As I'm now confined to be a Horse Widow

Daughter now spending weekends shovelling Rose bush feed

Me and my trusty steed went on a bit of a jaunt.....

Did the Flitch Way yesterday....Great Dunmow to Braintree and back...Nice and easy track along old Railway line.....(should keep the train people amongst you interested)

Today did some of the Essex Way..this one passes right by my cottage so thought I'll see what it's like

A few snaps I took along the way (taken with my Blackberry camera phone )







This is the church in my village....Funnily enough it is in the Dead Centre of the village as well











Now every where is dry at the moment...so I'll wait until a few days of rain have passed then try the course again....Should be fun.......

Looks great, but isn't the bike "parked up" a fair bit?? I mean, I know if it was me, I'd be off the bike more than on, taking a photo/receiving medical attention/being helicoptered to the nearest cardiac hospital (probably in that order)

I'd have expected something a bit like this from you



or even this



or maybe this



Seriously, it's a beautiful day here in Ireland, so I've been out on this



But then, I don't need to pedal it

Chatman.... is this a classified 'byway'? If so it looks a decent 'non scratchy' drive and one that I would like to try

Can you please pm me with any details

Robert...Those shots are good...if you have two people, one to ride the bike in the photos and the other to lay on the floor whilst you jump over them....

As it was only me....placing the camera in a tree whist I whizzed by was not an option...

Only reason I stopped was to check the map...Signpost's around here seem to be few and far between, or old and pointing in the wrong direction

Wifey came back from work and deposited her dirty car and took my RAV upto stables , I gave her strict orders, no hay bales in the back So guess I'll have to clean her car now mines gone....think that's what she meant

Decision time


All this talk about new cars got me thinking..and spending .. Shall I go for Grey or Blue and white....





New bike shop opened in Chelmsford now and they are a dealer for these CUBE bikes So went over to have a look.... but cant decide on what colour....Been after one of these for a while...

MY GT bile is in white and looks nice...but will having another white bike be over kill......


Oh the traffic into work lately has been a real pain...people keep crashing on the M25 during rush hour (why cant they do this after this time ) every day last week taken 2 hours to travel the 32 miles to from work... some times on way into work and then again on way home.... SO sod it....I'm parking up near work and cycling in the rest. Miss out the M25 bit.......and if they bring in that sodding work parking tax...so will the rest of our company

Grey!

The red flashes in the wheels look cool.

I'M biased but go for the carbon quartz mate, (grey) looks more manly + rugged + can only help improve your image.. Stew
EH LAD!!!! Tha cud do wi gettin a proper saddle tho

Saddle technology has come on a long way since the penny farthings Local.....



Yea I was drawn more to the Grey one. .Like the look of the wheels more on this one... Still when it's upto it's hubs in mud..it'll look like all the others......blending into the countryside nicely

Also buying some stuff for the tyres called Slime.. It's green in colour and you place it inside the inner-tubes.. Seals up any puncture.... Brilliant stuff....Also some of the new rims you can get are tubeless...like car tyres...

Nice one Chatters...........I'm currently doing about 10 mile per day......In training for the hell run

Heres me...third from the right on the coast to coast bike ride a few years back, supporting a fine set of moobs

Sadly my bike is an old jalopy of a Raleigh



Kingo

quote]

Also buying some stuff for the tyres called Slime.. It's green in colour and you place it inside the inner-tubes.. Seals up any puncture.... Brilliant stuff....Also some of the new rims you can get are tubeless...like car tyres...
[/quote]

Oh no Not gunk and run flats for bikes now surely?

: : ......Yep sure is......have it in mine too, mind you, I managed to get a punture last week when a drawing pin ended up in the tyre so it isnt foolproof

Kingo

Kingo...

Why is the guy holding the yellow racing bike...sucking in his chest and looks like he's holding his breath....

It was the prune and baked bean breakfast........parrrrp excuse me! :

I think he was trying to look cool

Kingo

A mate of mine who loves his gadgets, bought a set of "solid" foam tyres for his mountain bike and proudly proclaimed 'no more punctures for me, you can run over glass with these things on!'.

And sure enough they worked great in the dry....

Trouble was these foam tyres drank up water like a camel after a 1000 mile trek in the desert and he would end up going no where because his wheels suddenly each had two and half tonnes of water logged tyres on them.

.....and they never completely dried out.

