Of technology, eBay and mobile phones

For some time I've lusted after a topographical sat nav system called Satmap. I've always considered it far too expensive figuring it would weigh in at somewhere in the region of £450. Bear that in mind for a moment.

I've often marvelled at the technological advances in the last 20 years, that have lead to the point where you can trade easily over internet, with sites like eBay and through companies own webpages. And particularly that now that you can do it from a mobile phone! It's nothing short of miraclulous, even to me, an IT professional, especially when I think back to my first mobile phone in the early 90's, which doubled as a handy pocket sized lump hammer or offensive weapon!

Well it came into it's own the other evening when I sat in bed and (possibly tired) I bought, on a bit of a whim, a Satmap off eBay! I saved £100 off the RRP and I reckon I can peel another £25-£40 off the maps and accessories I'll eventually get for it. But I'm still concerned this rather expensive whim is a bit hard to justify.

The whim was not entirely without provocation. I currently use a cheap PDA with a bluetooth GPS reciever and a copy of Memory Map to do the same job. However, it's clunky and unreliable. It's prone to crashing and letting me down when I need it most. It's not waterproof or shockproof (which the Satmap is). Just recently I went through an annoying spell of occurrances of it letting me down and was only just short of drop kicking it into the depths of one of the welsh forests. So, there's my justification, however weak!! I'll post up how I get on with it.

Maybe this is a case of that old issue I have when I get bored - I buy things! I had a very minor fall about 2 weeks ago in Brechfa Forest and hurt my ribs (again!). It didn't stop me doing my Gap Road ride last week, but I have been somewhat uncomfortable at times. I obviously have some sort of weakness there, so with that in mind have resolved to back off with the trail centre riding. I'll do some more gentle stuff like perhaps a little commuting and then some gentle XC riding (the Satmap should come into it's own then).

The Brecon Beacons Gap Road

One to tick off the list for me. I did this ride some 16 years ago with my brother. Revisiting it means that I have completed all but one of my most significant rides I did in the early days and I can carry on where I left off mountain biking as a kid!

The Gap is an old Roman mountain road through the Beacons. We started from Pontsticill Reservoir and climbed up to the mountain pass, past dozens of squadies on exercise! Through the pass is an awesome rocky descent down natural rock steps then onward on a long gradual bone shaking clatter down to the farmland below. We took in a couple of bridleways and a canal towpath on the way round the roads to Talybont-on-Usk, where we had a cracking pub lunch in the Star Inn.

The final leg was a never ending climb from 125m up the old Brinmore Tramway and onto the hilltops, eventually topping off at about 520m. Down off the top was another rocky descent to the Reservoir and the car park where the midges there truely insane!! Grinning was the order of the day!! :-)

It's an interesting track for me from another point of view as I last came here in my Suzuki Samurai. I find it sad to see lanes like this so heavily restricted to vehicles. This particular road can easily sustain vehicular traffic and now all it's usage is compressed into about 10 weeks of the year. I loathe this outlawing of the 4x4 as it just punishes those who were law abiding. You won't stop the renegade element especially on dirt bikes.

Kona Mash-up

Just realised I never said how I got on in the Mash-up. Well, it was, for me, a very satisfying 54th out of 219 (The official results sheet has a numbering error in it and shows me as 52nd overall, but there were 2 girls faster than me making me 54th out of the total 219). I never expected such a result! I compared very favourably with some of my friends who I considered as very superior benchmarks. I'm thinking of getting a Gravity Dropper seatpost which would have allowed me to adjust seat height on the fly. I reckon that would have easily saved a few seconds on all my times and given me another half dozen or so places :-) Am I taking it too seriously!? :-D

The Pentre Ifan burial chamber

I visited this burial site as little detour at the backend of my Preseli Mountains route. It's a 3 and a half thousand year old neolithic dolmen. It's one of Wales' largest and best preserved. This is the roof balanced apparently, precariously on it's vertical supports. Originally it would have been covered with an exterior made from dry stone walling.

