Skiing & Biking

What an excellent weekend! Driving up to Slimbridge in the pouring raid hearing flood warnings on the radio filled us with a certain foreboding, but it was great! Real proper mud, a sprinkle of rain, some excellent biking (but not too much!), brilliant company and excess food as usual! My new cranks fared very well, freshly serviced cables a big improvement, especially the front shifter. I'm still not fit enough though - my shoulders and my bum still ache! The T-shirts went down very well, pretty pleased with mine. On top of all that, it was a very happy 40th birthday party (if a little early) for Fraser. Luc learned to say "Dog", "Duck" (there were lots) and finally figured out how to say "Bye Bye" instead of just "Hello"!

Last Sunday I was doing some interval training on my turbo trainer when I noticed a nasty mechanical clicking sound from somewhere around my bottom bracket. It sounded just like a cracked bearing, so I borrowed a crank extractor, took the cranks off, only to find that my BB bearings were absolutely smooth, no sign of a problem at all. Mystified, I put the cranks back on, and while I was doing that, noticed that the left crank was cracked from centre hole to the outside of the spider, all the way through. I'm very glad I wasn't riding when it finally went! XT stuff isn't meant to do this! It turns out that it's more or less the same price to have a new combined BB and chainset rather than just replacing the old taper-fit chainset, and it should be lighter, stiffer and stronger into the bargain. So Chain Reaction delivered me a nice Deore LX Hollowtech II chainset, and Brockley Cycle Team fitted it for me today, along with some good advice. (Added a picture of it 22/9/2008).

Something of a result yesterday. On the same run as on my previous attempt, I clocked 125km/h (that's 78mph). Skis were Stöckli GS 166cm (i.e. short, not particularly stable) on fairly hard-packed piste. Given a better opportunity, run and equipment, it would be pretty straightforward to do better than that. Today was an astounding powder day, just lots of bouncing about, really good fun on some nice fat Stöckli Stormrider XXL 178s. Tomorrow we have a guide booked and it's due to be sunny - I can't wait!

I was skiing in Engelberg with Fraser, Jamie and Paul last week. An excellent trip - we were so lucky with the conditions. Two weeks ago there wasn't much snow at all, yet here we were at the end of the season with fresh powder, sunshine and an empty resort (aside from the zillions of Thai and Taiwanese Amway tourists!). I got a Garmin ForeTrex 201 wrist-mounted GPS not so long ago for the express purpose of seeing how fast I go when skiing. I'm happy to report that it works nicely. After several runs I'd only managed to get high 90s (Km/h). Several things make it hard to get high speeds: space, safety and skis. When you go fast it takes quite a bit of space, and it's hard to find a run that combines a good enough gradient, smooth surface, good visibility an sufficient stopping space. Safety is hard too - other skiers, runs joining the intended route, obstacles, fences, blind corners etc When you go quick, someone with a 200m head start gets caught up very fast! Lastly skis - I've noticed for a while that modern carving skis are just not safe over about 40mph. The big sidecut that makes them so easy to turn also makes them very unstable in a straight line, giving rise to nasty speed-wobble shimmy. After I broke a binding (no more Tyrolias for me!) on the Stöckli Rotor carvers I was on, I switched to a pair of Stöckli "Snake" powder skis (as there was lots of powder to play in). Though these are not the ideal speed skis, they were a bit longer at 177cm, and the shallow 22m radius made them very much more stable. The fairly steep run below the Ice Flyer chair seemed a good candidate. The run-out is quite narrow with a twisty bit at the start, and the run was covered in lumps of soft snow, but there was nobody about. I managed 116Km/h (72mph), which I was quite pleased with. Despite having been to Les Arcs about 6 times, the speed skiing run there is always closed, or at least unprepared, despite the tourist office going on about how anyone can have a go. I get the feeling that a flat, clear track with some big, straight skis could be pretty exciting!

Paul and I met up with Ander, Jolly, John and Fraser for a spot of biking around Leith hill. Managed to accidentally set the alarm an hour early and got up at 05:20. 20 mins later I realised my mistake and went back to bed for a bit... It was extremely cold, with snow and ice on the ground in the places that were not covered in mud! Some sunshine made it all very pretty though. Despite recent skiing, I just didn't seem to have much go, but it was good fun anyway. My bike is seriously grubby.

Just back from an excellent week in Avoriaz. Decent snow for the first time in years - powder, sunshine and great company. I tried some Rossignol Zenith Z9s and at last carving skis seem to be getting it right after the years of junk foisted upon us by the likes of Salomon. The Z9s are just great in everything.