Dusk til dawn imminent

Crikey. Metcheck currently predicting 300+ mph winds for the weekend!

I hope that's an error...

Monster

In a purchase justified by bike rationalisation and the sale of my previous cross bike, I now have a lovely brown Surly Cross Check. This has been built up in a more utilitarian manner than my previous bike, ridden to work and around the Lincolnshire countryside and down a few bridleways.

I saw an ad for some cheap 29er tyres a few weeks ago, and after a bit of research got them. The bike has now become a bit of a monster truck. Just took it out for a pootle round my local loop and it rolls straight over all the ruts, bumps and tractor tyre marks.

Big grin on my return.

Singletrack Weekender

As Joe said below it was ace again. I really need to a) get fit and b) practice on trails that are not fields :) Here is one of my DH runs. I took better lines in the race and didn't stop to look for a puncture either... ( i also need to sort out the shaky camera mount)

Singletrack Classic Weekender - Downhill Practice from MonkeyBoy on Vimeo.

12 Hours of Cumberland

Here's a race report from Fig Rolls Vancouver Island representative, Marc. Congratulations islanders!

Since the Vancouver lads were all off on other adventures I recruited some new racers, and we kicked arse. The format was the same, he who has the most laps wins.

We stuck to same plan as last year, with each rider doing a single lap. Dave took us out to a blistering start with a 35 min lap. The superb course was from miners, two and a juice, buggered big, short and curly, railroad connector, lower crafty, black hole, space nugget. I followed on the sh@t bike (which counts for two), unfortunately or fortunately the shit bikes were a little shitter this year and didn't play as big a role, my two laps were all we needed. One was size small the other was size rigid. The small was designed to blast your legs, the other without suspension was designed to shred your arms, the ridgid even came with ball bearings in the handle bars to remind you of every jarring bump. Trevor and Tylor matched pace and we off to a great start.

We took the lead early on and held it for the day. We squeaked out 20 laps in 11 hrs 28min. Giving us the most laps in our category and the most overall. Next were a couple of solo riders with 17! Those lads are machines.

All in it was an excellent tiring day.

Figrolls @ singletrack weekender

Video is bad quality i'm afraid!

Matt H up first but punctures, Duncan next then Matthew. Niki managed not to record me - must have been too fast.

2010 Season begins and a new team member is added

After a long silence, I thought I should post something to update what has been going on. After dusk til dawn 2009 i managed to get plenty of riding in - Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and a good amount of night riding over at Sherwood. A few decent length off road rides round the Lincolnshire Wolds too. Snow turned up, and made for some great rides.


After Christmas, some more riding and then all stop when the first of the next generation of Fig Rolls Racing appeared on January 24th - Jessica Margaret Lea.





In sympathy with her mother I appear to have been eating an extra 500 calories a day, only i am not feeding the baby. In this busy time very little riding has been done, although in quiet moments bearings have been replaced, forks sent away for servicing and products bought online.

I have become slightly more disciplined and managed a good few cycle commutes though. Riding is now mostly about using the previous 'dead' time to good effect. A few loops have been devised from my front door, and a new 'cross bike has somehow appeared in the garage, allowing more from the door riding but over a longer distance and making use of the tarmac between the rights of way. I did also have an entertaining encounter with a dog in the village...



As I realised that the first (of my 2) events this year is looming ever closer - The Singletrack Weekender - I thought I should step up the training. To this end I met up with Joe, Duncan, Nikki and Amelia in Hope and we set off on a training day. This was ace - I hadn't ridden in the Peak District for ages, and this was the first time on my little slack hardtail. I love it.

Did manage to make the damping on my forks leak though, but this has now been remedied.

After that, I have managed a few very flat local loops on the singlespeed, and the cross bike is now ready for an outing, just as i am on call for a week and have picked up a cold from a sharing colleague.

I am really looking forward to the Weekender, and hopefully after that I can get my self in gear for some longer rides ready for another go at soloing Dusk til Dawn in October.

The Taste of Success

Fig Rolls (Canada) were in action in the Comox Valley Snow to Surf Relay at the weekend and scored 12th place overall... 1st place in the Open Mixed category. Better even than that... the medals were chocolate.

Paul has a bunch of great photos here. For the record, the protagonists were:

Alpine ski - Paul "115mm underfoot" Palfreyman
XC Ski - Nikki "fast haircut" Licht
1st run - Kala "new recruit" O'Riordain
2nd run - Angie "escape from the books" White
Mountain bike - Marc "race face/captain power" Power
Kayak - Johnny "leaky boat" George
Road bike - Jacek "freaked out by road bikes/freak of nature" Doniec
Canoe - Lina "engine" Augaitis and Andrew "rudder" Dye

North Vancouver Dirty Duo 2010

Spring is here in Vancouver... and that means mud, snow, and rain. Yeah! Lina and I had a great race in the Dirty Duo on Saturday and I wrote about it here. We got 2nd place in the mixed run / bike relay! Photos below from Don... via the Dirty Duo website.

Downhill Racing in Lincolnshire

Steve, Duncan and Matt came over to Market Rasen yesterday for a mini DH race. As I am on Baby Standby duty it had been deemed sensible for me not to race, so I did a bit of filming. Here it is...

Market Rasen Mini DH from MonkeyBoy on Vimeo.