Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Ice climbing at Tebay

Hello and welcome once more. Today I tried something new I went ice climbing near Tebay, Cumbria. My climbing buddy Simon went on a course last winter in Scotland and was keen to teach me some new skills. So off we went for a couple of hours of fun.
The temperature when we got out of the car was -8C and never really warmed up from that. Still 3 coats and 3 base layers keep you warm enough.
As this was my first time we were staying on easy stuff and Simon was giving me instructions all the way. The first few goes were very hard as my technique was poor, but after the initial couple if slips off the ice I soon got the hang of it. Now I know that I climb to a reasonable standard on rock but this is so different, there is not nearly as much looking round for holds like I do on rock it's just look, hit, pull and kick. That's about all there is to it on a top rope. Now after 6 climbs up this small piece of rock I can say that I love it, its so much fun and so different to anything else that I love it.


This is the ice

Jayme

-Hope you have enjoyed this and if so tell everyone if not tell me

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Cassettes and snow

Hello

Well please ignore my last posting about having two bikes available for use. Set off for work on Thursday morning on the cyclocross bike with the new chain fitted and all was well for the first mile or so, my problems occurred when I tried to shift out of the small cog on the rear cassette. In every other gear the chain was just slipping around the cogs, I made the decision to carry onto work the short way and to stay on the small cog and just shift on the top and middle gear on the front gears. This was fine until I reached the prom and the headwind hit me. This was a very hard ride so I decided rightly or wrongly that the problem may be that I had not quite counted the links correctly and I has left the chain to long, so I decided that at 06:15 in the morning on Morecambe promenade that I would take a link out of the chain. 10 mins later and I was ready to set off again. Guess what - no improvement. Now this is where my day got slightly better, someone on my shift who has a large estate car drove past and saw my frantic waving. He stopped and gave me a lift into work and home again. Thanks Huw.
Now my problem seems to be that the rear cassette is worn and
needs replacing. A quick check on the Internet and a replacement 8 speed rear cassette is about £20 so not to bad. This will be my job for this week before Christmas to try and get the bike back on the road.

This had now left me with one more day shift to do and only my old bike, which is set up for snow and ice, available. So I used it to get to work and guess what, in the afternoon it snowed, yippee. So this was my first trial of the snow tyres and I found them to be really good. There was about one inch off snow on the ground and the tread on the tyres cut through really well. Not sure if there was any ice under the snow but I never had any wobbly moments so all in all a great first test ride.
Speak again soon.

Jayme

-Hope you have enjoyed this and if so tell everyone if not tell me

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

New inner tubes

We often have problems with punctures in our family. My wife seems to like to get at least one per week. I think that it is cycling along the canal towpath that is the problem, lots of very small and sharp stones and also thorns off the trees. I have now got fed up of fixing these little blighters so I have invested in a four of these Nutrak Self Sealing Inner Tubes. Two for my winter bike and to for her bike. I ordered these from chainreactioncycles.co.uk and they arrived on Tuesday morning. The first problem was that I had been sent 3 self sealing inner tubes and 1 normal one, a quick phone call to customer services and they said the correct one would be sent out and I could keep the other one by way of an apology, problem sorted.
So this morning I went out to change the tubes on my bike and hers and this is when the next problem occurred. Two out of the three inner tubes that I had were passing air at the valve. This meant another phone call to customer service and they want me to post the faulty ones back to them. So wasted hour there.
The other job I had this morning was checking the stretch of the chain on my good bike. So far this bike has done 3000+ miles on it's original chain. I used a Park Tools CC3 chain checker which is a simple go - no go gauge. It measures between 0.75% and1% chain stretch and I found that mine was well past the 1% mark. Old chain off and new one fitted without any problems. So now have both my bikes set up and ready to go.

Work tomorrow :(

Jayme


-Hope you have enjoyed this and if so tell everyone if not tell me

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Monday, December 13, 2010

Bike ride towards Pilling

I went for a nice bike ride this morning. A distance of 41.8 miles in a time of 2 hours 25 mins. I was quite happy with this as it was a northerly wind which was good at the start of ride, against me at the end and a cross wind for the middle. I took a route that went through Lancaster to Pilling and then Stalmine, Rawcliffe back to Pilling and then home. Most of the ride is fairly flat with just some undulations on the way out of Lancaster. I had a scary moment in Pilling as I went round a corner at 20 mph+ I went over a double metal manhole cover which gave a two wheel slip. I am not quite sure how I managed to stay upright but some how I did. I took the Marin Lombard out today, this is a cyclocross bike to which I have fitted a pannier rack (for the commute) and Schwalbe Zodiac 700C / 35 slicks. These are great for the road and in my very unscientific way think that they speed me up by 1-2 mph. The problem does come though when as above you loose traction on a bit of metal or a White line in the wet, this was never a problem on the tyres that came with it.
Total milage for the month now is 77.8 and 3147.9 for the year.

Cheers Jayme


-Hope you have enjoyed this and if so tell everyone if not tell me

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Winter Climbing

It's a nice day today so the big thaw is well and truly on. It's probably warm enough for a bit of rock climbing on Monday. I fancy a trip to Trowbarrow Quarry for some nice trad climbing however if it gets cold again then it is time for my first attempt at ice climbing. My climbing partner, Simon, has invested in a pair of ice climbing axes and after his course last winter is keen to get out and use them. He knows of a spot in the Lakes where you can ice climb next to the road on a top rope so that seems a good way for me to learn what to do. The other optionthis time of year is to go to Kendal climbing wall. This is a fantastic facility with a huge overhanging main wall and a great selection of small climbs of various grades. I will let you know how it goes.

Friday, December 10, 2010

New bike tyres

Well over the last week or so we have had lots of snow and ice. After slipping and sliding about I decided to purchase some ice tyres for my bicycle. The ones that I went for are the Continental Nordic Ice 120. These are a knobbly tyre with metal studs around the edge. The idea is that the knobbly bit works in the snow and the metal stud grips on the ice. They were ordered from snowbikers.com and came very quickly thank you. Fitted them on Wednesday to my old hybrid bike as I do not want to take the good bike out in the icy conditions. First impressions very good, you have to try hard to get a front wheel skid and gives good grip when setting off on ice. The problem came when I tried to test the back brake. I have not used the hybrid bike for a good few months and found that the back brake cable was seized and I was unable to brake, not the best situation to find yourself in on ice. A quick trip to Ribble cycles and a new brake cable set and Park Tools cable cutter/crimper was purchased. New brake cable fitted and I am good to go. Only one problem now The Ice Has Gone. So now have to wait another year for the right conditions to use them.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Me

Hello and welcome to the first of hopefully many blogs by me over the coming days, weeks and years.

I suppose I should start by telling you a little about myself. I am male, married and mid thirtys. I enjoy many outdoor pursuits including Hillwalking, rock climbing, fell running and cycling.
At the moment the main hobby is cycling and i have just covered 3100 miles so far this year and am in a competition with some friends called the Merlyn cup, this is a simple who can cover the most miles in a year and at the moment I am in third place 200 hundred miles behind the leader,