Short ride out after work, time to think!

I had agreed to work this Bank Holiday Monday in my new role as a health trainer. I was actually quite looking forward to meeting some of the new acquaintances I had made up at Quaking Houses Village Hall and of course representing the Health Trainer Service in speaking to other people within the community. I started at 11am and was done by around 4pm, the day flew over and was quite a success. This is my 5th week in the new role. I find chatting to people no problem, this is in fact my favourite part of my job. The paperwork side, well I'm slowly getting to grips with it, just so much to take in and remember.

As soon as I got in from work I would like to say I ran up the stairs and got ready, however it was more of a fast'ish limp, taking two steps at a time. Off with my casual stuff I had been wearing and straight on with bikey gear. The other week when I had been up to Kielder with the boys I had forgotten my under shorts so I had had to purchase a new pair at a local bike shop in this quiet little village, anyhoo I bought a complete pair of Endura baggy shorts along with liner and have to say I quite liked the fit. They also have a variety of handy pockets and appear to wash and wear well. So I popped the Endura's on complete with a base layer and my rather snazzy Troy Lee Jersey.

As I had came in I had mentioned to Ern (my dad) I was going to head out on my NS Soda just, fancied a change. The reason I mentioned it to Ern was I wasn't sure if he had been off tinkering with my NS. As I have told you before Ern has a habit of figuring it's easier to store my bikes by loosening the head clamp and turning my bars. So I just wanted to make sure my bike was in one piece and I didn't have to rebuild it from the frame up before I set off, as you never know with Ern, he may have decided it would store easier in bits in our loft or something on those lines. Anyhoo on investigation of my bike I soon found Ern on resetting up my bars and taking my hand actuated dropper post from my Ibis to pop on my NS, oh and there was a little matter of no pedals, so I had to steal a pair off my Fat Bike, which is currently without a rear wheel as Si my good friend and local bike mechanic over at Cycle Solutions has my wheel and is going to sort me out a new free wheel hub as mine is a bit knackered.

Ok bars sorted,seat post sorted and a set of pedals. I grabbed my trusty Panasonic Lumix, the new shiny Blue one I had to purchase after wor Kyle lost my brand new shiny orange one in a lake last year. Weird as the cameras are exactly the same brand and model, however I feel the orange one took a better picture. I couldn't be bothered to fill my Camelbak bladder so just hoyed a bottle of ice cold pop which I had had chilling in the fridge into my backpack and I was off.

In typical fashion, didn't have any real clue where I was going. Decided to head through glass wood, no that's not it's proper name I just call it that as it's full of glass, due to the under age Lambrini girls and boys, well I suppose the boys drink larger or cider. I could have just as easily chosen to call the wood tin wood to I suppose.

NS Soda Air

The Saga of my Sandman cranks and bottom bracket, plus a little test ride cut short.

Yesterday I was very pleased to be reunited with my much beloved Sandman Hoggar Fat Bike. Si my new found friend and bicycle mechanic over at Cycle Solutions returned her complete with new e.Thirteen TRS the Hive cranks and bottom bracket.

New e.thirteen TRS cranks and BB

Positive Outcomes

As many of you know it's very rare I write a short blog, some of my friends say "Glenn you don't half waffle on, we much prefer to just skip the text and move along to your photo's". Well in this case I don't have many photo's. The pics  Ern (my dad) had taken came out pants. Not really Ern's fault, it was just that the camera is a small compact, under artificial lighting, late in the afternoon so it was dark and indoors.

Really I should have got more shots when my two new friends Si from Cycle Solutions and Andy from Bike Swanky arrived. But taking pictures was the last thing on our minds as we came in doors practically as soon as Andy and Si pulled up in Bike Swanky's logo'd up van. We just had so much to talk about.

Si (Cycle Solutions),Me, Andy (Bike Swanky) and my new De Rosa Idol

Great service from Si at Cycle Solutions

Since snapping my chain a few weeks ago on my Fat Bike I've encountered a few problems, what with getting my gears set up and this really annoying creak/click on my cranks. A few months ago I took my bike to my local Evans to get the threads cleaned in my bottom bracket, and have the BB installed. I purchased the more expensive Nitride BB, thinking it would last longer. You see for some strange reason my eThirteen cranks wore away on one side. Anyhoo this was an expensive repair the cranks along with chain rings and BB coming in at well over £300.

Long story short ever since having the new BB and cranks put in place my bike has more or less creaked when ever I put power down on my good side. After my chain snapped, sending me over the bars, my dad took my rear wheel off to check to make sure everything was ok. He noticed I had a few spokes that could maybe do with being tightened, so off again he went down to Evans taking my back wheel so that they could tighten my spokes along with my cones. Ern then replaced my rear Shimano cassette and I had him pop in some new blingtastic Hope Jockey Wheels, my old ones were looking like ninja throwing stars. 

Both Ern and I then had a go at setting up my gears and it was an epic fail. For some reason we just couldn't get the indexing right and the chain was jumping all over and missing gears on the cassette.

Now last week my friend Wayne had come to drop off a little Kodak video camera he has, one of my other friends might be interested in buying it. Wayne just happened to mention that he had dropped his Rock Shox forks off at a bike shop and they were going to do a complete service for him,costing around £80. Anyhoo he went on to tell me that when he was at home, he came across this very nice lad called Si who was across the road from where Wayne lives. I'm not sure how they got chatting but Wayne discovered Si runs his own mobile bicycle repair,servicing and maintenance business, so he asked Si for a quote to service his forks and when Si said £25, Wayne was more than happy and went and collected his forks so that he could hand them over to Si to sort out.

I remembered Wayne telling me about Si so txt him yesterday for Si's number. I then gave Si a quick ring, however there was no answer. About 15 minutes later I had a return call and I explained to Si that Wayne had recommended him and could he come and have a look at my gears sometime. "Yeah I'll call around at 18:30pm" Si said, and true to his word come 18:30pm there he was ringing my door bell. I quickly put my boots on and we headed off to our shed, so that Si could have a look and see if he could manage to work there or if he would need to take my bike to his workshop. "Oh I should be able to sort it here" Si said and he got stuck right in. I think Si was on with my bike around 45 to 50 minutes and I really enjoyed chatting away to him as he worked. He showed me where the indexing was wrong and, how to better route my cables and actually got my gears running smoother than they had in a very long time. We talked about Si's business Cycle Solutions and I have to say I was very happy with his skill and knowledge and at just how friendly he was, giving me advice on maintaining my bike and isn't it just so much fun talking to someone who shares your passion.

Well anyway I just wanted to write a small blog and give Cycle Solutions and Si a bit of a shout out, it's great to find local people trying to get on, and when they offer such a great service and very reasonable rates all the better.

Next job for Si and Cycle Solutions  is to fit new inner and outer cables for me and sort this dam annoying creak in my crank it's driving me mad.