November 15th 2020 - Jack Taylor Super Clubman - Local backroads and laneway ride

Today was the first day in a while it looked like it might stay dry and so in between trying to get things out the loft to finish building the Mercian tourer for Brians big gravel ride next weekend, finish cutting and putting up the shelves in Calebs room I managed to slip out this afternoon for a couple of hours rolling around the country side on the Jack Taylor. 

 Lockdown has put a bit of a curb on being able to, and wanting to travel too far from home which means the large majority of my rides lately seem to be local. This means finding new routes etc to try and keep it fresh. 

Which is what I did today, I got to one point in my ride where on a nice quiet stretch of laneway I just thought ' what is up that dirt track straight ahead, rather than turning left?' as is usual lately. This led to a great shortish but steep climb up a gravel track that eventually just went to a dead end gate at radio mast. It was great trying to race up this gravel and mud climb with out standing up as then I would wheel slip so it was sit back and grind away. 

The roads were damp and muddy being we've had so much rain and the farms are all working overtime getting ready for winter. Seemed to dodge the rain in a few places as would see it ahead and then find the road in front of me sodden but thankfully I managed to stay completely dry. 

 The Super Clubman was it's usual superb self. I can't express how nice this is to ride, so relaxed and comfortable and the 33mm Jackie Brown tyres soak up all of the roughness from these chewed up back roads. They are also quite nice on the gravel as well, quite supple. 

 Hope everyone else managed to have some decent weather and managed to get a ride in as well. 

I am going to try and get the Mercian King of Mercia touring model back together for Brians gravel ride out of Dingwall next weekend with the Highland Classic Bike Group. Snow is forecast for next weekend so should be fun. 

If I don't have the Mercian ready then it will be down to the JT which is no hardship :) 

 Jamie

Saturday 7th November 2020 - Big Dummy evening ride - Adventure Syndicate match the miles

A few photos from this evenings ride on the Big Dummy. 

 I only realised at the last moment that the Adventure Syndicates new cargo bike movie was premiering tonight and today was the day they had set a few fun challenges. A couple of fun tasks they set for riders to do or things to find before the premier tonight at 7 on Vimeo. 

 Most people started their rides in the morning and made the sunrise,....ohh no, not for me. I set out at around three pm to do as much as I could, make the sunset, find ducks, car charging points, cross water etc and be back for home in time for the premier. Needless to say I didn't get one or two things but it was fun trying. 

Managed to have an excellent ride on the cargo bike, what else, and enjoy some night riding. Would say it keeps me off the streets but, it actually keeps me on them. 

 Jamie

1st November 2020 - Mercian King of Mercia - build restarted

Weather up here has been pretty wild with the wind getting up to 87mph today! 

 Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I didn't manage to get a ride in. I did however manage to make a start putting the King of Mercia back on the road for the winter duties. Spent a bit of time over the afternoon sorting bits and pieces for it between other jobs. I faffed around with the Stronglight chainset and the Stronglight bottom bracket for longer than I should have as it was a 120 axle which should have been spot on for this, it still needed a spacer to stop a chainring bolt touching the chainstay. Once that was sorted it was just a case of making sure some of the items I had for it fitted and worked together. Only got so far along but pretty right to cable and chain up now I think. The bar tape is looking to be white cork with white cable outers. 

 While I have had this a few years now and while my other Mercian has seen all the work and has even had the respray as well as being a superb riding machine, I just always prefer outright tourers for touring. This one is also being put to winter use to justify staying, more to me mentally than anyone else. 

 The tyres are 30mm but there looks like I could go 33 but might be a bit tight with a guard on there. There looks to be more clearance than on my road KoM, though I think from memory I may have run Vittoria Randonneurs in 30mm. These Jackie Browns I have been running on my Jack Taylor and they are good wearing but very supple, high volume which make for a nice comfortable ride. On One do them from Panaracer but they just bought the moulds from Rivendall who Panaracer used to make them for. 

