Roto-vegas and placebo braking

A break in the weather

My second single-speed road-trip took place last weekend when we hit the road for Rotorua via Taupo. It pretty much rained continuously the whole weekend. Not Wellington styled horizontal rain, but gentle, not-so-cold vertical rain.

This time it was Sepp and his buddy Kevin, myself, Peter "Magneto" Reynolds and his nephew Dan, who came down from Auckland. Once again the digs were pretty swish, but Peter and Sepp still had to have an arm wrestle over who got the double bed, even though there were two spare.
 

Dans Jefson Rohloff, very tasty.

It was quite a show, and after about 5 mins it was called off in a draw. I think the effort that Sepp put into it reflected in his below par performance on the sunday, and Peter elected not to ride at all, altho he did get out with Dan on the saturday. Sepp and Kevin also got out on the saturday where after a 2 hour ride Sepp decided he would sit in a hot pool by the side of the track and test his cell phone's water proof capabilities. After a couple of hours in front of the fire the phone was back to its original working state. Quite impressive.

Normally when it rains in an MTB race, I am not a very happy person, but in Rotorua the mud is completely different than the rubbish we have down here in Wellington. Everyone was basically riding around on summer tires! People obviously thought I looked a bit strange riding with a medusa mud tire on AND a rear mudguard. Yes, very uncool.

I just thought I'd throw this in...

My choice of a fairly low gear ratio was a good one in my book as I made a good start up the first hill. After about 30 mins my old buddy Susie Wood had caught me in the single track and we rode together for another 30 mins until we hit the first hills. I had to let Susie go at that point as my gear was too tall. (Susie went on to win the womans class). My rear brakes had already mostly gone (vee-brakes) so I was trying to limit my rear braking. I adjusted them 3 times over the race, and then started on the front brakes which were also coming into the bars. At least I was able to adjust them with the big knob on the top of the cyclinder. I was amazed at the "placebo-effect" of rear wheel braking when you dont actually have any brakes. It was teaching me how to ride more adventureously which is always a good thing.

I'd have to say the course was 95% rideable, apart from the walking bits, that only the single-speeders walk.
Another great weekend in Roto-vegas.

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MCM hammer.. Singlespeed version 3

What a minter. In the early 2000's this was the frame to have. Its been hanging up in Franicis's laundry since about then. It did the 2002 Nationals XC season under Rob Scott in Vet 1. Rob was a hard core weight weener and the whole bike was a sub 20 pound hardtail with some very fruity but sometimes dodgy componentry. I remember catching Rob while he was riding this frame, in the first round of the 2002 nationals in Nelson. It was a muddy course and my shimano compatible gripshift stopped working on lap 1 giving me only the front 3 gears. Some how I managed to win the race, against Chris Faithful, but it was my only win of the series that year. My pedal sheared off while I was winning the Hawkesbay round and I was 2nd at the Karapoti and Rotorua Rounds.

Thanks to Francis at Jville Cycles for the loan of this frame. I better look after it. Its spotless.

I am not sure if that seat will stay, I cant believe I rode the Brevet on it. Ouch.

I'd like to thank my sponsors ; )

It really pulls the chicks

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A slow learner

I had a good Single Speed ride in the weekend. Rather than do another CX race I thought I would have a bit more fun and get more familiar with the SSer at Makara Peak with Austrian Pro Sepp Hribar. I was trialing a 32-18 ratio and it was pretty sweet anywhere we went.

By chance we were also both trialing rear mudguards, Sepp's was a Bontrager, and mine was an SKS X3 brand. Mine rocked, Sepps sucked. He reckoned thats it cos he is a big hitter. I reckoned it was cos his was naff and it couldnt be tightened enough on his Joplin seat post.
Sepp's only been riding off road for 1 year and hes already smacking me to bits on the downhills. Kind of annoying when you consider that for the 15 years before I started racing MTBs I was on motorbikes. He did do a Peter Reynolds skills course twice though, so maybe that was the secret.

It was a little bit muddy at Makara, but by the time I had ridden back out to the Hutt Valley the rain had washed most of the mud off my bike. When I was in at Jville Cycles the day before, Francis offered to loan me an old Carbon Giant MCM frame he had lying about for the SS worlds. It should be very light. Watch this space.

Franicis's workshop also appeared to be home to a bevy of classic motocross bikes that he races these days. I reckon I must have met Francis about 23 years ago, while trying to buy parts for my aging 1973 Yamaha RD 350. Francis and Al Heine were running a motor bike shop in Lower Hutt. I think Al is now the Intense, Foes and Fox importer for NZ, among other things. At least Franicis's years on two wheels manifest themselves in good riding skills. Maybe I am just a slow learner, and my best is yet to come : )

A moody shot of Single Speed Ver. 2 on the River Bank
while riding out to the Upper Hutt CX a few weeks ago.

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Cyclo-cross number 2, bike number 2.

Another Cyclo-cross race, another single-speed build! I converted my trusty 1996 Diamond back Apex using the singulator that Mike Thomson gave me.
I worked out that with a 16/18 sprocket range on the back, and the 32-34 on the front, I could get a big enough spread to cover just about any conditions, all I needed was a chainwhip, a spanner, a cassette tool and a couple of allen keys to set it up before the race... Hence, I rode out to the event on a 34-16, and raced on a 32-16.

32x18   47.47
34x18   50.43
32x16   53.40
34x16   56.74

All the gears in the world are for nought if you are riding like rubbish tho. CX is a funny thing, and I certainly found this course much harder than the previous one, with its couple of gutty little climbs. Gary Moller seemed to be having a blinder, especially for a guy well into his 50's. Liz Roberston was there too ramping up (starting) her training for the Single Speed worlds. Ed Crossling on his Carbon Santa Cruz Blur was the winner with I think Revolution Cycles Alex Revell 2nd on his Salsa cross bike, with Johnny Appleseed 3rd on his Single speed. How varied is that? Johnny was riding the "gear-that--it-came-with" ratio!

It was a big foggy on the way out!

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Taupo (pronounced /ˈtoʊpɔː/, TOE-paw) Rotorua Single-speeding weekend

I am not sure whose idea the trip was? Sepps or mine, but before long we had a full van and a professional driver (Peter Reynolds) and youngster (Ed Banks) for company. The BS flowed freely, Ed said nothing the whole trip, but took it all in, to be used against us all down the track at some later date I am sure.

Despite having lived in Taupo for a few years, I had forgotten just how bloody cold it is up there. At least this time I was sleeping in a modern house in the burbs, and not a forestry hut built after the war. Sepp is a master organiser and a very forceful person, and wasted no time in convincing us all that carbs were evil and that every morning we should have 3 eggs and lashings of bacon for brekky. We were powerless to refuse. The plan was to base ourselves in Taupo and hit the local trails there, and race in Rotorua the next day.

 The last race I did in Rotorua was the national series finals in 2002. I suffered from my usual lack of riding skills, and time on the trails that even the good Wellington riders suffer on. The flowy BMX styled courses favour riders who can pump out smooth power without the inefficient grunt and brake style of riding I had learnt.

I dont know how relevant the style of track there is to racing on the world cup circuit, but it sure as hell is fun to ride on, and the MTBing public vote on it with their wheels. There are heaps more trails there now than there were back in 02, and some of them you could just play on all day long.

On day 1 we checked out Taupo's Craters of the Moon course on our single-speeds. This whole trip was about trying out our single-speeds and dicking about with gearing and such. Sepp had his dedicated SS Cannodale 29er and Ed and I had our old crapper bikes that had been converted. We did a bit of bike swapping and sledging and we were very impressed with Sepp's. It seemed to roll beautifully over all the terrain we encountered.

The night before, Ed and I recounted the last road-trip we did together. The Ohau and Naseby rounds of the nationals in 1996. Ed was a junior DHer with the Specialised team. I was finally a new vet (35 years old in those days). The day before the Naseby race we watched as a promising junior lake-jumped his BMXer all day. Kashi Leuchs was his name. That night in the camp ground we met up with another rising talent. John Kirkcaldie. He had this completely horn Cannondale with upside down forks. There was nothing else like it in the country at the time. The writing was on the wall for the many times National DH champ, Darren Henderson. JK eventually went on to win the American NORBA DH series twice.

After a couple of hours wrecking our single-speed legs in the Craters of the Moon Park we took off to the Cafe for a coffee. None us was that hungry as there were still partly digested eggs and bacon in our gut. Imagine our surprise when we realised that the guy we had just sat down next to at the cafe was John Kirkcaldie, out for his first ride in 4 months. What a coincidence.

That night Ed was in charge of nutrition and he built the largest lasagne in the world known to be consumed by four people. We dropped Sepp and Pete off at a bar in town to watch the Rugby while Ed-san and I went to at least 5 liqour stores looking for the peculiar brand of Japanese beer Ed always uses for Carbo loading.

The next morning, for some reason, my ribs were really bad. I had had a prang the week before at the Wainuiomata trail park, but thought nothing of it. On the sunday when I did the Cyclo cross at Upper Hutt they were sweet. A week later I was struggling to put my socks on. Sepp came to the rescue with 150mgs of diclofenac.