Pentre Ifan with Carningli Common in the background


A 16 ton stone slab supported by three upright stones. How!? 3500 years ago! How!?


Pentre Ifan framing Carningli common.

More Preseli Mountain Photos

This time I'm Uploading these from my PC rather than my phone. It's easier and I can format the posts better.

The view over Cwm Gwaun from Cerrig Lladron.


The descent into Bwlch Ungwr and Carnmenyn beyond it.


Carn Bica


The (badly stitched) panorama of Foel Cwmcerwyn and Foel Feddau from Carn Sian.

Preseli Mountains photos

The peak on the left is Foel Cwmcerwyn 526m. My route took of onto the shoulders of that peak at about 480m then down and up onto the 467m summit of Foel Feddau on the right.

Preseli Mountains photos

The route forward over the next two peaks. Not actually as daunting as it looks here!

Preseli Mountains photos.

Looking back from the shoulders of Cerrig Lladron towards Carningli Common along the way I'd come, and knowing I'd started from Newport just the other side, I got a huge sense of achievement. Especially considering it felt like there was a lot further to go.

A true epic

Rode the Preseli ridge bridleway today. What an awesome route. I started in Newport village centre and headed up alongside Carningli Common, which is an impressive rocky outcrop on the end of the ridge above Newport. The route took me down into a valley via a scary fast, lightly technical bridleway. Speed and lack of foresight resulted in a minor tangle with a closed gate! Then I began the big climb into the Preselis. Often pushing, I made the partial ascent of Cerrig Lladron, then skirted round the summit before dropping a little down to the road through the pass.

Roughly following the bridleway I climbed and pushed my way onto the shoulder of Foel Cwmcerwyn, before dropping into the saddle between and climbing the next peak, Foel Feddau. Here was a stunning view (pictured) and lunch!

A superb descent followed, where I re-learnt how trail centres have a predictability about them that you can never rely on out in the wild. Several times I flew over ditches and sheep hollows without seeing them until the very last moment!

After a tortuous push up Carn Sian I was greeted by the humbling splendor of Carn Bica. Now I felt as though the return leg was about to begin. A pair of fast but technically demanding descents down to the car park at the north eastern end of the ridge kind of marked the end, now I was to tire.

After that came a rather annoying traverse around Foel Drygarn which was worsened by a boggy descent to a gravel track. The descent down the track, however, was worth doing.

Now was a mostly tired tarmac trudge back to Newport. However I opted to do a detour via the Pentre Ifan burial chamber and a bridleway down through the Pentre Ifan woods. And what a worthwhile detour it was too! Finally, after a mainly downhill tarmac sprint I made Newport feeling tired, dehydrated and on a high! I only wish I'd made Newport earlier and found a cafe to chil out in and get my breathe back. Maybe next time ;-)

Nostalgia!!

Found an ancient GT Avalanche in Newport village in West Wales yesterday. My first significant bike was one of these with an early set of Rock Shox Mag 20 forks. It was propped up outside a shop and belonged to a foreign girl who rather embarrassingly turned up while I was photographing her bike!! I guess she correctly assumed I was a loon, despite inarticulate attempts to explain I had one 15 years ago and that it brought back fond memories!!

This one was the fully rigid version with adjustable geometry forks. It has had luggage racks, a narrower bar and adjustable stem fitted. I don't think they started life with Shimano XT components, I think that's a later addition.

Idyllic!!

This is the view from the front veranda of our cottage. They don't have Afan Argoed, but they have some stunning coastal views!!

Hankering after the Preselis

Everywhere I go I seem to get a view of the Preseli Mountains. i know there's some good riding in them thar hills, but I'm not sure where exactly. Still, the hankering may yet drive me to give the Preselis a try before the holiday's out.

A thisiswhy moment.

