Hitting the trail

I dusted off the mountain bike today and hit the trails through Shepherd's Hill Park with my son, Miles. It was only five kilometres or so but it was a reasonable workout with a few steep hills to get over, some of which we had to walk up.

It was a nice area to ride through, albeit a little wet and muddy in spots after a bit of rain this week. We had to hop off a few times to negotiate muddy creek beds, but generally the track was pretty good. My mountain bike skills are terrible though - I don't have a lot of confidence. We both need to do a bit more of it and build up some skills. If I end up following through with my plan to do the Mawson Trail sometime over the next year, I'll definitely need to get plenty of km's on dirt under my belt. Anyway here's some pics:

We did a bit of a walk around at the end of the Viaduct Track, which ends at the Belair train line. We hiked up the hill and did the 'Stand By Me' thing and walked along the tracks for a bit, then into the tunnel.

 

Overall, it was a pretty nice way to spend an hour or two and I think we'll be doing a bit more of this, especially given that we have so many trails nearby.

Some carbon bling

I've been quite content with my road bike which I put together about 18 months ago. Given our lack of disposable funds for my cycling habit, I built up an old Scott AFD aluminium frame from the mid 2000's that I got off Ebay with mostly Shimano 105 components that I acquired along the way. I'm quite happy with the geometry and the fit - it has a fairly long head tube so I can sit relativley upright which suits me with my back issues. I don't obsess too much about the bike fit thing. I'm inclined to think that if you are in the ball park with the frame size, you can fiddle around with different stem lengths and angles, seat heights and get it right. Mind you, I've never had a professional bike fit so I probably don't know what I'm talking about. I just put the seat as high as I can manage, adjust the handlebar to a height so that my back isn't too uncomfortable, then set the seat so my sit bones are across the widest part of the seat. It's fairly simplistic but it seems to work okay bacause I feel quite comfortable on the bike. My lower back is always an issue - I don't think any amount of bike fitting will change that - but I can generally still manage to walk upright after 4 or 5 hours in the saddle.

Anyway, the main problem with my frame (as with most aluminium frames) is that the ride is a bit on the harsh side. I fitted a carbon fork with a carbon steerer which made the front end a bit less skitty, but I still tend to feel every bump and roads with any sort of rough surface can be a bit of a pain. I've fancied getting a carbon fibre frame for a while because of it's 'laterally stiff yet vertically compliant' qualities (ie. it doesn't flex much when you pedal hard so all the power gets through to the back wheel, but it gives a bit when you go over bumps, absorbing some of the harshness). However, a new carbon fibre bike or a just a frame is out of my price range. I've been looking secondhand for the last six months or so and everything has either been the wrong size, too expensive or too crappy. I'm also bit concerned about buying secondhand CF in case there's any cracks etc., so I'm not keen on buying anything from interstate that I cant see first.

On Saturday a frame popped up on Gumtree. It was a large size Malvern Star Oppy Le Mauco full carbon frame, fork and headset, advertised for $300. It was from the first range of Malvern Star bikes that were relaunced on to the market in 2008 and the Le Mauco was the top of the range Dura-Ace equipped model, selling for around $4000. It was well reviewed and considered to be great value for money at the time and they got Phil Anderson to promote it, riding it around for a while extolling it's virtues. Looking at the opinions expressed at the time there seemed to be a bit of bike snobbery about Malvern Star, given that historcally it's been such a ubiqitous bike brand in Australia (undoubtedly the most recognised Australian bike brand - bit like Raleigh in England). Anyway, they're still around and making pretty good, well reviewed bikes.

So I rang up about it and the guy explained that there was a tiny crack in the white paint on one of the rear stays. He was working in a bike shop when he bought it back in 2008 and this was evidently a common problem with this model and, although there was no stuctural problems, the distributor still replaced the affected frames as a goodwill thing. Given this information I had my doubts about it, but still decided to go and have a look. It was in pretty good condition, with not a lot of use or abuse (nor any sign of a crash) evident. I had a close look at the crack, flexed the rear stay in and out to see if the crack opened up, which it didn't. I also did some research on paint cracks on carbon fibre and apparently it's not uncommon. Anyway, he seemed like a good guy and I satisfied myself that it was worth taking a punt on the frame, so we haggled and I got it for $275. I'm still not sure if I've done the right thing - I'll just keep an eye on it. Anyway, I built it up on Saturday night using the components from the Scott. Most of the bits date from around the same time as the frame (Shimano 5700 series shifters and derailluers, Ultegra calipers and FSA Gossamer compact crankset) which is a good thing. It looks a treat:

I took it for a short spin on Sunday and it's very nice. It's lighter (but still a tad over 9kg because my components aren't exactly light) and is significantly smoother than the old frame. To try it out I went up the Veloway back down again. The path is quite rough and the decent can be bit hairy in spots but it was so much smoother than the old bike. I straight away felt confident and comfortable on it, which is a good sign. I'm looking forward to taking it out next weekend for a longer ride. The fit is pretty good. The head tube is a bit shorter than the old bike but still not too extreme so my riding position is relatively relaxed. And so am I.

