little helper

After the last ride on my mountain bike, there seemed to be more noise than usual coming the equilink suspension.  Having a quick look at it when I got home I felt that a rebuild is in order.  I haven’t touched it in four years so it is probably well overdue 😦

First thing is to work out how many bearings are required and what types they are, thankfully it was well documented online and the bearings are actually the same ones used in skateboards, which makes it easy to source.

Next thing to do is to rope in the little helper 😉

I like helping dad, now what did he say, “lefty loosy”

I am now thinking about buying a bearing press, it would have made getting the bearings out a lot easier, plus there would be less chance of messing things up, thankfully they all pressed out without any hiccups by using an assortment of sockets and threaded rod 😉

All ready for re-assembly

This is it all ready for reassembly, and for this I used an old bearing and a C-clamp 😉 Again, using a bearing press would make this process a lot easier.

Surprisingly, quite a few of the bearings were seized, probably due to some water getting in behind the seals.

Not too bad for an afternoons work

 

home made energy bars

Every time we do a weekend away riding, my lovely wife makes us some energy bars. I tried making some, but Mike complains that they’re too chewy, maybe his dentures keep getting stuck 😉

So I just leave it to her now.

Anyway, they usually get offered around the group, and it is always the same “you need to give me the recipe!”

So without further ado, here it is.

Ingredients
100 g dried fruit (dates, apricots, cranberries, goji berries…)
50 g raisins
50 g mixed broken nuts
50 g seeds (hemp, poppy, sesame, pumpkin, sunflower…)
25 g brown sugar
35 g carbohydrate powder (multodextrin) – (I leave this out if I make a batch for the little army at home, they’re hyper enough without it) 😉
80 g plain flour
60 g rice krispies
100 g runny honey
100 g golden syrup (sometimes I double up the honey instead of using syrup)
50 g fruit spread
150 g oats
100 g bar of dark chocolate

Preparation: Chop up the dried fruit.

Cooking: Place the dried fruit into a pan and add a little water. Simmer gently until the fruit is tender. Mix in the fruit spread, honey and syrup and gently heat until runny. Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl and add the syrup and honey mixture.  Stir thoroughly, with the extra nuts and seeds, you might need to add some more honey.  Pour into a greaseproof baking tin and place in a preheated oven for 30 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius.

In the mean time melt a slab of dark chocolate, a glass bowl in a pot of boiling water does the trick.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Once cooled, spread the chocolate over the energy bars, to get real fancy you can melt a bit of white chocolate and make patterns on top of the brown, however, I’ve not met a cyclist that cares about this yet.

Get on your bike cycle somewhere nice and enjoy 😉

This was not my recipe to start with, I got the bare bones of it from the “Mountain Bike Fitness Training” book, however, found they started tasting better after adding nuts, seeds and other dried fruits and the chocolate…

unceremonious dismount

Friday one week ago, all was well with the world, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, I was just setting off on a quick 15 miler and it wasn’t too hot.  It had all the makings of a beautiful day.

I coast up to the traffic lights and catch up to one of my friends who is second in line, tap on his window and catch up for 30 seconds or so.

I see the light is about to change, so I say cheers and push off, only thing is, I am totally in the wrong gear, I hadn’t bothered to shift down, as I normally do, no problem, just push harder.  First car is gone and I’m on my way, one revolution, two revolutions, then nothing…  the most unreal feeling in the world pedalling hard and next second pedalling fresh air.

The bike I use for commuting is quite compact, i.e. I am normally seated quite upright, and with me standing and stomping on the pedals my centre of gravity was forward of my handlebars.

In Afrikaans they have a wonderful saying for what happened next. helmet, poepol, tekkies, literally translated means helmet, arse and trainers, in that order, and over the handle bars, but hey “that’s just the way I roll” 😉

Needless to say there was thankfully no major damage to myself (not counting my pride in front of my buddy), just a bit of bruising and some skin off the elbows, and I ALWAYS wear full finger gloves.  The bike now unfortunately has a totally disintegrated shifter, not sure if that was me hitting it or the bike landing on the ground.

This has left me to ponder the importance of bike maintenance, and by letting it slip I was potentially becoming a hazard.  The chain has been stretched for a while now and the only issue to date has been when going over very bumpy terrain, it would jump a tooth and make me think “I should really fix that”.

I have been putting off getting it replaced because I was looking into getting a cyclocross bike for commuting, and didn’t want to waste the money on the old bike (well over 20 years old and weighs a ton)

So another lesson learned,

Till next time and keep the rubber side down.

start them young

This picture of my youngest was taken on the weekend. A friend of ours had lent us a balance bike, but she never wanted to use it “because it doesn’t have pedals, I want a bike with pedals”

So take out “old faithful” and add some training wheels and you end up with one happy bunny!!!

1898 and counting

Well I’ve finally done it. After months of searching for it I have bought another bicycle frame. I’ve been wanting to replace my commuter rigid steel frame bicycle with a lightweight hard tail aluminium frame.

