9 May 2012

Drizzle

The eternal stench of damp Shaggy

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26 Mar 2012

Dusty Dirty Harry

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15 Feb 2012

Heading north

I'm finally in departures ready to head North again. The inaugural Rovaniemi 150 starts on Saturday but it will be nice to have a few days in Lapland to get ready. There are 17 racers: 10 runners, 5 cyclists and one tandem. The first year of any race is always going to be difficult. No-one really knows what to expect. In winter races the terrain makes a huge difference so, for me, this has been the biggest question mark. That was until I got an update on the weather.

"About the track conditions I have to inform you that after two weeks with low temperatures (-30ºC...), the last three days the weather have been so mild and "warm"... only -4ºC or even less. Yesterday we had -2ºC. Was a windy day, the wind was really warm and snow was falling and add 3 to 4 centimetres, not much but the wind cover some tracks untill the point thatit dissapear...

Today we open again the track in some areas, there was some overflow in lakes and river, in some part around 40 centimeters water... For next days we expect more cold temperatures... The tracks are with some soft snow now."

I had assumed that a race inside the Arctic circle would have ensured low temperatures! These conditions are quite annoying- i had been hoping for pristine super cold weather. Not only because those conditions are fun but it does this make it faster for the bikes and decreases some risks- getting wet hugely increases the risk of frost bite. It also makes it very hard to chose what to wear. Consequently I only narrowly avoided excess baggage fees. Thanks to Endura for getting me a few pieces of clothing out at really short notice. Hopefully I'm covered for all eventualities now. I'll try and get some pictures up once I get to Finland. Now, where to find a reasonable coffee???

4 Feb 2012

Rovaniemi 150 testing

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26 Jan 2012

Floater floating

Floater_steps

The On-one prototype fat bike quite extensively recently. I'm really loving it. There will be a few changes before production but nothing major. The Surly Nate's have been fantastic and are already opening up the potential of the bike, and Fatbikes as a whole. It's going to be an interesting year.

I'm about to strip the bike down and rebuild it for the Rovaniemi 150 next month. After that it's being lent out to be taken out to Siberia. Guess I'd better find something else to ride for a while!

21 Jan 2012

Floater

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12 Jan 2012

Sometimes I fall out of love with Bristol.

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21 Oct 2011

On-one fat rim

I'm trying out some rims for the forthcoming On-one fat bike. I need to get a new rear hub but the front was easy to build. Rim quality looks better than the Flat Top snow rims I have at the moment.

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11 Sep 2011

Wear. It's built for a purpose, you might as well use it.

I don't understand people who are overly precious about a mountain bike. I'd rather use the damn thing.

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1 Mar 2011

Iditarod trail invitational.

Crashed at 30 miles. Hit a patch of soft snow, that looked perfectly ridable. Pulled the muscles in my right shoulder and can't hold on the the handlebar. Had to push the bike in one handed for the last 20miles in to Skwentna. Had to scratch as there was no way I was going to be able to carry my bike over Rainy Pass. The possibility of not making McGrath really hadn't occurred to me. Hugely disappointed a quite upset. Getting a flight back to Anchorage tomorrow.

On 26 February 2011 23:43, John Ross <heresshaggy@gmail.com> wrote:
Well in time honoured fashion my laptop died at the most inopportune time. Consequently here's an abridged version of what I've already typed once. Bus leave in 12hrs so need to sleep...

Tomorrow is my 31at birthday. This happens to concise with the 10th annual ITI. Looks like, this year, there are 44 racers, 38 of them on bikes. It looks like Pete Basinger, the defending champ won't be racing. He lives in McGrath, where my race will finish. However the weather is too bad for him to get a flight out to the start! Mike Curiak is about. He's riding the 1100 miles to Nome and shooting a film at the same time. My bike and kit is stripped down as far as I dare. Not been able to eat much today as I've been really nervous. Just want to get going now!

Right- bed time.