Splashing about in the Dales

Well the rain finally stopped after 8hrs solid down pour in Co Durham with many roads closed due to flooding. Off we headed to Dales Bike Centre just outside Reeth. We were booked in for the 10am session and Angus had a Orange FIVE 29er on demo. He has tried an Orange Alpine 160 26" @ Glentress and it was fantastic fun. Stu took us out as a group for a guided ride around some local tracks. A nice tarmac climb to gain some height and warm the legs up to start with then onto the offroad. The route was wet to say the least but not too muddy. He showed us a fantastic mix off all types of terrain from technical stoney singletrack to downhills and a lovely singletrack following the river back to Fremington. It was very humid and overcast with the sun just shinning through near the end of a 2hr ride. We were soaked, covered in mud but had a big smile. Arran was too little to go on the ride so i took him for a blast back along the road to Richmond to strech his legs out and did 10 miles. Here are some pics of the action

ee is that how you pump up a tyre

just testing, some carpark riding going on

some fine tuning of the forks

and ready to go

nearly 2hrs later and happy as larry

the Orange fleet linned up for some pics

ready for a wash

the FAT held its own but got dropped on some the descents

The Orange rep was spot and knew his stuff, he had a cracking ride and was eyeing up my FAT Bike. I did ask if Orange were thinking of doing one but he said it would take them to long to get one onto the market. But as he said many offer manufacturers are adding them to their 2014 range. Here is more pics here