 Spec so far: Chainset: Stronglight triple Bottom Bracket: Stronglight adjustable Stem: 90mm Nitto Handlebars: Nitto B135 Randonneur 42mm Headset: Tange Mercian stamped Brakes: Mafac Cantis with Shimano pads - soon to have Koolstop Salmon pads Brake Levers: Mafac with Dia Compe hoods Brake hanger - Dia Compe adjustable. Gear shifters: Dura Ace 7401 8 speed downtube Front derailleur: XT 735 triple Rear Derailleur: XT 735 Long cage Wheels, currently Ultegra hubs on Open Pro rims but soon to have dedicated Shimano 600 hubs on Wolber GTA gentleman rims Tyres: Jackie Brown Mile Munchers 700 x 30mm 

 Anyway, hope everyone is safe and well and had a decent weekend. 

 Jamie

Saturday 31st October 2020 - Mercian King of Mercia Tourer - paint chip and scrape touch up.

So to last week which I had a couple of days off work. Weather had changed up here drastically and rain had come and temps had dropped so was juggling things around in the shed and sorting my two winter rides and thought seen as how I had most of the bits to put the Mercian together then maybe that could be my winter tourer, commuter etc. 

Have been procrastinating building this all year, I get enthused and out it comes and then for some reason after a week or so it goes away again, despite me really wanting to ride it. I think having such great rides in my other Mercian and especially being spoiled by the superb Jack Taylor, it is hard to find the enthusiasm to build something to do the job of what is already being done so well. Now that winter is here I can pull the others down for some maintenance and now have a reason. 

 First thing was to find a touch up paint to cover the light blue touch up that had been used previously. I wasn't aiming to make it perfect as the paint on there is far from it but more to make it just not quite as noticeable as it was now. I rubbed the other patches back slightly and while they were bad underneath, I don't think they stood out anywhere near as much untreated as treated. The blue used was a sort of baby blue but a high gloss which made it really stand out. There was lots of it too, from the really big scrape along the right side of the top tube to the scraped and chipped right seat stay. This was along with just general chips. 

 I rode into town on Tuesday on the Big Dummy loaded with the forks to use as a colour match from the Mercian. I went to the local autoparts in Thurso who have a great reputation for matching car paint. One problem! Closed Tuesday!! No problem really as great day for a ride. Wednesday I called in at lunchtime for work and the young guy was really helpful and interested. He found what looked like a perfect match which was a Peugeot Kingfisher blue from about 20 years ago, put it into the machine, computer says no. Turns out that when he entered the code it kept coming back with a blue that was completely different. He then went to our second choice which had a slightly greener hue to it, yes, it would tell us how to mix this one. So I left with a small bottle of this for £10. 

He told me to make sure I really shook the bottle every couple of minutes to keep the colour consistent as due to it being metallic it should really be sprayed, though should be ok on small chips on a bicycle. Anyway I spent Thursday evening cleaning it and then touching the scrapes and chips in. By no means perfect and still noticeable but I think it is such an improvement. So top tube has gone from this: To this This is the blue of old. and now

Tuesday 27th October 2020 - Big Dummy ride to Thurso

A couple of photos from yesterday afternoons ride into town. 

 Had Monday and Tuesday off work and needed to take some forks to the local paint shop to see if they could mix up some touch up paint so decided it would be easier to load them on the Big Dummy. Also needed some other shopping stuff so the perfect choice. 

 It hasn't be out for a couple of months, especially since we have been running the tandem, so needed to ride it to try and see how, and if, it's still relevant to the fleet. It is fun and it can haul a serious amount of gear. So not going anywhere soon that's for sure. 

 It was such a nice day and good to be out riding after the rubbish weather lately. Unfortunately the paint shop was shut Tuesdays according to the sign :) but no problems as I got most other things sorted. Managed to take the forks into the paintshop today and a close enough colour match made. This touch up wasn't for the Big Dummy or even the forks I had with me. The paint was for the Mercian King of Mercia tourer I have had for a long while now. I am putting it back on the road for the winter touring duties and while it is getting on a bit and the paint had thinned etc, it has a few deep scratches in the sort of Kingfisher metallic blue paint, these were badly touched up by the previous owner in a flat pastel light blue that stands out more than the scratches would have. 

