A Simple Life of Luxury

I’ve been wanting to ride at Llandegla for a while now so on our way back from Wrexham we stopped off at Llandegla and I finally had my chance.

As we pulled into the car park it looked really busy, people and bikes everywhere but I guess that was to be expected on a bank holiday weekend.

After a quick look around the shop and visitor centre we walked back up to the car in the overflow car park and got ready. I had planned to do the full red route and black route whilst Anna and Morgan were going around the 3 mile long Green route. Anna was going to walk with Morgan on his little balance bike.

We set off together and once on the trail it wasn’t nearly as busy as it looked I did pass quite a few people and there were often people stood around at the beginnings of certain sections or the tops of climbs but considering how full the car ark was it was nice out on the trail.

Overall it was a really good trail, nothing too technical and not too much climbing really so it didn’t take me as long as I expected. No knowing what was coming next meant that I took it easy all the way around. There are big signs as you approach the black sections warning you about the ‘extreme nature’ of the trail but for those worried about it then don’t, all of the trail is easily rideable as you can simply roll over any of the obstacles. obviously if you attack the course and go for big air off the jumps etc. then it could be a little more challenging but it is also possible to simply ride over them keeping both wheels firmly on the ground. (Which is pretty much what I did!).

Back at the car and Anna and Morgan had just returned too. They had fun, Anna enjoyed her walk and Morgan had got on really well on his bike. he doesn;t get chance to use it much so an hour on it is probably as much practice as he’s ever had so he improved all the way around and apparently came to an impressive skidding stop at the car!

Can’t wait until he’s a little older and all three of use can go for rides on the easier trails together.. I’ll have to convince Anna to go out on my bike, but that does at least mean I’ll be forced to treat myself to a brand new, shiny full-suspension bike!

On the way home we stopped off at the top of the highest road in Wales for a succesful geocache find.

Oh, and we finally got the video camera out of hibernation so here is a little clip of Morgan at Llandegla.

Readers of my diary entries on Forces-of-Nature will realise that I’ve been out mountain-biking quite a bit recently. I generally ride one night a week with a small group of other local mountain-bikers all of whom have tubeless set-ups and don’t seem to get any punctures. I didn’t think there was any need to ‘go tubeless’, afterall I don’t have that many punctures and they are easy to repair on the trail so I didn’t really see the advantages.

However, after puncturing a couple of times whilst out with the others I did start feeling bad about making them wait around for me whilst I repaired the flat, so I have decided to give in to peer pressure (not something I do too often) and give it a go.

There are several ways to ‘go tubeless’. The first is to buy expensive specialist tubeless rims and tyres. I wasn’t going to go that far and as the tubeless rims and tyres are heavier and more expensive than their standard counterparts I couldn’t really see the advantages of such a system. The next option is to buy a conversion kit for normal rims and tyres, but there is also a third DIY option known as the ‘Ghetto Tubeless System’.

The way it works is you remove the inner-tube from your wheel. You then seal the rim using a strip of rubber to stop air leaking out through the spoke holes, put the tyre back on, put some latex sealant inside the tyre and then inflate it so that the tyre seals onto the rim. The latex sealant then fills any small gaps that might be present. Sounds simple, but reading reports online it can be difficult to get the tyre to seal onto the rim effectively. The main reason for this is that in order for the tyre beads to seal against the rim it needs to by pumped up to a certain pressure in order to push the tyre against the rim, but, as until the tyre is sealed it is difficult to get air into it. A catch 22 situation and most people end up having to use high pressure compressors or CO2 cartridges to get the air into the tyre quick enough… Notth I have at my disposal.

Still, at the weekend I gave it a go. Out came my inner-tube. I then stretched a small 20″ BMX tube over my MTB rim. This tube becomes the strip of rubber than seals the spoke holes in the rim, and its valve is the valve that will be used to pump the tyre up. Next I cut along its centre line so the the tube could fold out over the edges of the rim and then put my tyre back on trapping the now cut inner tube between the tyre bead and the rim. Before adding the sealant I tried pumping the tyre up just to see if I could get a seal. Surprisingly it pumped up straight away without any problems at all. So, in went the sealant, back on went the tyre and in went some air. After a bit of shaking to spread the sealant around I left it to let any small holes seal, and then trimmed the excess rubber away from the 20″ tube.

All seemed to be fine, but the tyre did loose some pressure overnight. Closer inspection showed that the side-walls of tyre were ever so slightly porous and tiny amounts of air was escaping through little pores all over the tyre.