Autumn

It's been a couple of months since I've updated this. It's been relatively uneventful from a cycling point of view. After recovering from the broken ribs, I got into a nice routine of daily commuting for six weeks or so. 

I've built up a commuter bike out of parts I had laying around. I was commuting on the Giant CRX2 but we had a change of bike storage arrangements at work - I had always stored my bike in our storeroom but we received a memo advising that bikes being brought into the building apparently constituted a safety hazard and it could no longer happen. The bike racks out the front of work don't have a great theft record so I was disinclined to leave my fairly expensive Giant out there all day, every day. I had an old Avant Montari mountain bike frame with rigid forks hanging in the shed along with some 26" wheels with skinny road tyres, so I built it up as a 7 speed (no need for the front derailluer) with racks, mudguards etc. for commuting. Anyway it's great fun - nice and light and easy to chuck in the back of the car every day and I dont have to worry much about it getting knocked about. All the bits I used probably cost no more than around $140, so I'm fairly happy with that. Here it is...

I'm less happy about being off the bike yet again. I injured my back three weeks ago - I'm still not 100% sure about what happened. I think it occurred when I picked up Ruby's heavy schoolbag one morning and twisted a bit while I did it. I didn't notice it at the time but when I dropped her at school and got my bike out of the car, it was pretty tender. However, I rode to work regardless which, in hindsight, was not wise. I could hardly move when I got off the bike at work, it was spasming so badly. I bought the bike inside, hobbled slowly down to the nearest tram stop and went straight home. As I've probably mentioned before here, I've been prone to lower back issues since having a herniated disc around 12 years ago. I used to tweak it on a fairly consistent basis but it's been better since I've taken up cycling - I suspect it's because my core has strengthened. Anyway I haven't hurt it for around 18 months now, but I certainly made up for lost time  - I was so sore I had to take four days off work. From past history, it takes around four weeks before it feels better. Anyway it's still not 100% but it's improved enough to jump back in the saddle and start commuting to work again today.

We're staying down at Port Elliot in the school holidays (three weeks away) with our friends, the Kelly's, and I intend to do some rides whilst there. My fitness level has dropped over the couple of months, so I  need to start putting some work into my legs between then and now. I haven't been a total slug - I've done a couple of decent rides since I last wrote. We stayed at Mannum for a week in the last school holidays and I did a nice ride out to Palmer. The road out there was straight and not wildly exiting but the climb up Palmer Hill was good fun and a fairly reasonable work out. Beyond Palmer Hill the road stays quite windy through to Birdwood/Mt Pleasant etc or back towards Adelaide through Lobethal/Norton Summit or Woodside/Balhannah. It's all looks like pretty good riding through there but on this occasion I was conscious of not disappearing on my bike for 5 hours when were on holidays, so I reached the top of the hill, turned around and headed back to Mannum. Here's some pics...

Cometh the pipeline, cometh the bike - heading towards Palmer from Mannum

Heading up Palmer Hill

...further up the hill...

...and heading back down

The other notable ride was a run down to Willunga and back last month. I had another shot at the big hill and tried to focus on pacing myself better. I'd always tried take it easy early on in the climb, fearful that I'll run out of puff at the end. However, I've been feeling like I've been leaving a bit too much in reserve, so I'm trying to go out a bit harder on climbs. On this ocassion the first km was relativley quick (for me) - I did tire towards the end of the climb but I still managed to knock a bit off my best time, despite being in noticably worse shape that the last attempt.

While I was at home recovering from my back injury (and in a slightly valium induced haze) I started day dreaming about riding the Mawson Trail. The Mawson Trail is a series of connected and signposted tails, fire tracks, back roads etc. that stretch from Adelaide to Blinman in the Flinders Ranges - a total of 900km. I started reading a bunch of blogs and stories about people who've done it and it's fired up my imagination. It won't happen in a hurry - there's a fair amount of planning and training involved and I'll need to allow three weeks to do it, which will mean taking long service leave. I'll need to spend a fair amount of time on my mountain bike (which I hardly ever ride) and do some shorter two or three day trips, maybe even on some of the Mawson Trail segments closer to Adelaide. There's also the Kidman Trail which runs from Willunga to the Barossa which, at around 250km, might be be good to try first. Anyway, that's the plan.