Did a 40km XC ride around the north of Cardigan today. And what a corker, great weather, good trails. And what's more, I'm not feeling too bad post-ride. Makes a change from Sunday's ride. I've been experimenting with energy bars and recovery drinks and when I got back Sunday I came down with a blinding headache and was actually sick. Not sure what caused it, but I suspect it was good old fashioned dehydration. If not that then it would be the Zipvit recovery drink but I doubt it.

(www.thisiswhy.co.uk)

Afon Doethie and Cwm-y-Rhaiadr - the perfect combo.

Some mates and I met up yesterday and rode the Doethie Valley/Llyn Brianne loop. Lots of gravel road climbing then the superb Doethie Valley singletrack bridleway. After that we headed down the road to the Cwm-y-Rhaiadr trail centre. The 7km feature rich red loop is a perfect finish to the day if you've got the legs for it!! The picture was taken near the top where the view is fantastic.

What was really good was that when I organised this, I thought only 2-3 of us would show up. As it happened there were 6 of up which made for a superb day out.

I'm spending a week in West Wales. So planning a number of XC rides in the area. Should be a superb week.

More Kona Mash-up pictures.

My Bike


Couple of my friends on the long haul back from the Black Run


Me


One of my friends shifting on a retro mid 90's championship downhill bike.


Another of my friends shifting!

Photos courtesy of EvilGoose.

And we all got mashed up!!

I went for it! I rode the Kona Mash-up. My first race in something like 17 years!! It was excellent I feel I can hold my head high. Through sheer balls out speed I managed to clock an absolutely superb time down the Black Run, in one attempt. I had 2 attempts at each of the other 2 sections and rode them at 100%. So I should have respectable times off those too.

The picture is from the refueling station at the summit. The atmosphere up there was electric, I loved it!! Our little gang is in the photo. They suffered quite a few problems. Falls, punctures and worse of all timing problems, with the chips not triggering the detector. They still didn't get that fully right in spite of last year's problems.

Think I can do it.

Looks like I will be OK enough to ride the Mash-up. Disappointingly I won't be on top form, but I think I'll give it a whirl.

Whites Bites!!

Went up Whites Level on Sunday to scope out some lines for the Mash-Up. At this point I'd been up and down the Black Run a couple of times and produced good consistent times. Shortly after this on the first of an intended 2 runs on Windy Point I stacked it, AGAIN!!

After a short while licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself and mad with myself in turns, I pressed on down to Glyncorrwg Ponds. I did manage to push it a little along Darkside, just to try and make sure I was still "on the horse". Again considering I wasn't fully in the zone the time was OK.

By now (Monday) I'm hurting all over! And I'm really concerned I won't be OK to ride the Mash-UP!!

Kona Mash-Up

Finally decided to take the plunge and put my name down for the Kona Mash-Up. I've had my eye on it for weeks and eventually managed to test my times on Whites at the weekend. My times were respectable compared to last years, so I figured it was worth giving it a shot. "Respectable" to me is 3rd quartile. I know the competition should hot up this after the Mash-ups good reviews last year, however I'm still hopeful for a respectable finish. If I can get a 2nd quartile finish I'll wet myself!

It'll be interesting to see how much my competitive spirit will drive me. It's 17 or 18 years since I last competed in a mountain biking event. In those days I was following the cross country scene and the competitiveness exhibited itself as pushing the bounds of fitness. This is like a downhill event and whilst fitness will play a major part, sheer balls and bike skills will be much more at the fore than in an XC event. I shall get up to Whites and scope some lines before the event!

Chilling with my Bro and enjoying some apres-bike!

My Brother came across to Glyncorrwg for the day and the pair of us schralped Whites. It was a cracking sunny say, way too hot really and we had a good blast. In the pic: my brother's very gorgeous S-Works Enduro and my Pitch Pro. We got down to catch my brothers friend as he left the Big Welsh Weekend in Margam Park. Incidentally, his friend was winner of the Veteran 100km class, David Hayward. Winning with a decisive and impressive effort.

Why is it I have to make more returns than an ageing rock star!!?