Despite this I did the same to the rear wheel and yesterday had my first ride on the new system. All went well; no punctures, no flats and no issues with the tubeless system. Pressure was maintained throughout the ride as well. The front wheel now seems to hold pressure really well so I’d say that it was completely sealed. The rear one (which I did a day after) still looses a tiny bit of pressure over time, but I think it will seal up fully over the next day or so.

Lets hope they hold up!

Pros

• Lighter (but only just) as you only use a small strip of inner tube, but then have to add sealant)
• Less rolling resistance
• Fewer punctures - most punctures are pinch punctures where the inner tube is pinched as you go over a rock and a hole (or often two) form in the tube. As there is no tube this can’t happen. Also, any punctures from thorns nails etc. should be repaired by the remaining sealant in the tyre.
• Novelty factor

Cons

• A little more expensive than plain old tubes (you still need a new 20″ tube each time you remove the tyre and you need some sealant. However, with fewer punctures it could work out cheaper as I won’t be replacing tubes so often.
• Not so easy to change tyres of you want to ride different tyres for different conditions (not something I do anyway)
• Could be a little messy if I do get a proper flat whilst out riding as I would then have to revert to a tubed system and may get covered in latex sealant in the process

For me the jury is still out but I shall see how it goes over the next few rides.

Check out this You Tube video if you want to see how to do it yourself, and I’ll no doubt keep people up to date within this Ghetto Tubeless thread.

We’ve just had another action packed weekend here in rural mid Wales. Thanks to our local katabatic wind I managed to windsurf every day last week and although the wind wasn’t forecast to be great for the weekend, Ivor kept blowing and I managed to windsurf on Saturday and Sunday morning in the estuary at Ynyslas.

The flat water conditions do get a little boring after a while so I spiced things up trying silly tricks like body drags and carving 360’s. Both of these are fairly pointless tricks but fun to try and I guess blasting backwards and forwards across the estuary is fairly pointless in itself anyway.

After our Saturday morning windsurf session Steve and I headed off to the hills for a mountain biking session. We drove up the mountain road behind Talybont and parked on the forest road at the top of this, then headed down and around Angler’s Retreat and up my favourite little gulley before heading across to and down the chute, climbing back up to the top and then virtually retracing our tyre tracks back along the gulley in the opposite direction and back to the car. The route was only just over 12 miles, but it was all offroad and therefore fairly slow. I came off once on a tricky rocky step. I very nearly made it, but the last rock caught me out and i ended up on the floor with a sore arm and bruised ego. Later in the ride a tree got the better of me too. I tired to brush past it as it only looked like a little branch, but it was having none of it, spring back at me and sent me flying.

Steve faired worse then me though with quite a few off’s and once the cleat on his shoe broke meaning he couldn’t unclip from his pedals he went to pot and ended up upside down stuck under his abike a couple of times!

All good fun though and a good day of activities in Wales. Click here to see this route on ShareMyRoutes.com ere is the Summary view of the route topography along with me heart rate and speed.

Sunday was hot and sunny again so I headed off to Nant-yr-Arian where there was a moutnain-bike demo being held. It was of course very busy there and there were lots of nice bikes about. I set off on my bike for a little circuit around part of the Pendam Trail and then went to the Specialised marquee to collect a lovely lightweight carbon fibre S-Works Epic for a test ride.

It certainly was a nice bike. £4000 worth of full suspension loveliness! I’ve never ridden a full suspension bike before and it certainly make s a difference on the downhill sections and over the bumps. The tricky, bumpy uphill sections were easier too as the suspension allows the back wheel to stay in contact with the ground better and therefore gives more traction. It felt a little slower on the uphill forest track sections, but in fact after looking at my GPS track it was actually a little faster uphill too, although much of that was probably due to the lighter weight of this expensive model.

Would I get one? Yes to full-suspension, but no to that particular model  as it isn’t perfect for the type of riding I do. Yes its very light, but I had to get off the bike to lockout the rear suspension and I’d rather be able to do that whilst riding along, either via a remote lever on the handlebars or on a bike where the rear-shock is within reach from the normal riding position. I’d probably be better off with one with a little more travel that the S-Works epic too. I quite like the look of the Specialised Stumpjumper or the Scott Genius… I’d better start saving my pennies!

I knew it!… If I spent some money on some new toys something else would break requiring more expense.