We got to Rotorua in plenty of time. It was bloody cold but the trails were frosty and firm as. I positioned myself for a good start in my first ever real single-speed race. The trails were awesome. We were all running standard gearing but had to wonder how much easier it would have been to be one tooth lower given the lack of flat or downhill riding. Everyone got a sore back but I noticed myself electing to jump off and run a bit rather than blow my legs completely in the first hour.

When Ed is invloved there is always a wager for a can of coke for the first rider home. He collected big-time again. I can see why so many people from Wellington go up to Rotorua to ride now, and when people talk about Pondys and Split Enz and the A-trail, I now know what they mean. The only problem was, I needed a good bike to make the most of these trails... the Litespeed just didnt cut it.... what to do. Maybe some experimentation with a single-speed fully.....

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If a man takes a nap on the couch......

.... and nobody sees it - did it really happen?

After getting home from the BikeHutt Cyclocross race today, hanging out a load of washing, and letting out the chickens, the chickens started to taunt me by prostrating themselves in the sun.

It was too much. I was severely blown and I took that "nap" option. Thats only the 3rd CX I had done, and it was a lot of fun, but with about 2 laps to go, when I had just caught Nick Blair, I started to see stars.Maybe it was the extra 15 mins we did over the previous events?

The course was a goodie and I didn't feel at any disadvantage to be using my single speed on only its 3rd ride. It held up better than I did. There were heaps of old school riders there, Marco, Ed Banks, Ken Feist, Nick Blair, Jonty and his Revolution crew and Geoff Notman with a shiny new Yet CX bike. Nice! The Bushlovers were out there in big numbers too, despite a lack of bush.
Bring on the next one, I think !

Results - and justice, (Upper Hutt styles).

Photos by Craig Madsen
Hedgehog Photography Ltd
0064 45269579

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I once was lost.....

I admit, I had back-slid. I was spending more time on the road, on the track, and on the TT bike than was healthy. I had lost track of my MTBing whakapapa. But I became saved....

I had known my saviour since 1996 when I met him at the Ohau round of the MTB nationals. He was racing this new fangled suspension bike. A Santa Cruz something. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical. I couldnt see full suspension  taking off. I was racing my steel Diamond Back Axis with mag 21 forks and despite Mikes monkey motion bike, I was pretty sure I was faster than him so there was no contest. Hard tails ruled.

Somehow we kept in touch. Mike was always very suspicious and derisive of these hard-tail hold-outs from Wellington, although it was to be expected, he was a hard-core jaffa, and as he later confessed, he had never even experienced a real hill until he moved down to the main-land.

Mike was always saying that full suspension was the way to go, and I would respond with "Yeah when the guys in the world cup start winning on it I will get one". Of course this was a blatant lie. I couldn't afford one and that was that. Not that I was convinced anyway.

We would also debate such blue-sky science topics as the use of bar ends, or riser bars, or double chain rings and such. And Mike would preach me the sermon of Santa Cruz. Now the thing about Santa Cruz riders is, they are a bit like 29er riders, or singlespeeders. Or ex smokers. They are reborn. They are painful. There is even a famous thread on Vorb, "I bought a Santa Cruz to make me a better person".

I told Mike that until my wife won the Lotto, I would never be able to afford a monkey motion bike from Santa Cruz, so save your breath. Then one day it happened, I found $200 behind the sofa, and my wife let me have the rest. It was just one of those moments when the stars lined up. Mike even helped my with lots of old crap he had lying around so I could build up my first bike with real disc brakes. My Litespeed had a disc on the front, but it was pretty crappy, a first generation Hope that was worse than a good set of vees. So I transferred the rest of old stuff off my 1993 Litespeed onto my new (second hand) Santa Cruz Superlight frame.

I'd always regarded myself as a pretty crap rider technically, but with this new frame, I reckon I was coming up to average.  This new bike was amazing, I actually enjoyed being on my MTB again. It rekindled an old flame. It made me realise just how evil handling my old Litespeed was. There was only one problem. It was not really compatible with an 80mm XC fork. In a park like Makara I was pedal-striking constantly. Eventually I sold off one of my children for scientific experiments and used the money to buy a second hand 100mm SID from the Gos-bros crash-test dummies. Overnight I was Greg Herbold. I even passed Al going down the Lizardy track. I learned that forks are meant to go where you point them, not in the vague general direction that I was used to with my old carbon steered SID. The new fork's extra weight struck at my weight weener core, but there was no going back. I was starting to realise how out of control my efforts had been in the past.