After a fair bit of deliberation I am now the owner of a DT Swiss EX5.1 wheel with a Hope Pro II hub. It cost just over £90 from Wiggle, a whopping £70 cheaper than my local bike shop. How the hell do they stay in business?! And, despite my numerous attempts to point out to them that enthusiasts like me will always look at the internet, they never make any attempt to seriously discount their prices for the likes of me. I wonder if they wonder if they could get more high end customers through the door?

I've had 2 weeks now recovering from that very nasty spill I had on Whites, I'm still feeling slightly sore in places, but worst of all I think my confidence is down. Despite this, I've decided that as long as I can get some fitness in and can produce some non-embarrassing times, I shall compete in the Kona Mashup in 3 weeks!! Deluded? Maybe!

Managed to ride to work as a first ride out yesterday, and as usual for me pushed it as hard as I could. It, for sure , knocked me for six! I'm knackered! It's bank holiday weekend, so I shall get a couple of not-too-ambitious rides out of the weekend. Hopefully, here begins a period of enjoyable biking!

Fan-freakin-tastic!!

I was so looking forward to this ride, but a combination of not being used to a stiffer fork spring, not being on top of my game and a little bravado led to this! I hit a 7 foot wide table top on Whites, in the Energy section, far too fast and cleared it rather spectacularly!! I landed heavily on the front wheel and wrecked it and nearly wrecked myself in the process. I'm bruised all up my left side and can barely walk. Gutted!!

Gonna schralp Whites!

Got the go ahead to use my gammy leg again, it's healed. So the Merthyr Mauler and I are going to take a spin around Whites. Can't wait!!

This really was an off!!

Back in February, I happened across an incident on Whites Level. It found it's way into my blog, and I wished the guy well and figured I'd never know anything more about it. Well it turns out it was a guy named Chris Halshaw and it was nasty, but he did at least win some 661 body armour from MBR magazine!! Chris should you ever read this - best of luck fella hope you recovered well!!

The boredom of recovery

This is what I'm reduced to, while I wait for my leg to heal! I've bought all sorts of bits and bobs over the last few days. It's a sort of fantasy mountain biking along with mucking about with routes some of which I may never ride. I bought a set of decent Park Tools allen keys and some bike stickers off ebay. I got some new wet lube to try and treated my self to Lezyne trail tool. I'm a sucker for a nicely engineered tool or part! I've said it before "Boredom is the marketeers' ally"!

In fairness these were all things I needed (except for the stickers perhaps!) I've not tried Finish Line's wet lube and the trail tool and the chain tool I have is a bit cheap and nasty, so I went for a quality combined one. I desperately need quality allen keys, so it's not money wasted.

I also decided to buy an RRP Neoguard. It's a superb idea that's been round since at least the early 90's (I think some think/claim it's new idea - it ain't!!) I've always been a fan of the old inner tube fix (especially considering RRP's rrp is £15) (Did you see what I did there? Did you like it!!??) However, someone made the point to me, why stick a tatty old bit of inner tube to £1200 bike right where you're going to see it, when you can do something neat for £14 . So, I've capitulated and come round to the idea. As you can see it is neater, and whilst it's OK to use tatty inner tube on my tatty old forks, it's worth doing on my new steed.

£14 was as cheap as I could find a Neoguard (including postage). Certain desirable niche products very rarely come up on eBay, but a Neoguard was on there the other day. It said it was used but he'd bought the wrong size. So one assumes it's not too tatty. I put a bid in, up to £11+ including postage - I thought maybe a little over the top considering it might turn out to be grubby and used. When I checked later on, after the auction closed, some idiot had bid it right up to inside of £1 from the cost of a new one - blithering idiot! If you happen to read this, mate - every offence is meant - you're dumb! You've taken a risk of buying someone's tat for the sake of a few pence.

The nightly ritual!

I'm starting to enjoy this nightly soak!! It started of as a bit of a chore, but it's actually quite therapeutic! Every night I have to soak my bad leg in salt water and redress it. And along with the antibiotics it seems to be working. The wound's healing now at a rate of knots and the infection looks beat. The hope now is to be back on the bike in time for a reunion weekend with my college pals at the May bank holiday. Then I can take the bike with me (and my pads!!) and do a ride around the Cotswolds. Fingers crossed!!