I’ve been needing some new tyres for a while so I took the plunge and used my £5 voucher from Wiggle to buy some new Continental Mountain King tyres for my bike (a bargain at £15.99 each!). I’ve also been in ‘need’ of a new 5m sail and some other windsurfing equipment so I’ve order a 5m Gun Hammer, a new mast extension and some harness lines from Gun Sails and have arranged to send my broken booms back for replacement under warranty. Of course, with my ‘key rider’ discount and the usual good value from Gun these were bargains too.

I then went out for a ride on my mountain bike last night and returned needing a new spoke, a wheel re-alignment and some new brake pads… I shall take my bike in for repair tomorrow. Hopefully none of it will break the bank though and I’ll soon be back up and riding with a bike that feels like new and out windsurfing with some new kit… I like new toys!!

I haven’t long got back from an outdoor weekend in Wales.

First I drove to Liverpool and Anna, Morgan and I stayed in a Travel lodge for the night so that I could drop Anna and Morgan off at the airport early in the morning so that they couldget the plane to the Isle of Man. I then drove to Dinas Dinlle near Caernarfon where I met Steve so that we could go windsurfing. The wind was pretty strong and in the end we went out at Foryd Bay for some shelter, but even there the wind was too much so we headed off to the Snowdon Ranger Youth Hostel instead.

We then went for a nice walk around Llyn Cwellyn and found a few geocaches before signing into the Youth Hostel. here I realised I had lost y credit card so after a few frantci phone calls I had cancelled the card and made sure no unauthorised transaction had been made. I then had to borrow some money from Steve so that I could fill up with Diesel in order to get home.

After dinner in the pub at Rhyd Ddu we got some sleep ready for an early breakfast and an attempt on the summit of Snowdon. We had an easy walk up the Snowdon Ranger path and back down the Rhydd Ddu path before walking around Llyn Dwyarchen and then up the steep path to the summit of Foel Rudd. Dinner this evening was in the Snowdon Ranger Youth Hostel.

The next day we woke with rather sore legs and after breakfast we headed off to Dinas Dinlle for another windsurf. We started to rig but the wind dropped so we did a geocache whilst waiting around for a bit and then headed off to Betws y Coed where we had a look around the shops. We then went to Llanrwst and had a mountain bike ride around the Marin Trail. Our legs weren’t really up to too much, so we had a nice easy ride around taking in the scenery as we went.

Steve then headed off home and I went to the Betws y Coed Youth Hostel where I was staying for the night. After a chat with the others staying there, a little walk and dinner in the Swallow Falls hotel, along with a phonecall to Anna and as it was mothers day my Mum, I headed off to bed ready for another early start the next day.

Monday dawned with some snow flurries but generally cool and sunny so I had breakfast and then went to the Marin Trail again and despite the very tired legs forced myself around the trail again, before heading off to Liverpool to collect Anna and Morgan from the airport.

All in all a good weekend, the hostels were good, the windsurfing was a little frustrating but the walking and mountain-biking were top class (If I get time I shall write about these in more detail). North Wales is quite a playground really. I think Steve enjoyed himself too, and thanks for lending me some money Steve otherwise I would have been stranded!

The weather yesterday was perfect for mountain-biking, gorgeous sunshine very little wind and cool, so Harvey and I headed off to Pendam for a ride and some exploring.

From Pendam car park we cycled out past Llyn Syfydrin and along the track towards Nant-y-Moch. We saw Dave on the way so said our hello’s and then headed out along the road besides Nant-y-Moch and all the way to the top of the mountain road. We then followed the forest track to Anglers Retreat with a small diversion down a rocky, muddy trail and through a little bog. We stopped at Angler’s Retreat to check on one of my geocaches and then continued on past Llyn Penrhaeadr.

I have another geocache hidden on the shores of Llyn Penrhaeder so we decided to stop and check on this one as well. There are no obvious landmarks near this one, so I wasn’t 100% sure where it was, but then I remembered that I had loaded the nearest 100 caches to home into my Forerunner 305 the other day, so a quick press of a few buttons and my GPS watch was telling me that the nearest gecoache was 150 feet from where we had stopped…. Needless to say we soon found it and all was in good order. I know everyone has been loading geocache details directly from their computer into their GPS devices for a while now, but I didn’t have a cable for my old eTrex GPS so this is new to me. I had always had to enter them by hand, so being able to automatically add 100 caches to the device is great. It saves so much time and means I have all the caches I need to hand.

