Hi people,
Well - I've been back from Greece about a week now, and to say that I'm a bit depressed with the weather we have here at the moment is putting it mildly !! The trails that I had (wrongly) anticipated as being in perfect riding condition are as wet as in the winter - in fact they seem even wetter, not helped by the fact that now the ferns are shoulder high (and wet ,naturally).
That's not to say that all is perfect for riding in Greece of course - daytime temps. in the high 30's tend to make me feel even lazier than usual, and sitting in the shade with a Mythos beer somehow seems a more attractive proposition than slogging up a dusty 1,500 metre climb....actually I did a bit of both, as well as fitting two new toilets (one for us, one for our neighbour in the village) doing a bit of tiling, some painting, making a table - all the usual stuff then.
So, when I was there what did I miss about here ?
Trails with some sort of "flow" to them for a start - there (Greece) you have a choice between long, dusty fireroad climbs and descents, or very rocky, very technical (and potentially very damaging to bike and body too) cobbled mule paths (kalderimia) or goat tracks. Now 50 or 100 metres of this stuff mixed in with some nice singletrack would be great, but it's all or nothing.
And thorns - did I mention thorns ?? - don't think about short sleeves !!And dust ??- just open a few bags of cement, spread it about 20mm deep and then ride through it all morning. You'll soon get the idea.....
A whinging bugger aren't I ?
- here I want it drier, there I want the sort of riding that comes with a wetter/cooler climate.
What I really miss now is sitting outside our house in the evenings, eating, drinking and watching the sun set over the Gulf of Messinia. Or wandering down to the kafenio for a beer or an ouzo - or the village shop which is like village shops were here 40 years ago and sells everything (well, almost everything). Or the people in Platsa who have welcomed two foreigners into their small community - so much so that we no longer feel lke strangers. OK - we'll obviously never be "Greek" but nor will we ever feel like "tourists", not in "our" village at least. Our next door neighbour told us when we bought the house (three years ago) that we were "the talk of Platsa". I replied that it is better to be talked about than to be ignored.
I missed my band ( and bass playing) while I was in Greece, but we have gig this weekend, so that's ok then, and I missed riding a singlespeed.
Now that I'm back here I've finished building another one, mostly from stuff I had kicking around my workshop. "And since I had the stuff it didn't cost me anything dear"
Frame is 95 (I think) Explosif, forks are Magura Asgard 100mm, brakes are Magura Marta but without the "wavy" rotors, wheels WTB Speeddisc on Deore hubs. Seatpost is Thomson, bars Syncros. I was going to fit some sort of slidey dropouts, but in the end didn't bother and at the moment I'm using a Surly tensioner. If I like the bike enough (and I do already, after only two rides ) I might fit one of those "Excentriker" bottom brackets adaptor things, but then I'd also have to get a new BB and new cranks (they only work with external BB's). And the "Exentriker" alone is £130...
Anyway, thanks for reading all this waffle (if you have...) and here's a photo of a bike anyway so this isn't totally OT.
The colour is what my wife calls "Platsa Blue", so at least I got some brownie points for that
Well - I've been back from Greece about a week now, and to say that I'm a bit depressed with the weather we have here at the moment is putting it mildly !! The trails that I had (wrongly) anticipated as being in perfect riding condition are as wet as in the winter - in fact they seem even wetter, not helped by the fact that now the ferns are shoulder high (and wet ,naturally).
That's not to say that all is perfect for riding in Greece of course - daytime temps. in the high 30's tend to make me feel even lazier than usual, and sitting in the shade with a Mythos beer somehow seems a more attractive proposition than slogging up a dusty 1,500 metre climb....actually I did a bit of both, as well as fitting two new toilets (one for us, one for our neighbour in the village) doing a bit of tiling, some painting, making a table - all the usual stuff then.
So, when I was there what did I miss about here ?
Trails with some sort of "flow" to them for a start - there (Greece) you have a choice between long, dusty fireroad climbs and descents, or very rocky, very technical (and potentially very damaging to bike and body too) cobbled mule paths (kalderimia) or goat tracks. Now 50 or 100 metres of this stuff mixed in with some nice singletrack would be great, but it's all or nothing.
And thorns - did I mention thorns ?? - don't think about short sleeves !!And dust ??- just open a few bags of cement, spread it about 20mm deep and then ride through it all morning. You'll soon get the idea.....
A whinging bugger aren't I ?
- here I want it drier, there I want the sort of riding that comes with a wetter/cooler climate. What I really miss now is sitting outside our house in the evenings, eating, drinking and watching the sun set over the Gulf of Messinia. Or wandering down to the kafenio for a beer or an ouzo - or the village shop which is like village shops were here 40 years ago and sells everything (well, almost everything). Or the people in Platsa who have welcomed two foreigners into their small community - so much so that we no longer feel lke strangers. OK - we'll obviously never be "Greek" but nor will we ever feel like "tourists", not in "our" village at least. Our next door neighbour told us when we bought the house (three years ago) that we were "the talk of Platsa". I replied that it is better to be talked about than to be ignored.
I missed my band ( and bass playing) while I was in Greece, but we have gig this weekend, so that's ok then, and I missed riding a singlespeed.
Now that I'm back here I've finished building another one, mostly from stuff I had kicking around my workshop. "And since I had the stuff it didn't cost me anything dear"
Frame is 95 (I think) Explosif, forks are Magura Asgard 100mm, brakes are Magura Marta but without the "wavy" rotors, wheels WTB Speeddisc on Deore hubs. Seatpost is Thomson, bars Syncros. I was going to fit some sort of slidey dropouts, but in the end didn't bother and at the moment I'm using a Surly tensioner. If I like the bike enough (and I do already, after only two rides
) I might fit one of those "Excentriker" bottom brackets adaptor things, but then I'd also have to get a new BB and new cranks (they only work with external BB's). And the "Exentriker" alone is £130...Anyway, thanks for reading all this waffle (if you have...) and here's a photo of a bike anyway so this isn't totally OT.
The colour is what my wife calls "Platsa Blue", so at least I got some brownie points for that