I just thought I am not building it up again looking like that, it just looks tatty, like some kid did it with a crayon in a whatever was left in the box. It belittles the superb ride and quality of this frameset. I gave it a quick rub down in spots and touched a few in and it looks 100% better. of course you can see it's been touched in but it doesn't look like a sight impaired colour blind child did it with a three foot paintbrush. The colour is a little bit greener than the original but way better than what was on there. The young guy in the Thurso autoparts who mixed it was really helpful and he did find an almost perfect match, a Peugeot Kingfisher blue, the computer then wouldn't give out the correct details to mix it, so after a while trying we went with the second closest. 

 Hopefully I will start to build that up over the coming weekend. Jamie

Thursday 22nd October 2020 - Flying Scot afternoon tandem ride - Local

Today up here the rain of the past two weeks finally stopped and this afternoon the sun even came out. So making the most of my time off I adjusted a few little things on the tandem and told the little man to suite up as we were off for a ride. No need to ask him as he is always asking to go for a ride on it. 

 We didn't have too much time but we got about an hour and a half scooting round the hills to the south east this time. 

It was a glorious afternoon but it was also very cold on the way back. As soon as the sun even looked like it was starting to drop the temperature went with it. Still a nice ride out. 

 The tandem is going well and more importantly the little man is loving it, not only that but he has adapted to it with no problems at all. It is a bit different to riding solo and the fact that you are inexplicably linked and need to work in...tandem makes it a much more conscious thing, such as saying when you need to freewheel, change gears, brake, put the inside pedal up when cornering quickly etc but we just seem to do it and it is only now and again with the gears where I need to even say anything. So very pleased with how it's going. One thing I am finding though is that because I have put his bars across from the Big Dummy where I had the Jones bars so they were very similar in width, I now notice how much leverage he has with them now I am on very narrow drop bars, also the fact they are higher. It's not deliberate from him but the input from him maybe turning round and then pulling himself back on one side etc is really felt especially at any sort of speed. We are still on 28c width tyres too. 

I was thinking when riding back that maybe if I put some touring bars on it like butterfly bars or such then our postures would also be the same both in being upright and also more relaxed for myself. I was already going to see about slightly wider tyres, maybe 30's if they would fit and also some Randonneur bars. 

Will see how it feels over the next few days before making any decisions. 

 Anyway here's a couple of photos as usual. :) 

 Jamie

Sunday 18th October 2020 - Flying Scot Continental Tandem coastal ride - Caithness

Well Brian and I will hopefully get our ride to Altnabreac later in the week after being postponed. Meanwhile Caleb and I spent an enjoyable afternoon out on the Flying Scot tandem. Still work to be done to suite us and most of that will be over the winter when it will get stripped down and fully serviced. For now our major problem of the front derailleur rapidly losing the ability to move was down to an outer cable falling apart at a cable guide. Next up is bars and brake levers. 

 We now had gears back and that made it easier to head up the hill behind the house and up off the coast to slowly meander through the farm roads and tracks out towards Dunnet before heading back to the coast and taking a few of the dirt tracks to see if we could get anywhere on them. Some were good and some either didn't go anywhere or were flooded due to the weeks rain. 

 We stopped at Castletown harbour and had some brownie that Caleb had cooked with Heather yesterday and I had snuck into the trunk bag. 

Weather was dry but definitely cool, winter will soon be here. 

 It was a great few hours and Caleb loved it, he is a natural on the tandem as we never have any problem with being out of sync or thinking we are about to do something we aren't, it's just very easy and natural. 

 Anyway, hope it was dry with everyone else. 

 Jamie One of our usual dirt tracks was flooded by the stream. It usually crosses here in a trickle. Brownie!!