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Still no word on the Dawg yet - the shop's still looking in to the cause of the rattle ; (
Should have it back by the weekend, so hopefully the weather'll be good enough for a decent ride.
No major site updates recently; I've made quite a few changes this week, but they've mainly been background changes, rather than anything major. One of the things I have done is added a video from the Chanctonbury Ring ride back in January to the gallery page for the ride. He he. I also have a few changes to the Gallery section planned, that'll hopefully make it easier to navigate.
What a rubbish weekend for riding! Firstly, my Kona Dawg had developed some nasty rattles after the last service, so had to take it back to the shop to get it sorted. The weather on Saturday was pretty flaky, so I thought I'd take a chance on the weather being better on Sunday, and go for a ride on my Fire Mountain. So, what happens on Sunday? Rain all day. It wasn't so much the rain that stopped me going riding.. getting a bit wet never hurt anyone; it's more the poor visibility that comes with it.
As I mentioned in my last post, the only local ride that I could have done that I hadn't already done in the last few weeks was the Devils Dyke to Ditchling Beacon (and back) ride. This involves riding down the middle of the Dyke valley - absolutely great fun, I've got up to 30 mph down here before (slightly stupid, perhaps, given the terrain, but there you go!). But doing this when the ground was slippery would have been more like suicide! Secondly, I got lost up in the hills between the Dyke and the A23 last time, due to the poor visibility - not an experience I want to repeat!
So, no riding for me this weekend. Instead, fearing the withdrawal symptoms that I was already suffering getting worse, I took some photos of the other gear I use for riding, and made a new "Riding tools and accessories" Gallery page.
I mainly wanted to show off my new "Eurohike" backpack - this was a £10 special from Millets, but I was quite impressed by all the features, so thought I'd write about it.
On the post for my Brighton to Lewes and back ride, I forgot to say hi to the fellow Kona riders (think they were Cindercones, but not sure) who stopped to see if I was OK when I was trying to sort out my rattly Dawg.. I rode about half of the way from Lewes to the Beacon with them - nice chatting guys, hope you stumble across the site!
Wow - I'm really missing riding - had a lazy week, having got the bus to work and back every day, and so haven't been on a bike since Sunday. Will be riding over the weekend, no doubt, but it'll be on the Fire Mountain - the Dawg's going back in the shop on Saturday to sort out the excessive rattling I experienced on my last ride, which was just after a service.
In terms of site updates, I've added more content to the Routes page, and added a few more pictures to the "Miscellaneous" section.
This'll probably be the Devils' Dyke to Ditchling Beacon ride - I'm notoriously bad at getting lost on this one though - I tried doing it in incredibly foggy conditions, and messed it up quite badly ; )
Not very confidence inspiring, but I'll make sure the write-up is accurate!
He he - that was going to be it for today, but a chance look at my stats revealed that someone had found my site by searching for "all the gear no idea mtb" on Google UK - thought that was hilarious.. I might add that I do mention that term on the site, and it's not referring to the fact that I have no idea ; )
While I'm on the subject, I also got a referral for "paragliding at Devils Dyke" yesterday - to that person, my apologies for only having one picture! Once Google re-indexes this page I'll probably rank even better for it - doh!
Working in the internet (or "New Media", darling, as it's also called) industry, I find things like search term referrals quite interesting, so will be writing more about this kind of stuff later on.
Gotta go now though - a good weekend, all!
Have now added the Brighton --> Lewes --> Brighton route guide to the Routes section.
OK, I've captioned all the images in the Brighton --> Lewes --> Brighton gallery section. I've also put up a "Miscellaneous ride images" section. This just contains links to images that I've taken on my bike rides, but haven't been used for the gallery section for that ride.
Got a digital camera at the weekend, so naturally wanted to go for a bike ride to test it out! The model is a "Vivitar Vivicam 5105s", and is a 5 mega pixel model. Nothing flash, but can store up to 170 pictures at the lowest resolution on the 14MB of usable space it has as standard, which is ideal for me, as the pictures will mostly be for the web site. It can also take up to a 1GB SD card as well, so pretty expandable if / when required.
The ride was from Brighton to Lewes and back again, crossing the A27 at Lewes. The end of the off-road section was Ditchling Beacon; because I wanted to get home before sunset so I could wash the bike, I rode along the Beacon road back in to town, and went home from there, rather than continuing to Devils' Dyke over the hills.
The Brighton to Lewes to Brighton Gallery page is live, with the full route guide to follow soon.
Popped in to Halfords at the weekend, and noticed the 2006 Kona Fire Mountain in there. I couldn't help but look at the differences in spec with my 2003 model, and it got me wondering about the trends in MTB speccing.
I noticed several differences.. first, the disk brakes stood out a mile to me. The 2003 Fire Mountain was half classed by Kona as a commuting bike, rather than a full-on off-roader. It didn't even have disk brake tabs at the rear. The 2006 model has cable disk brakes.
The 2003 model had two suspension fork options, one of which was a Suntour, one a Rockshox Judy. The 2006 model has a Suntour model; not sure what features it includes etc.
OK, so pretty even at the moment.
The 2006 model has a Shimano Deore rear derailleur, the same as the 2003 model, but the front derailleur is downgraded to an SIS model; not sure if there's much difference in performance, but this is the model specced with the £200 Saracen Vice I bought before getting my Fire Mountain. I personally don't have evidence regarding whether longevity will be shorter than higher models, but something's gotta give - why else would there even be a model range? The 2003 model had an Acera or Alivio model, which I've heard referred to as the lowest model in the range capable of handling serious off-roading. The shifters are slightly lower down the model range than the Deores' found on the 2003 model.
So my point? I think there is a trend amongst MTB manufacturers towards downgrading certain items on bikes in the £4-500 price range in order to be able to be able to spec cable disk brakes (which are quite a 'pimpy' item to have, admittedly). I would personally prefer to have slightly upgraded core components, and for instance, V-brakes, with the option to upgrade to things like disk brakes in the future.
Just a quick post; I'd noticed that recently the front brake on my Kona Dawg mountain bike (Hayes HFX-9 hydraulic disk) has been seizing very slightly, and intermittently when riding; after speaking to my LBS, I can confirm that this is due to the cold weather, and is pretty standard on Hydraulic disk brakes. Thought I'd make a note of it, just in case anyone else was experiencing this, and worried that they needed a system bleed or something.
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