It's a Dogs Life

Can we go now?
What about now...

Sunday evening... Zack the family Jack Russel and myself cruised our way along the river track that runs down past our house. Zack looked up at me in full stride, tongue hanging out of a mouth stretched in a wide doggy grin. Good times!

I'd spent the latter part of the afternoon replacing the singlespeed chain setup on my Ventana with the rebuilt belt driven Rohloff that normally resides there. I had agonized over what I wanted to spend the next month or so riding as I have been enjoying the light, simple SS setup. My Rohloff had been rebuilt after the seals failed during the Tour Divide earlier this year. Chris at Puresports provided excellent followup service and got me up and running again.

It was quite a dilemna deciding what to roll with but I decided that I would prefer a few extra gears for  Le Petite Brevet coming up next month so I'd better get the Rohloff on and some k's onto the new internals before I hit the hills on Banks Peninsula.

Removing the stainless steel SS sprockets and chain I noted that there was very little if any indication of wear on the sprockets. They had only been on for about 6 weeks but with almost 600k on them I thought I would see something. I did fastidiously oil and clean the chain between and sometimes during rides. I would still have thought the grinding climbs I'd undertaken would have taken their toll.

It did give me pause to consider the belt drive I'm running on the Rohloff. While I love the smoothness and practically maintenance free nature, it is an expensive setup. It makes sense using it for events like the Tour Divide and perhaps even our 1200k NZ Brevets where longer duration riding can quickly wear components. For training where I can take more care to maintain it - a chain setup would still work well. This is of course the way most people run their Rohloffs. I guess it's time for a bit of experimentation...

So, back to dogs, bikes and the river track at dusk...

Zacks head hung a little lower on the way back to the house. He let me lead a bit more too. Sitting back on the couch in the lounge, Zack at my feet, excuding contentment I'm sure we were both looking forward to the next ride.

Naseby 12hr 2013 Track

Naseby 12hr 2013 @ 15-15-35

Spent a great weekend in Naseby, getting some riding in amongst the trees. A little bit of 'secret training' for the upcoming Naseby 12hr race in April.

Thanks go to Adair for letting myself the family and friends use her wonderful holiday home on Strode Ave. It made a great base for riding and for between ride activities.

I have decided to ride solo this year. The last time I went solo was when I had just purchased my Epic 26er. It was it's first big outing and part way around the first lap the front chainring shifter failed necessitating 11hrs+ to be undertaken in the middle chainring. Not ideal but not the end of the world. That was my first outing at Naseby and it went OK. A timing miscalculation on my part saw me fail to head out for a final lap and miss a podium spot.. Perhaps brought about by the voice in my head screaming at me to stop for 6 of the 12 hrs! I have enjoyed team riding but I prefer slogging it out rather than going for the fastest possible laps - I'm just not that good a technical rider! Always good to no your limitations...

It was challenging to ride fully rigid. I am still getting used to the weight distribution on the bike. The rohloff adds weight to the back. A little air time here and there resulted in the occasional clunk as I got it all wrong! On the whole I improved with each run. The Ventana felt at home in the twists and turns however and by the time the weekend was over I had a sense of what I will need to do to get the most out of the both of us on the day. I am continuing to enjoy the positivity of the rohloff and the smooth consistency of the gates drive. The dusty conditions would have been murder on a standard setup! Not that it is that big a deal to attend to a chain - it's just easier not to have to.

31/32 minutes or so was the order of the day for me. I will aim for 20 laps of the 11k course. Accounting for fatigue, time under lights, other riders etc I would expect 35 minutes per lap to be the average. May do a little better or a little worse. Time will tell. A wet day and who knows!

Big Wheels Rollin'

After many months of planning and waiting as pieces arrived my new bike is born!

Ventana El Commandante on rock garden,  Alexandra
The 'hoff' resplendent in red!

There are few things as good as a new bike! This is the first time that I've experienced being part of the process of putting one together from scratch and it does add to the enjoyment.

The reality of course is that I relied heavily on the positive experience of Olly in the Tour Divide last year to determine the way forward. I got to play with some of the less consequential bits and pieces but the bulk of the build was determined by Olly. Gary at Rock n Road took care of a few other crucial parts. I did deal with the brakes, shortening the lines and I set up the rholoff shifter cables - twice - once munting the cables in the process, purchasing new inners and starting again before getting it right...



I am very happy with the final result. Just as well really as I plan to spend quite a bit of time on it over the coming months...