I've found my Mojo

What a company policy. Nobody could argue with that advice, and I for one intend to follow it wholeheartedly for 2009; not so much a resolution as a complete change of my present lifestyle.
The change at work is in the pipeline, just waiting for the higher powers to sort out if they actually mean it when they keep telling me how much they want to accommodate my wishes. The ride more bit, well it seems only right to endorse the company moto by riding one of their bikes.

And here it is, in all its naked carbon Glory. Meet the Ibis Mojo SL it's oh so lean and mean, and amazingly clean.

A bit of parts swapping after the purchase secondhand, and it's coming in at a superbly healthy 23.6 lb ready to race. throw some bling at it and sub 23lb is there for the taking.

Who needs 140mm travel to race, I hear you ask, well in truth nobody. But its nice to know that I can ride over the next racer who falls of in front of me ;-)

The only problem now, is that it's sooooo clean and shiny I can't bring myself to get it dirty....madness.

Jumping Jack Frost

Riding out of the darkness following yesterdays tyres tracks on the frozen trail, these are all mine this week. The sun starts lighting up the trees and hawfrost in beautifull bright oranges as yet more bunnies and monkjacks run for cover from my speeding wheels.

16 miles of sheer fun, sideways drifts, jumping icy puddles, smashing through others this is fun; for once you can keep your warm duvet.

I love Bikes me!

(and no thats not me there)

Want one of these

Sexy anodized alloy
And the bike to attatch it too, so plumz as the cat would say watissit

I've come up with a theory. I think the less hair you have the faster you go......well it seems that way as Dave and Troy get stronger each ride, especially the muddy ones, ok all the rides recently.
Thetford round 2 next weekend will reveal all.

Speaking of our polished friends, did you see the clip of old Malverns action on TV burp this week, classic bike carnage location long before the easy access to good digital cameras, I've got some superb crash photos from there somewhere, will have to find them and scan them in.

Another month glides by, 600 miles on the clocks but a few too many cakes in the tank and not enough real training, especially on the weights, means could do better. At least the kit is handling all this crap, the Blur LT is a revelation, it keeps astounding me just how good this bike is, the Intense would have chewed up and spat out a set of bearings by now. I have just taken off the RP2 shock, pressed in another bottom bush (800 miles) when will that slight wear part be sorted?

This was literally a 5 min job and no great hassle with engineering stock DU bushes, the enginnering on the BLT, titanium chuncky fastners, and everything lined up spot on, superb.
Whilst the shock was off I cycled the swinger through all its travel, still fluid and lush, looks like its possible the yanks have finally discovered seals at last.
The Intense would have needed a hammer to do the same task after some winter abuse!

Why the Peaks?

Thats why.......smiles all round.

Great weekend with a crowd of guys not generally from a biking background. Just having fun getting covered in crap as it rained quite a lot.

The riding was good, and the BLT was blindingly Leechlike up the Trails. I cleaned more tracks around Hope than ever before, totally staggering and I just cannot believe how good the bike was their, either that or I had so much energy to spare because the raceheads wern't there.

The Post title question is because after 2 days of riding we had to cancel the third, 4 out of 4 bikes totally shredded their brake pads, I had spares but others didn't so we called time and left the hordes of ant like trailquesters to fill the hills on sunday.
Finally found a use for those Superstar components cheapo pads now, fit for a day then throw away in the peaks, perfect.

What tyres for....Swamps

Tuesday Night ride and 17 of us set out attempting to avoid the bad bits for our sanity.

This led us to head down "Gerald", bit of Downhill ski-ing (nice save Brownie) for some gravel track laps of Stanwick lakes.

Me and Troy heading the train and we see puddles, riding into them they cover the wheels....the track disappears and we are riding between the reeds. It gets deeper.....and deeper, its getting harder to pedal as the water hits Knee level on the downstoke, we look back and everyone is following, insane laughing ensues.

In the end we did over half a mile of river riding, not really knowing where the banks or edges of the trails were, it was bonkers and how no-one fell in totally I'll never know, the side currents at times were pretty killer, the bikes were covered in drifting debris we were picking up.

Guess a few wheel and crank bearings will be siezed this morning ;-)

Great weekends Riding

While most of the Country seemed to fight with the weather, I had two nice days riding that could not have been anymore different, except it was dry all round.

SAT:- A nice 3 hours to meet Smiffy and then we did the plumz loop, very low level and chatting most of the way round, just how a winter base road ride should be; we still were faster than any tuesday time too.

SUN:- Thetford Winter series, fast swoopy dry singletrack that had so much grip it was insane. Legs are crying with pain today but you could not stop pushing it was superb, guess the Nitrous is good for something after all ;-)

Hope Joolze dosent mind me knicking that photo, check more out on her link on Right.

Inspiration for Perspiration

Life's a bit messed up at the moment, not in any bad way just has no real direction. I'm a lazy slob fighting to get out of an athletes body, yeah right ;-) I need targets and goals to stop me going off the rails! My Work situation is up in the air so any long term plans are a bit hard too.

Biking Inspiration can come in many forms, a good event, a great ride with mates, a new bike, a sunny holiday biking, or a challenge.

I'm hoping that Thetford this weekend might kickstart the racing bug in me. There's a weekend in the peaks with good riding and boozing in the off, a holiday in the sun to plan and a still fresh BLT to find the limits on.

The whole challenge think is cool, petrols down in price, the mortgage is shrinking and there's alot of trails out there to explore, time to spread the mud around before I become a full fledged homer which has been delayed untill June.

Robs pretty busy on this front, I like the idea of his latest jaunt, all the Afan trails one after the other without stopping - 6hrs plus of ride time with attitude, sounds better than riding round in circles. Fancy it Rich?

30 in 30

Last Month of the year with 30 days - 1 hr each day at least on a bike lets roll.

Day 1. Kona 40Km - Starts poor with 14 hr work day but real enthusism as I get on the I-magic and stick in a fun 40km in just over the hour, reckons I'm doing 230 wattts average, might use this as a test ride to check my progress from here.

Day 2. BLT - 25ml. 3hr
Dave and Stew and a shedload of water, great skills morning playing at laps in the woods and quarries. Stumbled on a moto-x trials event and even had a go at a few stages. Superb old skool day out, bikes are ace. If you spent sunday on the couch staring out at the rain, get off your arse and sharpen thoses skills up!

Joe Public thinks we are all mad

As the Winter base training phase gets under way, it's loads of riding no matter the weather. Yes you read that right, training not just riding, an actual structure and planning; bring it on.

240 miles of top riding last week, now all I have to do is up that or the intensity a bit for this week, already hampered by a warm bed yesterday and the downturn in the weather.

The Joe 6 Big Macs out there will once again fail to understand what its all about, a bit like the press frenzy over that mountain marathon in the lakes last weekend. Makes interesting reading here Lakes Info. As usual people sensationalise things they can't comprehend.

Mad For It

What ever happened today I need to bottle it for future use, cant really explain why but coming out of work faced with a vicious headwind and driving rain I was just so up for a ride its not normal.

So I ended up doing the full 17 mile off road route home, getting soaked and plastered, the full strip of kit into the washing machine as I walked in the door.....and loved every slithering minute of it.

Do you think I've been infected by the TransWales, its no fun unless its hard core weather, nahh

Transition period over........lets do shedloads of riding.......Bikes are Ace!

Riding Through The Morph Machine

The Bacon Lettuce Tomato already needs some garnish......(Blur LT come on keep up).
The frame had any tat thrown on it I could find, much to the disgust of some other bikes, and the near demise of my shoulder at Thetford after stealing the good brakes off the race Turner.

I like it...and it deserves some good kit now its earned a home. The new Fox forks have to go on for this weekend, the Mavericks have popped their clogs for now, and are not damped enough even in top tune. Trouble is as a sucker to marketing...........sorry progress they are the new 15mm QR through axle type that Fox and Shimano have come up with for 09. Good principle guys, quick releases are left over from our flexy roadie friends, but at least sort some hubs out to go with them.

BETD do a 15mm QR hub right now, I phoned them Tuesday and a freshly built hub with a Stans 355 rim arrived in my lap at work Wednesday dinner time.....Brilliant service I'll be using these guys again, check out their site they are engineering bikers.

Now another thing Fox are forcing us into is post mount brakes....bugger need one of them too, cheapo old Hope (boy its ugly) ordered and to the rescue and I'm ready to hit the hills.......just need to sort out my rebound damping, slow speed compression, and lockout blow off......help!!!


The bike now looks like its gone through an upgrading machine and got stuck at the head-tube, so moving on it has to be the bars followed by the cranks.

Looking for my Mojo

Now that's a whole lot more colourfull.
For some time I've thought that I needed to get my Mojo back for XC racing, what better way than to get a new bike, new bikes are always faster oh yes!

The Turner is just to stunted for me, the TransWales was no fun, I need more bounce for max DH fun when I'm feeling shagged. The dream bike has for some time been a Mojo Ibis, 24lb easily attained, 140mm of travel, and climbs like a goat...gimme...gimme.

Spec lists of dream components have been drawn up many a time and quite frankly the cost is scary, but that's what dreams are made of. But wait, has someone stole my spec list?

That bike there is for sale, built and never used (think his Mrs found out how much it was) and pretty much has a wish list of components and colours (except the wheels) I would go for. How strong is my will to resist, the combination of red wine and empty plastic has to be avoided, who knows where it might end.

mojo....mojo...mojo...mojo.....help!!!!!!!!

Bit Dull - Nightshift Blues

Just setting up something to play with in future, yep its night shift cover time again. Just realized, is this a reflection of mood looks a bit drab doesn't it. The fact i have to sleep tomorrow while the sun begs to be ridden under has that effect. I definitely need a better picture up there, but it does remind me of the great times and places we spent together; still pains me to think of the toe-rag who has my 5.5 right now.
The plan is a daily ride and life blog, anyone who's interested can pop in without having your in tray filed with tons of multiply posts.
I need to make it look a bit more interesting first though. Blogger has got a bit slicker since the last time I was here.