “real life” crap caught up with me, didn’t ride as much as I’d like, and hadn’t time to do anything much  more than upload to strava and eat something before getting immersed in RL crap again.

12th November Ride

13th – just a walk, to blow the cobwebs away

14th November Ride

15th November Ride

16th November Ride

17th/18th Bugger All – lazy sod that I am…

19th November Ride

Basically, my Washing machine blew up, I spent a couple of days fixing it, and it going wrong again, followed by a day organising a new one,  then getting the new one replaced as that one didn’t work either.   If you look at the rides, you’ll see they were on the MTB – read “covered in shit from head to toe”, and by the 17/18th I’d basically run out of riding kit, so couldn’t get out if I tried!