Spittal to Holy Island ride

School hol week so decided to have a short break away @ Ord House, Berwick. Stayed here many times before and is a fantastic site with top notch facilities etc. It was hit and miss if we were going to make it as both Angus and myself have been laid up with suspected e.coli bug and i can tell you its not pleasant. We both caught it from the same source at the same time and it took about a week it work its way into our system, lets put it this way i would rather have case of food posining than this and the docs cannot do nothing until a min of 7-10 days after you start showing the signs. Anyway with emergency rations of bog roll etc we were off. It was on our last day when Angus was showing signs of some colour back in his face we decided to have a very gentle spin out from Spittal promenade along the costal path to Holy Island causeway. From there the tide was out so had a ride over to Lindisfarne Island for some lunch. We did the same route last year but this time there was less head wind, more visibility and warmer so was a more pleasant ride. Below are some photos from the ride - enjoy

 

Pearl Izumi Tour Series - Durham - Photos

I have attended this event every year since it came to the streets of Durham City as its normally a canny night out. This year i was laid up bad (more on that in a later blog). This year Jane took the lads down to watch the crashes at the back of the Halifax corner! which by all accounts were as good as ever! Weather kept dry so the cobbled sections werent too technical for the riders, ah that was a shame ! As ever due to more Council cut backs etc there was very little / no advertisement of the event so most the circuit was quiet and plenty room for spectating and car parking. Here is a link to the gallery of some pics, enjoy. Lets see if the series returns next year. 

Pearl Izumi Tour Series - Durham Tonight @ 7pm

FRESH GOODS SUNDAY - KCNC Ultralight Foam Grips

A treat for Angus's Alu Beargrease as his grips were starting get get worn and ripped. I have these on my Carbon Beargrease and cannot fault them. Good value for money, comfortable on the hand to ride but sometimes become a little slippery to grip when really wet. I have the black version and Angus got the blue version. Here is a link to the grips and the spec is -

KCNC EVA Foam Grips, nice flat angles for extra grip.

Light weight EVA foam - 12g a pair
Choose from: black red blue white
Includes plastic end plugs
32mm largest diameter
rrp £9.99 inc p&p and if you buy three or more items you get a further 5% off. 

21g with bar end plugs

Old grips 29g without bar end plugs

16g without bar end plugs

Fitted on the bars, follow up report to follow

'Instigatgrease' is born - Salsa Carbon Beargrease / Surly Instigator - Dirt Wizard tyre combo

After two days of near continuous rain and an overnight delivery by Interlink from Westbrook Cycles time to spend some time in the man cave! Yes i finally bit the bullet and bought a pair of Surly Dirt Wizard 26+" x 2.75" 120tpi tyres. I removed my 45NRTH Dillinger tyres from my new Hope Fatsno/Rabbit Hole wheels and fitted the new tyres. Plenty of lube and 35psi bedded the beads on the rim a treat then i dropped the tyre pressure down to 15psi. I was shocked at just how narrow they were compaired to all my other Fat Bike tyres and overall circumference is also alot less = dropping the bb / pedal height clearance. Frame / fork clearnace is just unreal, i will never suffer from mud clogging. Below are some photos of the comparisons on different combinations i have.

Brown box landed

New Surly tyres

883g for the 120tpi folding version

Check out the roll width difference

45NRTH Dillenger Ultra light version 1292g

Rabbit hole + Dillinger 92mm
Marge Lite + Husker Du 88mm
Marge Lite + Floater 96mm
Rolling Darryl + Nate 98mm
Rabbit hole + Dirt Wizard 71mm
Measurement = max tread width  

Check out the height difference !

And the width difference

Boat loads of mud clearance

and down at the chainstay bridge as well

inc the gap between the tyre & chainstay

Massive clearance all around the forks

Going to have to play with the tyre pressure, 15 on the rear is too soft & 15 on the front is too hard
Going to do a few rides on them see how they go then take them off and put away for the winter / dirty months