From here we headed off to the forestry and made a little detour to Pistyll y Llyn. Harvey had never approached from this direction before or seen the view from the top, so he was suitably impressed. It is an amazing place and the location of yet another of my Watery Wales 2 geocaches. If you only do one of them, then this is the one to do just for the views.

After retrieving our bikes we climbed to the highest point of the route before an undulating descent through some eroded gulleys that were good fun. Unfortunately the bottom part of the track was a little wet so we had to dismount a few times to negotiate some big puddles but overall it was a good technical little trail. From here we headed back along forest tracks towards Nant-y-Moch and then finished off the route with a bit of the Continental Trail and then back to Pendam.

20 miles in total and a nice easy pace with stops for the geocaches made for a good afternoon out. The image to the left shows the stats of our ride and here is a kml file of the route that Google Earth should be able to open.

Anglers Retreat Cycle Route (.kml file for Google Earth)

So much for the forecast of 20cm of snow, we haven’t even had a flurry yet… Lets hope we get some tonight as Brad is coming to visit and is bringing his snowboard with him!

I didn’t sit around waiting for the snow though, I went for a little run around the block and then a nice windsurf despite the cold temperatures. Funnily enough no one else was out so I had the place to myself. I didn’t stay out long though, not because of the cold but because I had taken too big a sail over to the beach with me so was a little overpowered. It wasn’t as windy as yesterday when the Borth weather station recorded a maximum gut of 54.5 knots… Yes, I was out windsurfing yesterday as well!

Brad is bringing his mountain bike with him, so even if we don’t get any snow (I’m not expecting much) then we shall have a day in the hills whatever.

Living on the beach with a large, flat salt marsh behind us means that there isn’t any great mountain-biking on our doorstep. We do of course have some really good trails nearby, but most of these are a 20 minute drive from the house and it would be really nice not to have to do that drive. So, yesterday I set of exploring on my bike.

I headed inland to Tre-Ddol, which involces a 4 mile slog along the flat road across the bog, once in Tre-Ddol I simply picked the nearest hill and cycled up it… And what a hill it was, brutally steep and I wasn’t quite ready for it. In fact I have to admit to being beaten by it, despite it being tarmacked and me being on a mountain-bike I was forced to get off and push the top part… I shall beat it next time! From here I cycled along some nice quiet country lanes amongst some nice scenery and some great views of the Dovey Estuary and then onto some nice rocky double track. next was a big climb along forest roads towards Moel y Llyn Towards the top I stopped and spotted a little trail through the woods heading down into Artists Valley. I thought I’d explore it ans seemed to stumble upon a trail that other bikers n=have been using. Towards the top were some half constructed boardwalks and then a tricky, rocky and rooty descent that got a little too steep and a little too technical for me in places… Again, i shall complete it one day.

This brought me out into Artists Valley where I follwed the road alongside the iver before heading back onto some nice double track and back towards Tre-Ddol. I finished off with some single track through the woods above TreDdol where there is some more constructed jumps and such like, most of whcih looked far too dangerous to attempt, athough i will be back to explore a little further up the hill to see if there are any easy options.

Then it was just a four mile slog back along the roads into the wind. Nothing amazing as far as the terrain goes, but a worthwhile ride all the same that I shall be repeating in the future.

I had a tough day at the office yesterday… Started work at 4am and worked until 10.30am, stopping to help get Morgan off to nursery and Anna off to work, then the fun began. A good windsurf session off the beach here at Ynyslas. The windsurfing itself was good, lots of wind and some decent waves, and then the weather got interetsing too. First the sky went very dark indeed and we were surrounded by thunder and lightning (I got off the water as a 4m carbon mast is likely to attract the lightning and I don’t fancy finding out what happens if it hits it whilst I’m attached!), then some really strange looking dark clouds swriled overhead and we were hit by a massive hailstorm, then the wind dropped off, so I packed up and headed home.

As soon as I got home the sun came out and the wind picked up again - typical. A little more work, collected Morgan from nursery and went to watch the cranes at the estuary where they are doing some directional drilling to install a new electricity link beneath the estuary.. I’m not 100% sure what the cable is for and if it will affect our electricity supply, but we’ve been having more than our fair share of power cuts again recently (common at this time of year), so some improvement wouldn’t go amiss.

I then psyched myself up to brave the weather and go out for a night ride on my mountain bike. Only a short one, but it was good to do it. I won’t bore you with the stats from my GPS Heart Rate Monitor again, but as with every training session I’ve used it for so far, my maximum heart rate was 172bpm again!

Just for James (as he requested it in his comment), here are the summary stats: