On Sunday I took the first ride in ages that didn’t have any constraint except my attention span, and I set off intending to run out of gas just after cresting the last uphill. When I say run out of gas, I don’t mean the way a vehicle does - suddenly, with no warning other than the petrol gauge, rarely consulted until after the engine dies. Or even the way an e-bike does, instantly, when the battery stops being your friend and becomes an inert lump of chemicals and electrodes that weighs as much as the rest of the bike and does nothing at all now it’s dead. I mean that slow and irreversible malaise that sets in after a...
Obviously, a perfect Sunday would start with breakfast prepared by a skilled chef, and coffee ladled out by a barista. After that, with no obligations on the agenda, there is leisurely preparation and a long mountain bike ride in a stunning location, perhaps followed by a swim, more food, and a nap. If there could be more coffee and baked goods at the high point of the ride that would add some polish.But that kind of thing doesn’t always eventuate. Perhaps never, precisely as described. On those Sundays that don’t quite work out like the fantasy above, there is still a jewel to be winkled out.It is that golden hour before dark, late enough so nobody except a...
When it comes to long term in-the-field testing of a mountain biking product, it is hard to argue with the patented method we have devised at Nzo. To be fair, we only just realised we had devised it, but it is real and impossible to duplicate: it takes several years and unshakeable confidence in the product. Here is how we do it: roll the thing into a courier bag, and send it to a publisher. Wait, feeling vaguely ill, until a few months later, when it appears in their publication. Read what they say at least four times, mentally winnowing their phrases for gems which can be repeated ad nauseam. Repeat them, ad nauseam. Hope somebody notices. But copy and...
As the seasons roll by the motivation to enter stuff gets harder to muster. Unless there is a damn good reason, it’s easier to just go for a ride. The Dirty K is a damn good reason. Not only is it a ‘gravel race’, and therefore a logical outing for my latest bike, it is around the top end of Coromandel, and any excuse to go there is a good one. The event tags on to the K2 road race, a 200km hillfest that circumnavigates the middle of Coromandel Peninsula from a different start point each year. In 2018 it was Coromandel town, so when the idea of a rugged alternate ‘race’ was hatched the route north was chosen. A...
I came by a racing bike a couple of summers ago. An almost new, ridiculously light, state of the current art, carbon fibre framed machine festooned with the best Japanese equipment, comfy and extremely functional. I didn’t like the look of it, but it was nice to ride. The brakes and drivetrain were faultless, it handled perfectly, and as I mentioned, it was light. Every time I picked it up I marvelled at it. I am pretty sure my last track bike weighed about the same. But even after several thousand kilometres on the thing, I never loved it. So when a mid-nineties example of an Eddy Merckx steel frame was brought to my attention, I put the carbon rocket...
