Mother trucker!! :shock: that's a beast of a bike!
The last few days I've been riding my rebuilt Orange Five, with just a small dangly bit at the rear, to keep Brian almost happy
It's been a few years since I had a full suspension bike, and the last few months I've been riding a fully rigid bike, so I've been throwing myself down the local trails and so far have survived unscathed
Nice bike Jimo, well apart from the fact it’s a singlespeed
Surprised that wee tensioner handles the chain growth on that Orange when the suspension compresses. You tested it at full travel yet?
Ha ha! Theres no fooling you Clubby
I had been using an old rear road mech, but tried that tensioner at the weekend, it would have been fine if I only wanted 100mm of travel at the rear
Jimo, a bodger after my own heart. I always use an old short cage derailleur as a rear tensioner with the piece of cut cable. Way better and more adjustable than those supposedly specifically built tensioner for single speed. Also because they are built to use a chain not always in perfect fore aft alignment, you don't need perfect chain alignment
The Orange 5 is the bike I would like to ride but despite existing for years, they are so good they keep there value and as yet a utter bargain basement size large has never been spotted by me. Cool beans bikes
Went for a ride to suss out another way up to top of Bishop Hill that didn't take 2 hours from Kinross via the Loch Leven trail, John Knox's Pulpit then round the back of Bishop. Rode from house to Scotlandwell to ride up a forestry road that would take me up through woods just below top of Bishop. Big mistake, unrelenting 13%+ gradient ALL the way, several stops "to look at the view" later I did a runner stage left near...ish the top of forest road, couldn't take any more :roll: . Knew I was about 200 metres from the downhill path/trail I was heading for that runs from top, that's 200 horizontal metres no up the way. :mrgreen:
The weather radar globe I was heading for at top of woods, pushing/riding up trail to this point where pic taken just below Kinneston Crags was far easier than riding up the forest road.
Western end of Benarty across road from ma hoose is in middle of pic in distance.
Sun starting to head for it's bed across other side of Loch Leven.
Also added a couple of pics from ride earlier in week.
Tuesday this week, Benarty trig point with Bishop Hill beyond. It was a braw day.
Tuesday, blue skies over blue loch.
These are from ride earlier in March.
End of 1st week in March, not a blue sky day.
Nor was the loch blue.
Only pic I took during the cauld and snaw in January
Middle of January, some snow, frozen hard ground, no much snow that day compared to later on when I next went up, it was knee deep.
Luckily that day walkers had already flattened a trail to follow but it wandered aboot like a drunk man, ended up just pushing bike in straight line to trig through the snow as it was quicker.
Thanks Jamie but your pics and posts of your rides are way better I think.
I'm guilty of not making much effort on most, nearly all, rides to actually think about taking a few pics.
As to getting out more, it's weather dependent, don't enjoy the glaur like some do, a certain cannae be arseness sets in.
My mood picks up come this time of year and why wouldn't it? Love dry sunny days.
Gorgeous weekend down here. Spent yesterday in garden with the wee man and had him at the beach this morning while Sharron was out with her friend. Payback this afternoon was I got out for a few hours on the Saffron. First ride on it since autumn as it's far too nice to ride through winter. Almost feels like cheating after a winter on plus tyres and thick mud, so fast and effortless. Was Strava hunting one particular section and gutted I missed my PB by just two seconds, just ran out of steam at the end.
One more full week of work before a quiet looking April, still no-one taking time off until covid restrictions lift, then I'll probably be inundated with bookings. Hoping weather holds and I'll get some riding in before that happens.
That Saffron is really lovely Clubby. Everything from the tyres, frame colour, Lefty to the huge rear gear looks like it is all for a purpose. Really nice.
