Freezing cold but enjoyable spin along the line from Bishop to Broom Park n back

 

Back out again today on the frozen lands of Co Durham. The temperatures are still around zero and below all day every day and todays ride the Garmin dipped down to nearly minus -6 degrees. There is very little snow around Bishop Auckland but when I hit the outskirts of Willington the tracks were nearly white all the way through to Broom Park. More people out today and some crazy dogs jumping straight towards my front wheel for some reason. Hopefully we might get above freezing this weekend but not by much! I took the Creo e gravel today and had no problems. It was steady away with 650ft of climbing and three long sleeved top layers on! My lower half was nippy apart from my feet which were not too bad in my Northwave Artic xc boots and Endura MTR winter socks. Just remember to wiggle your toes every 15 mins or so to keep the blood circulating. 

A few sunny and shaded snaps below from the ride, enjoy and hopefully more soon - 

A little warmer when I got back! 

Back out on the Trek Procaliber XC Hardtail in the snow & ice

 

Well the forecasters were right it has never gone above 1 degrees on a good day all week. Most of the time it has been well below zero. I picked this stretch of old railway line as it does not get much sun so the snow does not turn to sheet ice. With the overnight snow shower it was not too bad at all under tyre on the xc hardtail. The only hard part was biking into a 15+ mph freezing cold head wind all the way up from the Lambton worm towards Stanley. After 6 miles I decided to turn and head back down, not sure if I felt colder as I was doing more than double the speed I went up the line! The Garmin dropped to minus -4 degrees! Anyway on the plus side there was hardly a sole out so did not have to brake much which was a good thing. 

Below are a few snaps from the 12 miler with 500ft of climbing. Enjoy and hopefully more soon- 

Fresh Goods Sunday - Exposure Light Clip - EXPHMAPCLIP. Part 3

 

If you follow my blog you may have noticed that I reviewed this same bracket back earlier on in the year as I have one fitted to the underside of my Specialized out front Garmin bracket on the underside for my Exposure Sirus light to clip into. 

This time I am fitting it in a very similar situation, on the underside of my Bontrager mtb carbon combo bars / stem. This is a follow on blog from the Bontrager Duo Base adaptor where I am going to use the 2nd lower mount for this Exposure helmet light bracket. Again it was simple enough to fit with just one allen bolt. As I found out when fitting the first bracket you have to give it a wiggle to get the bracket in the slots. Once I clipped in the light the back top edge of the light is very close to the underside of the stem with just has enough clearance to angle the light at the correct angle. As per my previous review the rrp is just plain crazy but the quality is good. 

In next weeks Fresh Goods Sunday it is Part 4 of the mounting system to the stem/bar combo. 

RRP £7.50 and I paid £7.91 from SDJ Sports inc 48hr p&p 

Manufacturers blurb - 

Adaptor allows you to fit our range of helmet lights to action camera brackets such as Go-Pro, AEE, Sony and many others.

Product Compatibility:

Axis BOOST Diablo Diablo SYNC Joystick Link DB Link Plus DB Sirius DB Zenith

More snow & ice so time to fit my new Quaxar disc rotors

 

Firstly a little catch up, me and Jane had a drive up to Newcastle yesterday for a look around as we have not been around the city centre for a long time. Fenwick's Christmas window has got to be the worst I have ever seen in all my years of going. I also had a breakfast from Fenwick's and that has gone right down hill as well. It was £11 for a few items and a cuppa was extra on top. Once over you got a massive plate full inc a drink for £8. A lot of shops have closed that we used to go to inc Evans Cycles, I knew that would not last, the building was massive, why they needed three floors god knows. The Christmas market was dreadful, waste of time and money. 

Anyway I was hoping to get back out on the bike this morning for another short blast but more overnight snow and minus -3 degrees temperature put me off so after a few hours of jobs around the house we nipped out over to the crem and for a cuppa at the Botanics café before heading back home. 

Then I got on with swapping my disc rotors on my Trek Procaliber. There was nothing with the standard XT 6 bolt 180mm & 160mm rotors but I fancied dropping the size down on the front and some lightweight bling ones. I have used similar rotors in the past on a few bikes and never had any real problems with them. I bought them from XC Racer shop - online. £17.95 each less 5% discount inc p&p. 

Swapping them over is easy enough with a T25 allen key and a 5 & 6mm allen keys to remove my wheels and front calliper. The rotors come with six half descent bolts inc washers so used them (same weight as the Shimano bolts and washers). I refitted the rear wheel and the front wheel. I loosened off the front brake calliper bolts and removed the adaptor from the forks. I then looked out some standard length bolts and swapped over the dished washers etc and refitted the calliper. I had to re align the front calliper but the back rotor was not rubbing at all. I weighed everything and saved around 155g! 

More on the discs in an up coming Fresh Goods Sunday. As for this week well looking at the long term forecast we are not going to get over 1 or 2 degrees through the day all week so cannot see the ice and snow melting anytime soon. 

My scales are slightly out, claimed weight 69g