Random bike routes

MBR threw darts at a map to decide where to ride. Pa!! I was doing that years ago! In fact my method is far more high-tech. I use a spreadsheet to generate random OS grid refs and then I plot a route between them. Once-upon-a-time it was done with a map and pencil. Nowadays, I use a combination of Memory Map (1:50000 OS maps), online 1:25000 maps on the OS website, wheresthepath.co.uk to link aerial photos with OS maps, and GPSies.com or bikely.com.

MBR, I laugh at your feeble attempts! As it happens they ended up with 2 pretty rubbish routes. That can happen, you have to exercise a little pragmatism. It won't work if your start and finish cross a large town or city, etc. Discard such attempts! I've created some quite good routes this way in the past. Think I'll give it whirl again. :)

Hopefully it's a case of it gets worse before it gets better!!

Oozing mess update!

Don't google "debriding wounds" if you have a graze. After several rather shocking minutes in Google Images I resolved to see the Doc in the morning! I'm sure I'm not about to lose my leg to necrotising fasciitis, but I'm not letting this wound go any further, un-checked.

Mental note: Gotta wear pads!!!

Hurts! Ow!! :(

Feeling like I'm as good as recovered, I head for the hills. Part way through a spin around Penhydd, on probably the least difficult bit, Desolation, I came off in in a dazzling display of ineptitude!! And oh boy does it smart now!! The really stupid thing was I didn't put my pads on, they were still strapped to my back. Just to drive the point home, as I hit the deck the pads launched out of my pack, and being tethered to the pack, they swung round and clouted me in the face. Pee'd off!! :(

GPS map fest!

A bit of self indulgence: My Pembrokshire Coastal MTB routes and my Sarn Helen Route (so far):









And one of my Pont-Rhyd-y-Groes routes:

My Cleeve Common Route.

MBR's Doethie Valley route on GPSies

Farewell Bikely.com, long live GPSies.com!

Just discovered this site GPSies.com. Previously I used Bikely.com to post up routes, which was OK. But GPSies is brilliant. Absolutely loaded with features in comparison to Bikely. With Bikely you got the distinct impression that the development had gone as far as they were prepared to take it. MBUK/bikeradar magazine had taken over the site, but development and changes were slow to non-existent. GPSies appears to be streets ahead of Bikely in development terms - I love it!

Blood

I'm not well at the moment, so I thought I'd put up a post about something other than mountain bikes. Problem is, all ever think about is ..... mountain bikes!! So, I'm scratching around for inspiration, I'm ill at the moment and not really well enough to do anything useful; random mouse clicking is about all I can manage! Then, this (above) comes through the door - inspiration!

I suffer from a very real dislike of hypodermic needles. I gave blood once about 15 or more years ago. Since then I became rather unfit and tended to feel, rather bizarrely and inexplicably, that the lack of fitness and the act of giving blood were somewhat incongruous. I know, it doesn't make sense! Perhaps it was all connected to fearing needles. Since being a bit fitter, I've shaken that bizarre idea, and started to think it's the right thing to do; I should do it; and you never know, one day I could need the favour returning. So, a couple of months before Christmas, when the donor service turned up at work, I plucked up the courage (aided by the fact that it was a spur of the moment thing) and I gave blood.

Then Christmas came and I got the most horrible cold/flu and chest infection, the worst I've had in years. Again, a little irrationally I started to think along the lines of I wonder if giving blood has lowered my immunity? I wonder if I wouldn't have had it so bad if I hadn't given blood? Well, now I've got another cold and I can't believe it! It doesn't seem 5 minutes since I shook the one I had at Christmas. I haven't given blood recently, so it's not that, perhaps being fit isn't good for you!!

