CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure

Innapropriate offroading

(7 posts)

No tags yet.


  1. Darkerside
    Member

    Joined a group of others for some trail riding in Hamsterley Forest (down by Durham) on Saturday. All on mountain bikes of some description except muggins here on the do-everything, racks front and back, semi-slick tyred utility bike. Which only had two working cogs on the rear cassette because I'd been cheap and only replaced the chain (lesson learnt...)

    And it was great! I think I'd have suffered more if the mud had been worse, but it got up and down everything the bouncy-bike people did even with an off-road novice like me on top. Even got it off the ground completely a few times. Highly recommended.

    Now hunting for suitable off-roady stuff nearby. I've also added a singlespeed, rigid 29er to the list of 'bikes that I'd like if I but had the space'. Surly Ogre or similar...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. Darkerside
    Member

    Ahem, *inappropriate*

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Actually, following the Cyclocross theory, if it had been thin=ck mud the skinny tyres may have performed better (although better if they have knobbles on for that).

    I see you jumped in on the typo before anyone else did... ;)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. steveo
    Member

    I did something similar a couple of weeks ago. I thought the route beside one of the reservoirs in the pentlands was paved. Spent the next 5 minutes gingerly picking my way down a really potholed dirt track with my carbon forked 23c slick tyred road bike... Good fun though definitely the wrong tool for the job.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. tj
    Member

    You should add an On-one Inbred to that list. Great bike that will do just about anything. I've commuted on mine for 4 years, toured with it (both with a rack and with a trailer) and it's been up and down Glentress and other trails countless times. Not having suspension forks it's great racing everyone else to the top, but you do sometimes have to check if your teeth are still in when you've got to the bottom....

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. Darkerside
    Member

    I think carbon would have been a bit risky! I was full steel...

    The only real problem I had was grounding the crankset and mudflaps on some of the rockier drops. I ended up considerably cleaner than everyone else as well.

    As an aside was also the first test for the helmet camera (dogcam bullet wide). Impressed how well it coped with light/dark. Video very slightly jumpy at times, but that could be the cheap memory card

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. AKen
    Member

    I only have the one bike, whose main role is commuting, so my frequent trips up to the Pentlands are done on a hybrid with full mudguards, semi-slick tyres and an absence of any realy low gears.

    It's usually not a problem but, on the bumpy downhill bits, the lack of any front shocks means I have to pick my line very carefully and keep the speed down. Going up's not too much of a problem but I can't manage the hill up from Bonaly Car Park - no low gear means the slick tyres just spin in the loose gravel. The hill up to Bavelaw Castle is tarmaced so that's fine and the slicks are welcome when cycling up on-road through Currie.

    I did have to give up and carry it for several sections of the path leads to Listonshiels (the one that continues straight on where the road to the North of the Red Moss nature reserve nr Thriepmuir turns sharply North) - too much mud.

    Posted 12 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin