Seeing a good few social media posts here in the UK showing people are still getting out and about riding locally despite the return of lockdown restrictions here in Scotland and the UK as a whole. As much for the head as the legs these days.
For me I am still at work as normal for the weekdays, classed as essential worker, and so while I can't go too far I am desperate to ride by the time the weekend comes especially this time of year when it is difficult to commute. More so this year with lockdown and also with no Strathpuffer 24 hour race to spur on the motivation and push you out to do night riding, it makes the weekends rides much more important.
Well for the most part it has either been solid ice up here or pishing rain, neither great for getting out and about, with the exception of the Pugsley that can handle the icy off road and along the local shoreline etc.
This afternoon, after a morning of hail and heavy rain there was a period where the sun came out and things were looking brighter. So I thought I better take the opportunity while there and get out for a ride round the coast on the Trucker. I decided on the Trucker as it is perfectly set up for the wet weather and is always a joy to ride, regardless of conditions. I also wanted to play about with my tyre pressure for a bit and really evaluate my tyres. I have run Schwalbe Marathon Duremes (26x 2.0) since I built it about 10 years or so ago and have kept using them as they are great tyres. I have thought about changing them over to the Rene Herse Rat Trap Pass 26 x 2.5 which are supple sidewall high volume + tyres. They have been getting good reviews and thought it might be good for a change. The tyre plans come about as I am in the process of swapping out the front end and hence the tyres on the Big Dummy which is getting a set of Surly ET 2.5s when I finish building the wheels, hopefully this week. Just need either Brian or maybe Sam in the shop in town to double check the Alfine when I am done. This will take the Big Dummy back from a Fat bike back to almost a +plus size which hopefully will give me the best of both worlds. This will make it more usable I hope and let me find it's new place in the fleet now that Caleb is either on the tandem or his own bike as it is no longer the child hauler it has been built and used for. Nobody in the family would want to see it go but it needs to find a new purpose as otherwise it is a sizable investment sitting doing nothing. Not that I look at any of my builds like that but it is a sizable investment in this. This came about as I didn't want to put it straight back to the usual skinny front end but certainly for solo work that it's now doing and mainly hauling shopping etc the full fat is just such a drag, whereas hopefully with the ET's in 2.5 I can use it more often to commute and still be good off road. We will see. I will keep the Alfine on the back and will put the dyno SP hub up front on a set of Rigida Sputniks I have in the loft.
The Rat Trap Pass tyres will just mount onto my standard rims on the Trucker though I will have to size up my guards. My current Marathon Duremes come in at 43mm wide whereas the Rat Trap Pass come in at 53mm which is just above what Surly recommend, I have seen a few of these running on LHT's and they seem fine even with 60mm guards. They are a higher volume/sidewall.
Anyway here are a few photos of my enjoyable ride round the coast, just pootling for a couple of hours enjoying just being out and riding. Like most in this lockdown as time goes on it is getting harder to vary the close routes to home and to try and keep it fresh. So apologies if they all start to look the same :)
Jamie
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