Friday, September 30, 2011

All set...

...for Scotland. 3 bikes, 8 wheels and enough luggage to fill the A4!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Jon boy goes solo...

Solo, well single speed... And not on a big bike either, but a svelte baby blue SE Racing road bike.

Make up your own mind, I think it looks pretty nice but you wouldn't get me on one!

Friday, September 09, 2011

Finding the sweet spot...

It's a few weeks since I've updated the blog - summer seems to have passed us by and with the first few days of September, and with it Autumn, the weather has taken a turn for the cooler and more typically damp Macclesfield grey-ness.

So what keeps your spirits up at this time of year? The evenings are still light enough for a rag after work so out as usual every Thursday - same routes, same faces... but good never the less - infact you never tire of riding your local trails (do you?).

In the last few weeks I've been lucky enough to be slinging my leg over the Stanton Slackline on Longtermer from Wideopenmag.co.uk, and it really is a lovely lovely bike and fantastic build for these hills. Light and playful. What's become ever more obvious though is the geometry that has an absolutely divine sweet spot. An inch forwards or back in body position and it's gone, but it's easy to find, and once you hit it you absolutely fly. The bike is incredible in the gentler of the rough stuff, so planted and quick, a real pleasure to pick up and jump from rock to rock riding lines that you'd normally only entertain with a short travel full susser around these parts.

It's got me waxing lyrical about riding though, and that's the main thing - the thing that had slipped by with my regular riding companions slowly dropping by the way side... finding the spark was necessary and long over due - and just in time for a weekender in Scotland at the end of the month.