The aim of the ride was ostensibly to improve Hamish’s cornering skills and help him learn to bunny hop, and we worked on the underlying techniques whilst we rode the Minotaur blue trail and the many firetracks that link the trails.

The Minotaur trail’s Slipway section offers the perfect trail to practice the principles of cornering – pre-emptive braking, looking through the corner, weighting the bike for balance and traction.  The push-up track back to the start of the berms offers a chance for some comtemplative reflection of the previous run.

To put the new techniques into practice we meshed together a handful of Coedy’s best and twistiest sections, short-cutting up to the Adams Family sections, and then rolling through Big Dug. And for a real treat we even made time for a cup of tea at the cafe in the woods.

Coaching at Coed y Brenin with Hamish - skills, trails and tea

The real highlight of the day for Hamish though was riding in the beautiful, forested valleys of Coed y Brenin, with its exquisite trails and awesome views. The sunshine didn’t hurt either.

I just love the climbs and smile all the way up. Honest.

As ever there was plenty of weirdness on the trails: a Welsh Harpist playing on the first climb, cheerleaders at the summit, road works at the start of the Big Dipper, a Star Wars battle raging in the middle of the woods, Johnny Pickles waving from the bottom of Rocky Horror (just kidding Johnny!), and of course a free bar and disco at the bottom of Dicko’s . All these added to what was a truly memorable (if knackering) day out.

The highlights of my ride were blasting down ever-steepening ridge of the World Cup descent, a ride-long to-and-fro battle with a lad on a Trek Slash (I lost), being attacked by Luke Skywalker in the woods, and discovering that I’d spent most of the ride alongside our local Trek rep without recognising him till the final climb.

Another (post-ride) Beer

The biggest surprise was the incredibly refreshing nature of the beer at Dicko’s Bar which gave me renewed vigour for the final climb – it even overcame the memory of local legend Tegid’s words “this climb seems to go on for ever”. Maybe the beer was a lot stronger than I imagined.

So I’d like to say a big thanks to all the ladies and gentlemen who make the howies Dyfi Enduro such an amazing event. You know who you are, and I love you all.

My Dyfi Enduro Ride Log

This week I had the pleasure of teaching someone else to ride – a 10 year old local lad who’d been struggling to get going for the last couple of years and had been dissuaded from trying by taunts from his mates who could already ride.

At first he struggled to even balance the bike whilst stood astride it, and was completely lacking confidence in his ability to make progress. We started slowly, with me supporting him at walking pace, pointing out how balance is achieved by steering into the fall, and gradually speeded up to the point where I was running alongside and struggling to keep up. In the end, it only took about an hour to get him pedalling unaided, and another half hour for him to conquer turns and gears.  (Mind you, his braking technique still needs a little work!)

Teaching someone else to ride got me thinking about how sometimes we take cycling for granted. Imagine you never learned to ride a bike – perhaps the opportunity might not be there, as it isn’t for many kids all over the world.  (Recently at Coed y Brenin we had an army group with some African recruits – one of the guys there was in his twenties and had never ridden a bike before. He soon picked it up and had an awesome day on the trails)

As a regular rider it’s easy to be complacent about cycling. You become obsessed with the bikes and equipment you’re riding, or focus solely on the quality of the ride from a performance perspective. Often there’s very little thought about the simple pleasure of riding itself. Even the scenery can become just a blur as you speed along.

It’s also easy to forget just what a thrill it was to learn to ride and to first ride alone. That feeling of freedom when, as a kid, you realise that you can go pretty much anywhere – distance becomes (almost) no object. You’re finally in control of where you go and when you go there. I remember long lost summer holidays spent cycling all over the county – into the city and out into the country. No-one seemed to worry about us getting lost, and we rarely seemed to get any punctures.

