another 26er...

The sandals are iconic

Re: the tyres, init looool. Doing your dad proud x

had a morning mooch over to Clayton Vale to go down some mountain bike trails. Unbeknownst to a poor 25c tyre fixie loser like me, the colours define the difficulty of the trail and I ended up (as the pros say) sending it down the red trails, absolutely terrified. It was brilliant fun, and I’ve just received the pedals I ordered last week!

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The idea of red trails on sweep back bars makes me lol! Bet the cantis made slowing down interesting

imo we need to reclaim inner city trail riding from the full sus bros, for too long they have been justifying their alpine descenders on what are essentially little piles of rooty dirt with features formed by poor upkeep and riding while wet. .

it's time to cuck them with vintage mtb's and oversized gravel bikes

@LaserFrennox 10/10 would do again, the brakes weren’t too bad tbh, just need to move the levers as they are at a bit of a low angle for going full send .

@Maj yes, I agree. Give them a run for their money with our tastefully decorated blugwagons

Little update today - got the bike pretty much finished! I was going to take it on a test ride but it was pissing it down so had to make do with the short ride to work. I never used to see the appeal of Brooks saddles, if I’m honest, but they started to warm to me aesthetically, and now I’ve tried one I can see why people love them so much! Proper comfort...

I’ve got a camping trip lined up for a mates stag do at the end of the month, so upcoming updates will be how I stow all my shit on this bike!

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and now for something completely different .....

finished my Neil Orrell build FINALLY! I am personally buzzing with it, and would like to thank Manchester’s wheel builder extraordinaire, Lukas, for building the rear wheel up for me!

For this who care, the build is as follows:
Cinelli Criterium Bars
ITM Eclypse stem
OMAS headset
HED tri spoke
Campag C Record Pista cranks
Miche 49t chainring
Can’t remember what sprocket it is but it’s 17t
Velocity Deep V laced to Suzue Promax Hub (QR axle tapped to be bolt on)
Some random Japanese pedals, BLB straps and cages
Perforated white selle italia flite
Some Japanese seatpost that I can’t remember the name of

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a fixed gear??? on this forum?????

looks ace

@Maj thank you! Sometimes I still do skids...

over the weekend just gone I went on my first certified bikepackingtrip (and indeed my first real camping experience outside of Fluff Fest a few years ago).
The plan was to do this route , leaving from Manchester on Saturday and be back by Sunday (for my pal Sam’s stag do). Four of us met up, including fellow radgie @LaserFrennox on his lovely Saracen. John was riding his 2nd ever bike from his childhood after not riding it in ten years or so, and Sam rode his lovely All City.

We set off out of Manchester, and immediately hit some minging hills, which the 3x7 Marin ate up for breakfast as I span away merrily up the hill. A roadie went past us on the way up, and then passed us again once we nearly reached the summit, on their way back down again haha. They didn’t do a wheelie, but I’ll pretend he didn’t hear me. From there we continued pushing into the Peaks, and it wasn’t long before we were treated with some Middle Earth ass views.

From here we had some lovely off road descents, and although my only real off road experience was a blast around Chorlton Water Park and around Clayton Vale a few weeks prior, the Marin remained stable and I became quietly confident. We entered some misc town full of rude people, and bought snacks, before setting off a pretty much vertical hill.

After a short while we got onto a lush long flat bit of the TPT. We were meant to continue on this particular stretch of the TPT, but the gate was locked as certain areas were closed to public access. This gate was guarded by some sort of Skyrim NPC, who just stood there in her farmhouse drive way staring at us while she phoned somebody as we checked our maps to figure out where to go. I waved her goodbye as we set off, but unfortunately I rolled a natural 1 in charisma and she didn’t wave back 😔 .

We had to push our bikes up a big rocky hillside, but were treated with a nice rocky pathway for a few miles. This nice rocky pathway soon became a sneakily disgusting climb, but we were treated with a road descent, which we zoomed down, pulled down by all our pot noodles and flapjacks.

After this descent we re-joined the TPT, and it was here that Fraser started to fade away, like Frodo carrying the ring. From this point on moral started to drop, although there must have been something in the chocolate covered chickpeas I bought from ASDA because me and John were hyper as fuck. The fellowship trundled on, back on roads with some serious inclines. Sam nearly got killed by a tosser in a car going around a corner too fast, and after the last gruelling climb, we got to the next off road section. It was a path with a large swathe of forest to its right, and I could see that Sam and Fraser were categorically over it, so I suggested we camp in a nice secluded spot in the woods. We were only at the 35 mile mark at this point, 15 miles short of where we wanted to be. Over scran there was mention of just getting to Hathersage in the morning then getting a train home, but we decided to just think about it in the morning. Turns out we camped next to a house with five bastard dogs who barked all fucking night, and myself and John heard two massive explosions which both Sam and Fraser claim to not have heard...

The sunrise was lush, and we set off into the mist. Lord of the rings vibes were high, even though I got scared shitless by a massive bull. From here we did a series of three road descents and ascents, climbing around 1200’ and then losing 1200’ each time. The marin gobbled up some of these 14% grades, carrying me up there with a strong granny gear steez. More single and doubletrack followed, along with some road sections, but tbh this bit is all a blur now so I can’t really describe it. We eventually got to Hathersage, bought some food and got the train back to Manchester, where me and John re-couped later in the evening for a post ride curry.

All in all the route was amazing, and I really enjoyed time spent cycling with my mates. The route we did ended up being 56 miles and close to 7000’ of elevation. The Marin was perfect, it handled all the off road bits really well, carried all my gear confidently, and the gearing was perfect for some of those stupid climbs. I personally felt really proud of myself for not pushing up any of the climbs, and only eating shit once on an off road descent. I was feeling pretty nervous for the ride as I’ve not been riding much recently and I am so inexperienced with camping, but I was pleasantly surprised. I would like to go back and try the whole route again, but I do think that it’s a little harder than described in that bikepacking.com article.

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Some more pics 😌

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Final photo dump

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^ trip looks amazing

Fantastic <3

Absolutely belter trip man! Plenty of times over the 2 days I could’ve never ridden a bike again but the fact I could send it with the boyes made it all worth it man!

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Hello team, Sam here (of Sam with the All-City).

Top recollection by Adam, this trip was a whole lot of fun but yeesh, some of those climbs were absolutely brutal.

Thanks to the 3 boys for coming out and riding moderately unsuitable bikes down singletrack descents (and back up the hill the other side).

Dumping some of my photos here for collective enjoyment:

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and some more:

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Sick trip!

Awesome write-up dude, seems like you had a lovely time!

Fluff Fest

I've always wanted to go, was it good? So many great bands gig there.

brexit rivenbros vibes, good write up

Well this looks fantastic

Yeah, amazing! Exactly what you expect of a left wing vegan Euro hardcore fest. Blisteringly hot too.

Cheers for the love guys! It was a great trip, hopefully more Brexit Rivenbro’s content soon...