Bet that added another couple of pounds weight to the bike... and a horrible pong smell

The Pro down hiller's have special Kevlar woven tyres to cope with the impact and rock strewn tracks.... As I don't think they would like getting a puncture whilst hurtling down a very steep hill....

Explaining to the wife I brought a new bike and also purchased some Kevlar tyres....Would take some explaining and that could be hard whilst on and intravenous drip and in total traction in hospital.... with a little sack of balls sat next to me

Watch the vid here...every year they have this Mega Avalanche Mountain Bike race....

CLICK HERE

That was something else!

...the guy he hit, well, he was still have the bruises!

Chatters, Just thought I'd show you a proper bike, my wife who loves anything old (await witty comments) fell in love with this replica bike which i bought for her 15yrs ago, its called a Pashley has a proper bell, wicker basket, brooks leather saddle, + 3 speed sturmey archer gears + in the past 15yrs has done just about 5 miles, Women Eh!!!


NOW THATS WHAT YOU CALL A SADDLE Stew

All it needs is arms and a backrest Stew.

Chatters

That blue is the same as the RAV. Its a no brainer to me!!!

Stew...those saddles are more shaped for the larger Women rear end...they seem to fit it better....


Anchorman... buying a bike to match the RAV is just....................................................well I might consider it

WOW! good job you live the other end of the country Local Heroine is NOT pleased with you

looks good . must get out on mine again soon/ more action like this.....

Stew that photo is wrong so wrong in more counts than ever ...so bad I took the link out.....I don't think they would make a bike strong enough to hold the weight...and would need surgery to find the saddle again.....

I've removed it Chatters, It was pretty gross, tho doing the rounds as an email + available on photobucket Stew

Being a bycicle rider myself, I can only salute you!
I take my father from time to time for a 40 -50 km trip, with our folding bikes: Brompton (father) and Dahon (me). Great engineering. And we took them everywere.

Nice one Nest.... Those folding bikes are a brilliant piece of engineering... A guy at work has a Dahon...cost a ££££, great for commuting...I tend to take m mountain bike a bit further off road, and it and me take a good pounding.... but as it turns out this is good for my Skeleton as well.....

The answer lies in a previous study published in a 2002 issue of Bone magazine, which found that mountain bikers had considerably higher bone density than the sample road cyclists. It seems that bumpy trails will give your skeleton all the impact it needs to stimulate bone growth and it will improve your bike handling and recovery rate in leaps and bounds too.

Read rest of topic HERE

Oh dear, havnt you learned anything from the book of wrong things to say chatters?

You might as well said she has a fat rrr's

(Only joking missus LH )

Kingo

Well it had to happen day lights getting shorter, wind and rain making more of an appearance now.... cold days are almost here.....

And I've brought a new mountain bike....Well ordered it..... it's a Marin Hawk Hill.....and for all your engineers it has a 6061 Aluminum, Double Butted Hydro-Edge Top and Down Tubes....

I have a brilliant 20 mile ride around my local area...so when it arrives I may do the route twice......

You sure that's not the seat

Na that's normally Double Nutted

Slightly off topic but here's my favourite MTB bike carrier for the RAV... you don't want to actually ride your bike anywhere ..

The Paddy Hopkirk Quickball or one of its clones is brilliant, light, cheap and strong and mounts very fast on a towball. Takes about 60 seconds to assemble and mount your bike, and stick a number plate on the back. I have one and its brilliant (and I don't work for them FWIW). My RAV is a 4.3 with a wheel on the back and its no bother to whip this on and off as required and stash it in the boot. I think I got mine for 20 quid as its usually discounted heavily... a really neat design.

So what does this do that your other one didn't? or does it do it better? Its STILL not got a proper saddle And who is Marion? is she the local bike?

Where did you get it from tell me tell me



Oh and LocalH....It has a lighter frame, better brakes and upgraded gears.....to put it into perspective.... I would say like going from my RAV VX to a RAV 4.3 Model XTR..... and the saddle is actually very comfy...

Ive got a Marin "Indian Fire trail" had a Muirwoods, East Peak and Mount Vision previously, great bikes.

When you said been off road thought you meant in the Rav.

Heres mine on the Wayfarer (A green lane up here in North Wales, goes over the mountains, stunning scenery)













RM.

Nice pics rm. No mud for me though!!!

Hey Chatters, where's the engine on that thing? If I didn't know any better I'd say it needs pedaling to make it go. Isn't that hard work compared to driving?