Two rides in a day! On the same bike and plenty of hot and dry dusty gravel

 

First ride was a very early ride from Langley Park up the old railway to Consett in a headwind then I turned left and over Hownsgill viaduct and up to the A68 crossing. This is where I turned and headed straight back down. It was a ride of two halves with overcast cloud and cool temperatures with a good headwind on the way out. Then the sun burnt through and the temperature shot up on the Garmin, not to mention I had a tailwind back down! There was a quite a few others enjoying the morning. 

In my lunch hour I dropped Arrans car off at the garage for its service to keep the warranty going then hoped straight onto the old railway line at Brandon and followed the most direct route back home. It was even hotter by now but again I had a headwind. It was only 5.4 miles back and took 23 mins, it took me nearly that to drive through with the traffic! Below are and above are some snaps from the ride, enjoy and hopefully more soon- 

Blazing heat and wind at Stanhope, Crawleyside & Rookhope fells in the opposite direction = no walking!

 

Back out in the sun, heat and wind again but to even more extreme levels. I did this loop last month and it brought me to tears, sorry I mean walking. This time I did the same loop but in reverse and I did not have to walk this time! A you will be able to see by the photos that on the exposed tops the sun and heat was a killer. On the way out I had a massive westerly tailwind which helped on the climb out of Rookhope, across the top to Parkhead then the next big climb to the trig point. All the tracks n trails and country lanes were very quiet, just a few milling around Stanhope town centre at the half way point. All in just under 16.5 miles with 1700ft of climbing. enjoy and hopefully more soon-  

Trek Marlin + E MTB Rear Hub Service

 

When I got home from my ride around Durham I whipped the rear wheel out of the Trek Marlin + e mtb to have a look. There was play in the axle / cones as it is a cheapo no mark hub (Trek Spec - Formula CL-3348M) with ball bearings in. I took off the rotor to get more access. The nuts were both 17mm flats and loosened the outer off and nipped up the inner by half a turn and retightened the outer. The bearings were feeling rough and dry. So I decided to strip the hub down and clean everything out and repack the bearings with fresh grease and rebuild the hub. The bearings on the cassette side were not too bad but the bearings on the other side were nearly out of grease and getting rusty. The seals are not that good and nor is the hub to be honest. For the very few miles it has done it has not lasted long at all. 

Below are a few snaps of the strip down, sorry did not take any of the rebuild as I was rushing to get the job finished as Angus had dropped off his new dog for the day- 

See how long the service lasts for this time! Next time might be a new set of wheels or a new hub.