As my confidence increased so did the amount of crashing I was doing, but it was fun. I always assumed that the advantage of full suspension was in the descending. I have found this to be the opposite. I still ride downhill like a girl, but I climb with much more authority over gnarly terrain.

For many years I was fortunate enough to be Kashi Leuch's webmaster, so at years end, Kashi would tally up my web-hours and give me first dibs on his surplus team loot. That is how a lot of the kit on my bike came to be the very fruity German "Tune" stuff. So now I have Tune hubs, stems and cranks, which match nicely with the Santa Cruz's black frame. It was pretty light kit at the time, but above all, very robust and well made.

The Superlight is a very adaptable frame. For the 1100km Kiwi Brevert, I made very few changes. I put on a heavier back wheel, the other was only a 28 holer, and put a bit more air in the rear shock. I strapped on a Freeeload Rack. I took off the carbon bars so I could bolt on some aero bars, and bar ends, and I swapped the crank spider so I could runner bigger ratios, old school 24-34-46.There were no complaints from me.... Ok, my butt had some problems, but I thought it was too late to change my seat at the last minute. Better the devil you know?

When I got back from the Brevet I left the Stans Crow on the front, somehow it worked, I dont understand why.The last time I weighed it, it came in at about 23.6 pounds with 500 + gram tryes on it. Since then I have put on Sram Gripshift as I have a tendency to whack the the Sram paddle shifters in a crash. It has an old square taper race Face cromo BB in it with an XT front derailer. The rest is Sram. Oh yeah, one of the things I love about it the most - the shifting. I have Nokon cables with a fully enclosed internal cable housing. This is the single best thing I think you can do for your shifting in my view. Wash the bike down after a muddy ride and its good to go. No more crunchy gears. It doesn't have to be Nokon, Nokon can be a pain, it scratches the frame and it can creak, but the shifting is perfect.

This is my racing and training bike, the only thing that I change are the tires. The shock has pro-pedal, but I very rarely use it. I have to admit its my first and only full suspension bike, but it suits me. Santa Cruz are still cranking them out after all these years so I cant be the only one thats likes them.

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Single speed version 2

Okay, I admit it I am soft. My first ride up a muddy danzig on my SSer was horrible. It was also wet and pretty dark. I added a smaller ring to the inside, so now I have a 34-32 on the front and a 19 on the rear. Its easy enuff to swap the chain with fingers while I am learning how to ride this contraption.
A couple of good links for newbie punters like myself here:
http://www.surlybikes.com/blog/spew/3_-_single-speed_drivetrains/
http://www.mtbr.com/ssfaqcrx.aspx#ssConversionsChainTension

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Single speed version 1

Its made up out of bits of junk from my shed... but its pretty light.
I will have to see how it works.... one fine day!

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Single speed worlds brings out the big guns!

I have my name down to do the Single Speeds Worlds later in the year at Rotorua. I dont actually have a singlespeed yet but I reckon its worth it to make one up for the weekend.... I mean any race where you are encouraged to dress up and drink beer during the race has got to be a good thing eh?

I heard that LA himself cant come as he has another event on. Well, at the moment he has, but I just got this email from the organisers and the quality of the field seems right up there, I mean cripes, you have to be pretty serious if you are coming all the way from Austria!

Over 800 entries from over 25 countries - the most "worldly" Singlespeed Worlds ever...

Tadeas Mejdr from the Czech Republic and Sepp Hribar from Austria entered in the last week - and if our maths is right (not a done deal!) that takes the country count to 27...

 http://www.sswc10nz.com/

I guess I better get onto building my bike. It will most likely be based on my 93' Litespeed Ocoee, altho I believe the winner of the ladies National event last year did it on a full suspension Santa Cruz, so it is possible to go F/S.

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What's that big yellow thing in the sky!

If god had wanted me to sit at home on a saturday watching the morning sun high-light the amount of dirt I needed to clean off the floor, he wouldn't have invented the Wainuiomata Trail Park! I hadn't been there for a while and was impressed that there was hardly any sign of the recent 6 hour MTB race. The trails had held up brilliantly, despite the crap weather. I usually bump into a whole bunch of people I know while there but it wasn't til I left that I came across Sep on his singlespeed. I felt pretty flat the whole time so called in at the Mediterannean Food Warehouse for a coffee to help me on my way home.
Check out my new hat! Its hard to imagine such a light, effective and easy mount lighting system as the Ayups. This is actually light enough to run with, even with the 6 hour battery hanging off the back. It will also be very useful for getting in the wood on these wet and cold nights.

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No bikes in here, but some lovely trails

Some pix from our weekend hike into the Tutuwai Hut and back. 5.5 hours there, 4.5 back. The kids were great. 16 people in at the hut that night.

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