Bluebells

First: happy birthday, mum!
Second: fixed cog is riding well. quiet and im finally getting used to the action. I have no idea how people ride fixed with no brakes. There is no way on earth you can stop as quickly and more importantly with as much control. I *may* end up taking the rear brake off, and that would primarily be to stop me wearing through the rim, which is, errr, on the concave side, but the front, nope.
Third: Look pedals. Much more solid interface when climbing. Pedal without curling toes, which causes less foot fatigue. I do unclip in technical situations sometimes. I think this is because i am used to being able to rock my feet around all over with the times. As i get into a ride, it lessens. I reckon with a bit of time ill get used to it. The disengagement is soft. I was riding with dave no chops the other day and he felt similarly. Less definite than shimano and egg. Havent ridden in any real mud, but to be honest i have no worries about that, there not really very much of them. So, not all rosy, but time will tell.
Fourth: briefly rode dave's hi-fi pro 29. Interesting bike. Smooth like buttah....screams through mild rock gardens, low bb, i feel like there is a lot of bike behind me...well worth checking out.
Fifth: Phil and anja off to etape caledonia, hamish for the bealach beag. Good luck one and all.
Sixth: seems that i will be heading to bristol bike fest to have a go at the 12 hour race with shaggy, phil and tymo. Thence to mountain mayhem for a bit of posing on an all-star team...aim is to ride this one, and minimise the mayhem....
Seventh: need to plan another overnighter. Bikepacking (as it seems to be being called) is definitely the way forward. A thread on mtbr started by who else but mikesee, is definite inspiration. Next time, ill be trying to lessen the load. I was a little perturbed at weigh in about the girth of my kit. IIRC the whole was 9.5kg 4.5 on my back, 5 on the bike. That did include all bags, tools, tubes etc. The aim is to drop at least 2.5kg from that. I dont *need* to, but i want to. Half the fun in doing all this is actually the planning and messing about.

I also need to find out how dejay, rebecca tomawikiwikiwiki got on in finale doing the 24 hour race there...


Go. Ride. Smile.