There have been times when I have taken my commuter off road and each time, I’ve come back and felt like the flesh had been shaken off of the bones of my arms, I think I now understand the term “boneshaker” 😉

I am now the proud owner of a Marin Hawk Hill lightweight frame coming in at 1898 grams.

Not the lightest, but a LOT lighter than my old steel frame. All I need for it is – everything!!!

So there is going to be some fun over the next few months as I put together some pieces to get this on the road, or rather off-road.

daddy’s mountain bike

A poem by Cayke, aged 8…

my daddy loves to ride
all over the countryside
he has a special mountain bike
that he really, really likes
and once he went on a race
he got mud all over his face
my daddy loves to ride

This from my eight year old last night 😉

Certainly made me smile

first ride 2013

After three weeks of no cycling filled with a bad dose of flu and an even worse case of sinusitis, I was a bit apprehensive to go cycling with Mike.

He had a 20 mile route planned, with quite a bit of road sections to it, due to a lot of rain and everything being muddy.

It is strange packing for cycling again after a break, I kept feeling that I am forgetting something, but couldn’t place it (it was the energy bars grrrrr…., and I needed them). Also first time out with my re-built Candy Acid pedals after the bearings had seized.

Anyway we set off in a slight drizzle and after about half an hour I felt my sinuses clear, after two weeks of headaches, what a wonderful feeling… I should have done this sooner.

An hour and a half into the ride it quickly becomes clear that Mike’s solo outings are paying huge dividends.  The man is like a machine, we start off together at the bottom of the steep sections and he just disappears into the distance, by the time I arrive at the top, huffing and puffing, he looks like he’s not even broken a sweat, as if he’s just about to start out.  I think I have my work cut out for me now 😥

The route took in  “Barry Knows Best”, always fun, especially when there are no others on it at the time, and was supposed to take in Water Lane (one of my favourite training hills), which they had re-surfaced, but we missed that one this time, due to coming up onto Newlands Corner too early.  I was relieved, since I don’t think my legs had it in them to get up Water Lane, even after one of Mike’s energy bars…

Brief stats about the ride

Mikes Winter 20 miler

Also really happy that the pedals worked without a hitch – better than buying a new set 😉

2012 in numbers

I cannot believe that I haven’t posted anything since July, which sucks.

But I finally got a moment to have a look at my stats for 2012

Count:	203 Activities
Distance:	2,134.57 km
Time:	157:27:07 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:	33,649 m
Avg Speed:	13.6 km/h
Avg HR:	105 bpm
Avg Run Cadence:	—
Avg Bike Cadence:	75 rpm
Calories:	101,685 C

Which in  54g Mars bar terms makes that about 420 – which is just over 22.5 kg of Mars bar, man that’s a lot of chocolate 😉

I treat a daily commute as one activity i.e. two laps, one to the station and the other home.

So, this now becomes a target for this year, which is a good thing.

nothing takes the pace off as quickly as

a face full of windscreen wash 😉

So there I am in a rush for the train, minding my own business and cycling with gusto (gasping for air like a fish out of water) when a VW Golf comes past and the driver cleans the windscreen.

Next thing I know my breath is taken away by the strong smell of screen wash – really glad I wear cycling glasses, that would have stung…

that was a first for me

one year ago today

I can’t believe it, today is exactly a year ago that we started the Craft Transalp 2011 challenge. Time really has flown.

Below are a few pictures that were taken during the 8 day event.  As far as I can tell all the photos were taken by sportograf

Little did we know what lay ahead and at this point we were just hoping that our training was enough.  This is us setting off to the tune of “Highway to hell” by AcDc (which we did every morning – surely they could have come up with something better for days two to eight, but no!!!)

Oh and I am the one with the hairy legs – there was no way I was going to shave them 😉

This is us at the end of day one crossing over the finish line, Nick had blown up his rear hub about 18 km from the end and we had a mix of me pushing him, Nick running with his bike, and me pushing his bike up hills and Nick running.  Needless to say we made it with just over half an hour to spare.  Talk about a close call.

Weerberg – stunning.

mile upon mile of beautiful single track

with equally stunning – fast flowing – downhill sections

there is always someone to have a chuckle and share a story with

probably the coldest I have ever been, we were totally unprepared for the weather.  I think it was about two degrees at the summit without taking into account the wind chill.

The photographers had set up their cameras in some interesting locations.  Speaking with one of them on one of the days, he was getting around by bicycle.  If I remember correctly he said that his bike weighed about 11kg and his camera bag that he was taking around weighed 15kg.  Talk about being top heavy.

tranquil

yep, we rode up that

the finish line, I was shattered

crossing over the finish line was a relief, I don’t think the reality had set in until a few days later.  We were spoilt with unbelievable weather nearly every day, I met some fantastic people and I hadn’t spoken that much Afrikaans in many years.

Would I do it again?

That’s a tough question.

Do the challenge – absolutely!

Commit to that level of training, with all that time away from home, wife and children – very difficult to answer!

Never say never 😉 I do believe there are other challenges to be had and time will tell.  So Nick how about doing The Great Divide?