Over the years since I first learned to stay upright on two wheels I’ve ridden many thousands of miles. I’ve raced, toured, and commuted on a whole plethora of different bikes, across many different countries. I’ve coached people to improve their mountain biking skills, and taught kids how to ride safely on the roads. All in all, my life has been pretty much dominated by the bicycle.

This week though, working with a young lad just starting to ride, reminded me that possibly the greatest gift I ever received was being taught to ride a bike. Thanks Dad.

Once upon a time everywhere you looked there was standardisation: everyone was riding 26″ wheels. Then, thanks in no small part to the perseverance of Gary Fisher, 29″ wheels started to gain a following. Over the last couple of years they’ve made a large impact, with 29er equipped bikes winning XC races the world over, and most manufacturers (even Orange!) adding at least one 29er bike to their range.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the news hit that Nino Schurter had won the opening round of the UCI World Cup on a 650B equipped bike!

It turns out that Nino was travelling with a rack of bikes with every variation of wheel size thinkable – some £30,000 worth of kit in bikes alone.

So….where does that leave the rest of us? What does the average ride on a limited budget choose to ride nowadays? 26″ for flickability and big air? 29er for smooth rolling over the rocks and endless momentum on the rolling trails? Or something in between – the best of both worlds or a double compromise – 650B?

Well, after very little research and a few half days of development, Wheelism is pleased to announce the launch of the ZipTyre – a variable depth tyre using the latest in Zip Technology to allow a single bike to run anything from 26″ to 29″ with only a single quick modification.

One bike can run 26" on some gnarly trails, then with a quick zip and some extra air it's an XC race bike on 29"

Here’s how it works…..

Zip Tyre - Ultimate Expandability for Perfect Trail Adaption

Boundless Ultra Lightweight Latex and Sidewall Hollowfill Inflatable Tech Expander (BuLL/SHiTe ©) rubber with Singlepull Zip-Release means it’s quick and easy to move from one size to another.

Folding Internal Rubber Kink-Offs (FirKOff ©) expand during pumping to allow the overall diameter of the tyre to change, meaning there’s no need to swap wheels.

Run 26″ downhill, then pull the zip and race the same bike in XC. Want to ride Enduro-style on 650B but use 700C for the commute home – it’s all possible with the Zip Tyre!

The system has a number of unique benefits:

• Cheap – save thousands on new bikes. Run just one bike with any wheel size!
• Lightweight – all it takes to change wheel size is added air. Hydrogen adapters are also available for extra weight savings.
• Versatile – there are tyre options to allow you to run 26″/29″, 26″/650B, 650B/29″, 24″/700c, and we’re working on duo-zip width adjustable tyres so you can run the same tyre as 700c/18mm on the track, and then switch to 26″ x 2.4″ for some gnarly trail!

Of course, any new and innovative technologies are soon imitated by other manufacturers and we’ve already heard that there are similar options in the pipeline from some of the top names in tyres – Marxxis HiLow Roller, Contimental Rubber Queers, Spaceialized Round Controls – to name but a few! There’s even a rumour circulating that Brompton are developing their own tyre for the ultimate Downhill City Bike.

So, put the credit cards back in your wallet and save some room in the bike shed – get yourself a pair of ZipTyres – available from all good bike shops (as soon as I find my sewing kit and and a bit of spare time)

Last days of the Welsh Summer

The golden colours of autumn have returned resplendent to many trees as they prepare to shed their leaves. Some trees, in a bid to save energy, decided not to leaf this year at all, instead going straight from bare, through bud, and back to bare again.

Autumn colours

You may have already noted the queues of traffic at petrol stations – the seasonal phenomenon of folks stocking up on petrol, ready to throw it on their fires in the dark winter months ahead.

And personally, I’ve been through my entire wardrobe of cycling kit in the last week. Last Thursday I was wearing thermal bib tights, waterproof skullcap, merino underpants, and electric toe-warmers. By Sunday I was in super-short see-through evapo-lycra, with a knotted hanky perched jauntily on my helmet. Tomorrow it’s back to the scarf and balaclava.

