MTB DVD’s

I recently discovered that iTunes had some Mountain-Biking videos for download and I couldn’t resist them.

The first I downloaded was ‘Seasons’ from the Collective which was amazing, loads of good footage, some excellent filming and a good mix of riding. At about an hour long you just can’t go wrong for £1.89. The sound track was good too and it just made me want to get out and ride.

Here’s the Trailer for Seasons:

Next up was Kranked 7 which was pretty good, but not quite as good as seasons in my view. I also downloaded ‘Virtuous’, which was a little shorter but just as good. Some really good downhill footage, although I wasn’t so sure about the soundtrack on this one as it would require an ‘explicit’ tag so I couldn’t really let Morgan watch it.

If only iTunes had some windsurfing movies too as it is so easy to download them and at £1.89 each you don’t mind paying for them. I know you can get such things for free if you look in the right places, but I’d prefer not to do that – I must be the only person who has actually acquired all of his video, music and software legitimately – if the products are available at a sensible price then I’d much rather buy them and support the people making them. It isn’t as though I don’t already give Apple enough of my hard earned cash, so they may as well provide my media as well!

Head on over to iTunes now and get inspired to get out there on the trails. Even the Guardian has an article about Mountain Biking video clips. All I need now is to find a way of viewing them on the TV in the living room.

As well as signing up for the Dyfi Enduro 2010 yesterday I managed to get an entry for the Manx E2E, or to give it its full name the Isle of Man End 2 End Challenge.

It’s another Mountain Bike race, this time, as its name would suggest, from one end of the Isle of Man to the other. The course runs from the Point of Ayre at the northern tip of the Island to the Calf Sound at the Southernmost tip – about 75km in total. It isn’t until September so hopefully I’ll be a little fitter by then, but it should be a good day out on the bike. I won’t actually be racing of course, the idea for me is just to finish it and have a good time.

It’s also a good excuse for a long weekend on the Isle of Man.

The first ever trip to Llandegla for an Ystwyth-MTB end of month ride and it was a roaring success.

There were only three of us from Ystwyth-MTB, Dave, John and myself, but we met up with the Bristol contingent of Jay, Brad, Matt, Beale and Woody in the car park and were already looking forward to our bacon baps as we set of around the trail at Llandegla.

The BBC were forecasting atrocious weather, but the forecast I usually use looked much better, cloudy but very little rain, Thankfully the BBC were wrong and my forecast spot on. The first climb had a thin covering of snow, ice and slush which made it a little interesting in places, but it isn’t too steep so it’s a nice warm up ready for the real action. We caught Kev (a kite-buggier that I met through Forces-of-Nature) on the first climb. We were expecting to meet up somewhere and he joined us for a while.

The descents were good, a little muddy in places thanks to all the recent snowmelt but they just keep encouraging you to go faster and faster. Kev left us as we went onto the black-graded trails, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

We only had one mechanical when I snapped my chain, but thanks to John lending a second pair of hands we soon removed a link re-joined the chain and were back on our way. We even managed to catch-up with the Bristol lot who had continued on as we fixed the chain.

The end came a little too soon, but we had a quick play on the new pump track and in the skills area before washing off the bikes and having a well earned bacon bap in the cafe. All in all a good day out and a good group of people to share it with. I did take a few video clips which you can see below, I really should make an effort to take more as it looks pretty good when put together.

It was a silly idea in the first place, but we hadn’t been out on our mountain bikes for a while so Dan, Dave, Martyn and myself met up at Nant yr Arian last night for a ride in the snow.

To be honest it wasn’t that much of a ride as we only covered 5.4 miles in close to 2 hours, but it was good fun and lovely up there with the snow all around and not a soul in sight. The scenery from our headlights was really nice and the riding was fun if not exhilarating. We all fell off quite a lot but the landings into deep drifts of snow were at least soft.

I forgot to take my camera, but Dan took a couple of shots whilst there, such as this one:

which you can see on his flickr photostream.

It was the last Sunday of the month at the weekend, so it was the Ystwyth MTB end of month ride. Usually we travel a little further afield for a longer ride but this time it wasn’t too far, just a short drive north to Coed y Brenin. There weren’t many of us either, just Dave,  and myself which was a shame.

The weather didn’t look great and the MBR trail that we had hoped to do was closed due to felling operations so we decided to do the Dragonsback trail instead. We started off slowly and had quite a few stops to chat. We had also decided to miss out the loop at the far end that is mainly a fire-road climb and then fire-road descent.

Dave was shooting off ahead and we gave him a couple of minutes on each section so that he could take some photos as John and I approached him. We were lucky with the weather, there was the odd bit of drizzle but it stayed mainly dry, and the trails were riding well. The new, heavily armoured sections are going to last a while, and we went back for a second go on lurch.

Before we know it though we were at ‘The beginning of the end’ having had a thoroughly goof day out in the hills and forests of North Wales. Its just a shame there wasn’t a few others out with us, we’ll have to work on that.

Dave and I then went to the visitor centre cafe for a well deserved hot chocolate and blueberry muffin before heading home. Back at home I cleaned my bike only to find that I had snapped 3 spokes in the rear wheel. Oh well, more repairs, and maybe a new wheel so that I have a spare!

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.

I’ve had another action packed weekend here in Mid Wales. Enjoying the best that the area has to offer, all thanks to Anna who of course had Morgan to contend with on Saturday whilst I enjoyed myself.

Steve arived at around 9am and we headed off to Pendam for a mountain bike ride out to Angler’s Retreat and back. I had done this route a couple of times at night whilst following others from the Ystwyth Cycling Club, but hadn’t done it in the daylight or found the route on my own.

The route finding was fine and if anything it was easier at night, but the route itself was good with a good variety of surfaces and technical difficulty and not too much sustained climbing. It was pretty cold and wet up there and the wind was picking up so we only did the one route of about 14 miles so that we could head back down to the beach for a windsurf session. Steve managed to fall off a couple of time and I managed to find one really deep (probably about waist deep) puddle that I cycled through. Steve saw me disappear into it and thought better of trying to ride through it himself. needless to say I got pretty wet.

Back at sea-level and there was enough wind for a decent windsurf session at Ynyslas. I tried out my new wheel-barrow as my previous one has rusted away and met Steve, Impi and a guy from the south coast over there. We had a good session in what is now beginning to feel like winter conditions.

This part of Wales really does have a lot to offer for those who like the outdoor lifestyle and a bit of adventure.

Anna and Morgan meanwhile had been busy sorting out Morgans toys and cooking soup.

Long time readers of this blog will know that is know a family tradition to go Xmas tree-hunting in the run up to Christmas. Previous posts here will show that we usually meet up for our annual Xmas Tree Hunt at Brockley Combe Forest, cut down a tree, wander around aimlessly for a while and then drive all the way back home. All very nice, but now that none of us live anywhere near Brockley Combe it is quite a trek and there isn’t really much to do there other than cut down a tree. Yes, its a nice walk, but even that is over ground we have trod on every year, so we thought it would be good to do something else this year.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time mountain biking in the forests around here and they are having a Christmas Market at Coed-y-Brenin this year so we thought that would be the perfect place to go. The market will provide a craft and food fair for the girlies, Santa’s going to be there for the children and there will be elves in the forest, there’s a cafe for lunch and plenty of walks to do on new trails with new views and of course a few of us will be able to go mountain-biking too. Hopefully it will be a good day out for everyone and it looks as though everyone will make the trip up from Bristol too.