Cycling The High Peak and Tissington Trails

On the August Bank Holiday my wife and I cycled some of the High_Peak_Trail. We started at Parsley_Hay and rode along most of the Cromford_and_High_Peak_Railway to Middleton Top and back and then cycled a few miles of the Tissington_Trail to the restored signal box.

Here is a picture of me looking almost like a real mountain biker:

Here's my wife cycling along (northbound, about 3 miles south of Parsley Hay:

It was a great day out.

Cycling at Donington Park Race Circuit

I found out about an opportunity to ride around Donington Park Race Circuit for the princely sum of £1 on the evening of 22 August 2013. Donington is about 1 hours drive away I took a 1/2 day off work and me, my son and my wife drove over to ride round (my wife decided not to ride in the end).

It was a great evening. The weather was almost ideal other than a headwind down the Craner Curves and back up. The whole circuit was available (including the Melbourne Loop/hairpin). Several hundred riders took part from families on all sorts of BSOs, a bloke on a modern penny farthing, several tandems and road bikes from £300 Careeras to multi thousand bling machines. Passing 4 year olds on a tiny BMX bike was a surreal experience. The family nature meant that line discipline was absent and this meant that the racing line was the same width as the track.

My son had a massive explosive puncture on the rear wheel after about 3 laps. I am sure he'd like to think that is was due to massive power but it looks like a manufacturing defect in the tyre. He rode my Scott for 4 laps while I had a break as we didn't bring a spare tyre.

Like all these things nowadays Strava has dozens of overlapping segments - here's the ride (note 46 achievements!):

Here's a few photos.

On the start finish/straight

Breaking the rules

Face of pain (or just ugly?)

Massive Speed!

Building a New Bike - Part 3 - Observations

I wrote about building a new bike here and here. These 2 posts are more of an overview but I found some interesting things on the way that I thought I'd share. These are in no particular order.

Carbon Steerer on Focus Cayo
My Focus Cayo had a carbon steerer, not aluminium as I had assumed

Frame Stiffness
The Scott frame stiffness seems higher than the Focus - this was with the crude "press foot against the crank" test. From this I could detect not frame movement. Compared to my Focus a very small amount was visible and for the (Aluminium) framed Giant the movement is very clear.

Bar Tape
I had forgotten how to wrap the bar tape around the shifters. A quick search on YouTube brought up this link - it was excellent and better than the ones I had watched before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=J6g3-55iVU0

To quote one of the comments: "ive watched 5 bar wrapping vids now. this one is the best. no nonsense Australians getting shit done" - spot on

Steerer Misaligned
On the first ride I realised the steerer was misaligned - irritating and felt really odd.




Front Dérailleur 105 5700 Shift Load
Front dérailleur shift load. I wrote 2 posts about this here and here. In fact these are the 2 most visited posts on this blog by far so I guess I am possibly not the only person with possible issues. Briefly whilst the outcome of fitting 5700 series components for the rear was an improvement of the 5600 shift quality and feel the front dérailleur was a disappointment with a much high shift effort than I expected. Despite much fettling I could not get it anywhere near as good as the shifting with a 5600 set up. A problem, but not associated with the 5700 shifters is that as the cables are hidden under the bar tape, there is no room for a cable barrel shifter. The Focus did have these fitted for both front and rear on the down tube but the Scott did not. So I bought one of these (in black):

For what they are they are expensive at around £7 but without it I would have failed to get any form of sensible adjustment on the front

Here it is fitted:

However I am pleased to report that after this fettling the front shifting is now as I would have expected - light, precise and smooth shifting. I cannot see what has changed compared to the Focus as the shifters are the same, and the basic cable routing is also the same and the front deraillieur is the same. I did make another change in that I replaced not only the inner cable (as last time) but also the outer cables as well - with a Shimano set. It really has made a difference and is what I would have hoped it would be from new.

Kool stop brake pads
I needed some new brake pads for the Giant, but chose to buy some new pads for the Scott and move the Focus pads to the Giant. The Focus had the original Shimano 105 5700 pads from last year. They had lasted very well but this is because they seem quite hard. After some perusing of internet forums (fora?). I bought some Kool Stop Dura 2 inserts (black)


 

First impressions are extremely positive - significantly improved braking performance and what seems to be good modulation. Time will tell how they last. Apparently Dura 2 are:

"The Dura2 insert is our newly designed road pad. The pad is thicker than our standard Dura type for longer life, has a 7.65 mm contact width for narrow rims and cut outs for reduced weight."

New Cables
I fitted full new cables (inners and outers) for both gears and brakes. It just goes to show that improved shifting and indexing can be achieved with new parts - whilst the inners were changed around 18 moths earlier the outers were the originals and were over 3 years old.

Ride feel
It does "feel" different - a non-engineering metric but it rides differently

Weight
The weight came out at about 400g less than the Focus. I was hoping for a little more. The bike is now (fully equipped) just a shade of 8kg. I am pretty happy with this.

Seat post
I thought I might need a new seat post - in the end I didn't as it was the same size as the Focus.

Cutting cable outers
I was going to buy a "proper" tool. But didn't. I very carefully cut all the outer cables using a small (junior) hacksaw with new blade. No problems for the brakes cables but I needed a lot more care to get a smooth finish for the gear cables which were made of wrapped separate wires. The finish came out OK in the end.

Torque Wrench
I had bought a 3/8" torque drive a while ago (torque wrench). I used it for some of the components. It is amazing how tight some screws actually need to be - much tighter than you would have thought.

Chain Length 
Despite fitting all the same drive train components the chain is about 1 link too long now - on the Focus it was exactly right. I am not going to make any changes now, and will resolve when the chain needs a change. As its too long in small-small which I don't use its not a problem for now.

Building a New Bike - Part 2 - The Build

In a previous post I discussed the new Scott CR1 Pro frame I had bought with the objective of moving the components across from my Focus to the Scott. I have now completed this successfully. This post is a report of the whole process.

I'll document some more details in another post - this is mainly just photos showing it going together. For example in other posts I have commented on the high shift load for the Shimano 5700 front dérailleur and this will be covered in the next post (here).

Firstly of course firstly I needed to get the frame:

It came within a few days well packed

The frame and fork unpacked

The Frame with the protection still in place

Frame and fork

Frame and fork

As I wrote in the first post Cult Cycles fitted the headset and cut the fork for me. I then went on holiday for a week so the frame sat in the loft. I knew I needed some additional parts so I ordered these from Wiggle at the end of the holiday for delivery in the week I came back.

The first main activity was to strip all the parts off the Focus and clean them thoroughly. I also weighed them reasonably carefully (see here). However the cheap digital scales:

I used seem a bit inconsistent and I don't fully trust them. It's easy to re-weigh the same parts and get different results. The resolution is also on 0.01kg so not great discrimination for some of the lighter parts.

It took 2-3 evenings to strip the parts from the Focus and clean them, before I started on the build of Scott. Here's the build at a very early stage:

The frame in my Park Work Stand with seat tube fitted to given some strength to the seat tube. The stem is a temporary part to hold the fork in place

Before any parts fitted (with the recycling bag in the background)

With the correct stem, handlebars and shifters fitted. Also front and rear brake calipers and front and rear dérailleurs and chainset. The cable outers are still connected to the shifters to give an indication of length.

Front on view

The wheels are now fitted

Almost finished. Chain fitted. All cables installed. Gears indexed. Brakes adjusted. Bar tape fitted

I fitted an in-line cable adjuster for the front deraillieur given the issues I had with the front mech on the Focus

Cable outer length might need a little optimisation

The drive train

The massive seat stay/seat tube interface

Detail of the front of the bike

Finished

The massive bottom bracket area

Total build time - about 6 hours over 2 evenings and a Saturday morning.

Road Tax Myths

Road Tax Myths Busted Link From the BBC

2010 Focus Cayo Bike Weights

Update 6 April 2014 - I have added some more info in this post: Giant Defy Headset Bearings

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I wrote earlier that I had bought a new frame: a Scott CR1 Pro (here). The plan was to move all the parts from the Focus to the Scott. Some new parts would be bought such as cables, new bar tape etc. 

I was very keen to itemise the weights of the Focus and its components to see actually how much the bike, the frame and the other components weighed.

As I stripped down the bike I spent some time weighing the bike and the components.

The digital scales I used were these:

They are OK but its easy to get a different weight each time the same component is weighed (this may be influenced by how the component is suspended from the hook, and the resolution at 0.01kg is low for some of the lighter parts). In Engineering terms, the Gauge R&R is poor.

This weights are all tabulated here:

Focus Cayo 105 (2010) Weight Break Down
Components	Detail	Actual Weight (kg)
Full Bike Pedals, bottle cages x2, pump, Garmin Cadence sensor etc)		8.57
Bottle cage 1	Specialized	0.04
Bottle cage 2	Specialized	0.06
Pump	TopPeak Pocket Rocket	0.11
Pedals	Shimano SPD-L R540	0.33
Bike		8.03
Chain	KMC X10	0.26
Front Wheel/inner tube/tyre	Shimano RS80 C24	1.04
Rear Wheel/inner tube/tyre + Cassette	Shimano RS80 C24	1.53
Cassette	Shimano 105 11-28
Bike		5.21
Crank RH	FSA Gossamer	0.55
Crank LH	FSA Gossamer	0.25
Front Brake	Shimano 105 5700	0.18
Rear Brake	Shimano 105 5700	0.18
Front Deraillieur	Shimano 105 5700	0.09
Rear Deraillieur	Shimano 105 5700	0.23
Bike		3.72
Handlebars/Stem/Shifters/Cables	FSA/Shimano 105 5700	1.19
Seat Tube	FSA	0.28
Saddle	FSA	0.29
BB Bearing	FSA Mega Exo	0.09
Final Frame Weight		1.82
Component Total		6.7
+Frame		1.82
Back Check Total		8.52

UK Cycling

Using the great veloviewer site you can get a map of all your rides:

The Suffolk rides have increased the size of the map where I have ridden

Tour de Suffolk

Cycling in Suffolk
We have been on holiday for a week in Suffolk - near the villages of Botesdale and Rickinghall to be precise. We have been staying in a relatively new holiday cottage here - very pleasant and relaxing and well equipped. We brought the bikes so that I, my son, and my wife could do some cycling. Here's a link to all three bikes on the car: linky

I was not sure what the cycling was like around the area. A quick look on Strava showed a very low number of local segments so I was not sure whether cycling was not popular, whether cycling was popular but not many people used Strava, or whether cycling was popular but there were no hills at all and Suffolk residents were sensible and realised that there ought to be at least some gradient to justify a proper segment.

The plan was to run off a few possible routes of about 30 miles and see how it went. If I cycled I'd aim for a reasonably early start so as not to use the whole day selfishly on the bike and to keep the distance to 30-35 miles max. Not knowing the area at all I would actually use the navigation option on my Garmin 800, and as with the trip down to Sussex over the May Bank Holiday weekend I'd use Garmin Connect to create the route and download to my 800.

I found Garmin Connect pretty poor a year or so ago but recently have found the route planning, creation and downloading to the device much improved.

Day 1
Here's the route for the first day (Sunday) that I and my son planned to ride:

And here's the corresponding Strava link:




The first thing to notice is that they are not the same! The problem was that we turned onto a road and the Garmin got very confused. It clearly thought that we weren't on the road and after about 400m we came to a junction - I had no idea where to go and made what turned out to be the wrong decision. However about 200m up the wrong route it "found" the route again and after a few seconds recalculated and off we went. However what it was re-calculating was how to get to the end and so after about 15 miles we were back on the run to the cottage. I'd assumed that it would try to get us to the route but was mistaken.

Given that this had taken us only 50 minutes or so we decided to re-ride the route we'd just done but a bit further on decided to ride the original planned route - which would be I estimated about 50 miles. The route turned out to be OK - pretty flat and reasonably quite roads - we managed a 30 minute stretch cruising at 20mph or so with a vaguely helpful tailwind. Total time 2h41m for 49 miles - an average of 18.1mph - not too bad and helps with 2 people sharing the load.

After almost 50 miles I was astounded to see that the route had only 5 segments - confirming the preliminary review before we left.

Day 2
On the second day my son did not want to get up as early as I did so I rode solo - I repeated the shorter loop from the day before, but as I was not following my Garmin missed a turn somewhere and made a slight change to the route. On the return I also rode fully through the villages of Botesdale and Rickinghall and by chance saw what might actually pass for a "hill" in the area, so I gave it some beans. I also went pretty hard on the "Redgrave Road Race" segment and pulled a 3rd out of the bag.

Here is the route:



I was astounded that the "hill" was not a segment so to my shame I created it. Here it is:


After all the updating I came out a 3rd so was surprised and pleased.

Day 3
My son had indicated he'd come with me this morning but declined when I woke him at ~8am, so I went solo again - this time I headed east from the cottage on a ~40 mile route, here:




Plan A was an attack on the segment I'd created the day before and with legs just warm enough and fully fresh I blitzed the KOM. A good tail wind outward bound saw an average speed at around 19.5mph up to the turn back, but what gives must take away and I struggled to maintain any real pace anywhere on the return leg, dropping down to an overall average of 18.3mph. This is still OK and I am pleased with my progress but would have liked a higher speed. I also think that I was starting to feel the burn of all the miles over the past week.

I also pulled a 5th on this segment:


Sometimes its good not to ride on known routes as you don't know where the segments are and just ride at a "natural" pace. 4.3 miles is a reasonable length (although it was almost pan-flat) and so 5th was good, even if only of 13 people.

Day 4
On day 4 I did not ride in the morning as I felt mildly tired (see above) in fact we had a proper holiday day and did almost nothing in the morning, then had lunch and drove a few miles to a local nature reserve around a local Fen. This was a very pleasant 1.5hrs. When we got back I suggested a short ride with my son - the proposal was to re-ride Day 2.

Within the first few miles I knew it was going to be hard. I struggled to keep on my sons back wheel for the first 1/2 of the ride and then just managed to stay there for the rest. We also went to my "Rectory Hill, Rickinghall" segment where my son stole if from me by a big 4 seconds, so I'd managed to keep it for less than 36 hours!

Here's the route:



I was glad to get back from this ride!

Day 5
I was awake and bright eyed and bushy tailed for a ride this morning - mainly because getting up for an 8am start for 45 weeks of the year for 25 years is a bad habit to get out of in just a few days. However despite a sunny appearance out the windows a more careful look showed it was pretty misty and misty = cool. So I had a more leisurely breakfast and didn't get out until about 9.30. My legs were less tired than the night before and whilst the pace wasn't great it was better than I had expected. Here's the route:



Got a couple of PRs but all in a nice ride.

So far this week I have been lucky enough to be able to cycle every day in good weather as well. My Cyclist's Tan:

 
















has been topped up nicely.

Given that I have cycled every day it seems that I should have done more than 110 miles by today but the rides have not been massive so perhaps that's OK.

The local scenery has been very pleasant, and the roads quiet (as long as you do a little careful route preparation). We've seen many attractive villages in the area.

It's also pretty flat. Not Norfolk flat but there are no hills to speak of. I have never even thought of using or needed to use the 34T chain ring and only used the 21 (3rd) tooth cassette gear twice for about 100m each time when my legs were tired near the end of a ride. I have been able to roll along in the 5/6/7 cassette gear more much of the time, so the style of riding is quite different to that of the Midlands.