If you didn’t get out on your bike and make the most of the summer that was, here’s a taste of what you missed:

Dusty rides on dry-as-a-bone trails.

Dusty and dry

Resplendent views of cloud-free summits.

Cloud free

Evening rides in the low sun with not a waterproof coat in sight.

Evening riding in the low sun

So, here’s a final tip of the helmet to that long lost summer of 2012, a reminder to put your clocks back at 2.00am, and a note to put the lights back on your handlebars!

This morning I got up 15 minutes early, which meant that by the time I’d climbed the Bwlch I had enough spare time to face this choice: carry on down into Dolgellau on the main road with all the traffic, or head off into the hills on this sweet looking bit of drovers’ trail.

Choices, choices.....main road with traffic, or off-road over the hills?

Easy. When you’ve got spare time it isn’t really a choice at all is it?

No choice at all.

So…..that extra 15 minutes I’d made was spent adding value to the commute.

And, it seems, value looks a lot like this:

Value added.

Now, because I’d taken a detour from the usual route, I had to climb over the hills to Llanfachreth. It’s a steep old climb, but at this point the sun began to shine and I began to question the very nature of life itself…..why is it that I’m blessed with the best commute in the world?

Welcome to Llanfachreth. What's it all about?

Eventually though, all good things have to come to an end, and so it was with my commute. Fortunately, the end of this commute was a quick and windy road downhill to hit the trails at Coed y Brenin for the final bit of the ride.

The end trails.

So, what did I learn today?

Well, I realised that money isn’t everything, and it doesn’t really matter that I only get paid £10 an hour – all the £2.50s in the world couldn’t ever buy back those 15 minutes this morning.

Time > Money.

So, here are a couple of pictures of situation normal then…..

Heavy traffic on the lanes. Unfortunately it had moved by the time I got the camera out.

Even heavier traffic on the A470. Kinda detracts from that view of Cadair eh?

I love Wales.

As per last summer I’ll be running some basic skills short courses on Saturday evenings at Coed y Brenin, and these will start this spring and run throughout the year. The idea of the short courses is to provide a cheap and quick way to improve your skills whilst you’re already at the trail centre for a ride. These short courses will be £20 per person and last approximately 2 hours.

A bad cold followed by a week away snowboarding, swiftly followed by a heavy bout of flu has left the bike(s) festering in the shed.

That said, the forced absence from the saddle has provided the opportunity to actually get in the shed and do some long overdue maintenance.

My trusty old steel rigid Webster MTB has now been fitted with some lovely flared drop bars from On-One, the mudguards on the commuter road bike have finally been secured properly using an array of cable ties, the Wheelism tourer is polished and ready for a long ride, and my classic old 531 road bike is back to its original Campagnolo Record configuration.

Wheelism Tourer - shiny, shiny, and ready for a long ride!

All in all, a lot of good news from the shed then.

The best news though – I’m finally feeling better. It’s ride time!

During the daylight hours I rode with Mark and Stu from Bala Watersports, around some of the trails at Coed y Brenin that they were less familiar with. At various points during the ride we’d all stop and I’d break their bikes.

Trailside Maintenance was the reason for such vandalism: how to fix your bike when it breaks so that you can make it back to civilisation (in our case – the cafe) safely and quickly.

Getting to grips torn tyres and punctured tubes.

We covered everything from punctured tubes, broken spokes, lost jockey wheels, to crisped wheels, broken handlebars, and trashed rear mechs.

We even found time to visit the bothy in the woods for a quick lunch.

After night fell I was back out on the trails again, this time with Terry from Mid Wales Climbing, explaining the ins-and-outs of night riding. Terry was armed with our 1200 lumen hire lights, which properly light up the woods and, as well as having a real blast on some of the steeper Coed y Brenin trails sections, we also spotted some of the local fallow deer leaping across the trail.

All in all, a great end to a long and fabulous day.