Of course, the colds and infections going around at the moment are bad ones. Giving blood may have a small marginal affect on your immunity straight afterwards, but I'm sure it's not significant. I will give blood again. My dislike of needles is not one of those completely debilitating irrational phobias; it can be overcome. It's just like being a mountain biker whose a little nervous of precipitous drops, but is capable of hurling himself down them anyway (and enjoying it)!!

On a different note - check out Sage Cattabriga-Alosa's Blog for some superb POV video of his antics - what a lifestyle that guy has!

It all came together tonight!

Had a blast round Penhydd tonight with a mate, D. It was nice to start the ride in daylight, but by the top we needed the lights.

The last few weeks of riding have culminated in me being right up there on top form (for me!). It felt like I absolutely nailed Penhydd's singletrack and the climbs were really coming easy.

Saw quite a few other riders out, which is kind of reassuring.

Finished on Argoed with rear puncture. Mental note to oneself: if you have a slow puncture let it down completely before lashing the bike to the bike rack. By the time I got to Port Talbot the tyre was completel flat and bike was moving round on the rack like caged animal with an escape route! Not nice.

Won't be needing lights for too much longer!

The nights are showing that steady reassuring process of drawing out. I love this time of year. Looking forward to evenings running around Clyne Woods without worrying about what's just out of sight of the lights and whether the next mud hole will throw me off or not.

Had an XC run around south east Gower last night. The nighttime views were beautiful, shame it was so windy. Cf the picture above of my Ay Up lights to a previous photo of my old Electron ones.

http://pilau-turds.blogspot.com/2008/02/nice-shot-of-my-scott-in-dark.html
http://pilau-turds.blogspot.com/2008/02/city-lights-at-night.html

Pushed hard and ache like hell today!!

Sweet natural singletrack

Rode the Doethie Valley today. MBR described it as some of Britain's sweetest natural singletrack. They may well be correct!! We started from the Llyn Brianne reservoir carpark (by the dam). We were greated by a vista to die for.

Then across the dam into a nice gradual main climb out of the Llyn Bianne valley - the perfect warm-up. Then we left the forestry for a lairy "screaming downhill" gripless gravel road down to Soar y Mynydd Chaple at the head of one of Llyn Brianne's tributries.

For some reason this sparked a decidedly Japenese moment as we all got the cameras out and went mad!!

From Soar y Mynydd a tough climb up and over the hill to the Doethie valley. At the top we were afforded a stunning view again and a look at the steep sided precipitous Doethie Valley ("we're riding down that!")

Then an excellent floaty rocky track downhill to the junction into the Doethie (I think I snapped a couple of teeth off my big chainring here :-( ). Then the main event - flowing singletrack interspersed with natural challenges like streams, boggy patches, washed away tracks etc. even the odd natural rock garden and jump. If it were trail centre they'd have designed it to be predominantly downhill, but as it was natural there was the odd short sharp climb chucked in, which just killed me flat!

Finally a horrible climb back over to Llyn Brianne. A really good day out. We NEARLY went mad and did Cwm-y-Rhaiadr trail centre on the way home :-/ !!

I'll be back!

Geek challenge

.

Current little project - get this little lot talking to each other. It's a Sony Ericsson K530i phone with an HGE-100 GPS reciever & Tracker software and an HP Ipaq 2200 (I think) with Memory May installed.

Of course it may not be possible to get them talking for on-the-trail use. But I'd settle for having the ability to record tracks, download them to the PC and convert them into Memory Map.

So far, I've got to the point where I can download the file to the PC and Convert the first 500 trackpoints into MM. I used GPSU software to do that, but I need to pay 40 bucks to get more than 500 converted. That's more than I want to spend.

What I have seen so far is that the Tracker software has a finite limit to the number of points it can store. However, it's significantly more accurate than my current Garmin GPS II+. We'll see how it goes.

Christening

I think I can call the Pitch properly christened, following this weekend's spin round Penhydd. The rain/sleet/snow was atrocious and the gritty Afan mud got everywhere. It took 8 buckets of water to wash all my kit!!