That stubby little shock might make it nice and smooth, kind and gentle on my furiously pedalling behind, but I reckon cross country trek-ability is far above downhill flow on my list of requirements, and, sadly, skills. I want a bike that I can take out and pedal for 6 hours over any terrain, and while there are a bunch of targetted, super light full-sus machines out there (Specialized Epic & Santa Cruz Superlight being great examples) the benefits of the suspension on these types of machines just doesn’t seem to justify either the cost or the increase in breakable parts.

So, back to the hardtail for me. And quite exciting it is too! Think about it - I’m now used to looking at frames that cost £1500 brand-new thanks to my brief full suspension fetish. Imagine the kind of hardtail you can get for that kind of money?! I’m slavering over carbon frames at the moment, or even, dare I say it, Titanium. Or Ti as all the cool kids call it.

I’ve been looking at the benefits and I reckon Titanium might actually be the way to go, even though it’s easily as steep as full suspension. Titanium frames are super-light, obviously. They make bits of the space shuttle out of it for god’s sake, how much of a advert is that? Plus, Titanium frames are nice and springy, smoothing out your ride somewhat, making up for the lack of a rear shock. The frames may be as expensive as my old Specialized S-Works Enduro but while the rear shock on the enduro really doesn’t give me that much advantage, the super-skinny weight of a Titanium frame will be awesome on the cross country while the springy finish will smooth out the downhills a bit anyway. Sorted.

So, Titanium it is for me, any advice on what to get? I’ve been looking at the Cove Hummer Ti, simply because the juvenile part of me secretly loves Cove’s innuendo-laced frame labels, but there’s plenty of other options around. Let me know in the comments - you could be responsible for my spending another ill-conceived grand and a half. Here we go…

Well, I’ve had trouble over the past year with a condition called Illiotibial Band Syndrome, something which a lot of doctors don’t seem to know a lot about and so I thought it was worth talking about incase it helps anyone else in the same boat.

The problem reared it’s head during a duathlon I took part in early last summer - a 13 mile hill run followed by a 20 mile cycle. About half way through the run the outside of my right knee started to twinge - quite a sharp little pain, like something scraping inside on each step. It seemed to hurt only on the straightening part of my stride and would come and go over time. By the end of the run it was really hurting though and I was glad to get on my bike, thinking that the lower impact movement would help.

At first it did, but after about 5 miles of cycling it was back, same again on the straightening part of the pedal stroke. Stupidly I kept going, thinking all would be fine, but a mere 2 miles from the end I felt a really sharp pain and the whole knee just locked up. I couldn’t bend or straighten it at all now and after 10 minutes lying on the side of the road I realised it wasn’t gonna get better any time soon.

After the race it took around 2 or 3 weeks to get back to normal, but on and off since then I’ve had periods when it can get pretty bad, the pain coming on after only 20 minutes of walking - similarly just a sharp pain on the outside of my right knee.

I went to the doctor initially but he didn’t have too many ideas, and only after pushing it did he refer me to a sports physio who eventually saw me and immediately diagnosed illiotibial band syndrome.

Illiotibial band synrome is something that develops when the thin fascia on the outside of your thigh tightens up, either through lack of stretching or bad foot positioning on the bike, and starts to pull your knee cap offline. The kneecap grates on the wrong parts of the surrounding tissue and starts to create the pain and stiffness that I often get.

Treatment for Illiotibial Band Syndrome is basically a long regime of really particular stretches, some of which you can find here: Illiotibial Band Stretch, and assessing how your feet are positioned on the pedals.

Some thing that can help are putting your pedals further out from the frame, ie. taking them off and putting spacers inbetween the crank and pedal to place them further out. Cleat positioning can also help by ensuring that your feet aren’t too ‘toe-in’. The heels should be as close to the crank arms as possible. And lastly, Illiotibial Band Syndrome is one of the only knee complaints that advise lowering your seat rather than raising it in order to reduce its appearance.

Anyway, I’m seeing the physio regularly over the summer so hopefully I’ll be able to add more advice as and when I get it. If you have any yourself then please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear it.

Technorati Tags: mountain bike, injury, knee, illiotibial band syndrome

I have to admit I was expecting a pretty inferior attempt at following the successful Roam series, the highlights presumably consisting of heavily clothed scotsman struggling through bogs and sheets of rain. That shows my own home-grown prejudices though as the DVD is easily on a par production-wise with the best mountain biking films out there and the scenery and trails look simply amazing, easily stacking up with any I’ve seen on film. Of course, I should have guessed that having shamelessly enjoyed the mountain biking around Scotland for the past 4 years or so! I have subsequently donned my po-face and assumed a new confidence and pride in my local trails.

It’s easy to forget how lucky we are in the central belt of Scotland having dozens of amazing trail centres within a couple of hours both north and south. Home shows off a fair few of them, from the well known such as Glentress, to the less well travelled like Drumlanrig. It also introduces you to a few great Scottish riders if you haven’t met them already - Danny McAskill, the recently famous trials phenomenon and Chris Ball, the Dirtschool founder, among them.

The film is a little short for the price, but I’m guessing the target market is pretty limited so necessitating a slightly higher cost than normal. I’m not sure if the price will come down at any point in the future, but going by previous specialist productions like this it’s probably unlikely. I’d say it’s worth getting though, especially if you can go halfers with a biking buddy as there’s no doubt it’ll get the heart racing and that ill-kept bike out of the cupboard and back on the trail.

Check out the trailer at Reset Film’s website and let me know what you think!

Technorati Tags: mountain biking film, DVD, scotland, trails

I’m currently away for a few months on a trip through Asia on the was to Australia - specifically India, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore and then Oz, before heading back via the US and Canada. As a consequence posts will be pretty in-frequent! If I get any biking in on the way I’ll try and put in a post or two, and from what I hear there’s some pretty awesome biking in Nepal.

Other than that I’ll be back in the Spring 2009 so enjoy the winter’s biking and talk to you soon!

Colin

I’m hoping to get a few rides in at least over my time away, probably most likely in Nepal since it pretty much invented mountains in the first place… I’m looking at a place called The Last Resort which looks amazing - right in the middle of nowhere but instant access to river rafting, canyoning, trekking and, most importantly, mountain biking in the Himalaya. Check out their site here: The Last Resort. If all goes to plan then in about 4 weeks I’ll be lounging in the middle of the Himalaya with rivers and mountains on my doorstep and a trusty mountain bike close to hand. There’s even a bungy jump, a mere 150m one, right next door so I might well have to try that out too.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Technorati Tags: mountain, biking, bike, nepal, himalaya

Click here to search quality filtered mountain bikes

The link above is a tester which shows you one of my normal searches. Feel free to bid on anything in there, it’s the full ebay site simply linked from here using a special search. This is one of my searches for general bikes, just to pick up some of the more unusual ones out there, but it weeds out the low quality ones by looking for specific components. You can click on and bid on the bikes below no problem so if you see something good then go for it. Just make sure to check the feedback first - as long as they have a minimum of 50 you’re covered by paypal up to £500 so you’re a lot safer that way. Click the link to start the search in a new window, and good luck!

Technorati Tags: bike, Bikes, ebay, second hand, used bikes

In my last post I talked about getting ready for the Coast to Coast. Well, my eagerly anticipated trip was cut short by a recurrence of my knee injury from earlier in the year. Very annoying considering it suggests I’m out of any kind of long distance cycling in the near future. Or running… Or walking….

Anyway, I’ve been referred to an orthopaedic surgeon so hopefully I’ll get some answers from him and we’ll see what I can do with it. In the meantime I came across a really good article on Bike Radar that gives a fair bit of info on knee injuries in general. You’ll find it here: Knee Care and Maintenance and Knee Care and Maintenance, Part 2.

If you check out part two I have a sneaky suspicion that Iliotibial band syndrome could be on the cards,  simply going by what’s happening to me along with little comments from the doc. To be honest though, I haven’t a clue. It does sound slightly better than the alternative which is cartilage damage. Although, as nasty as cartilage damage is, at least it’s fixed straight off with a little bit of surgery!

Anyway, enough speculation for now, but I hope that the Bike Radar article helps anyone else in a similar situation. It might give you something to point your not-very-sports-specialized doctor at at least.

Technorati Tags: knee, injury, mountain, bike, biking

Also, I should offer apologies to any regular readers for the pretty erratic updates over the last few weeks - I’ve been crazily busy what with enduring interviews, attending weddings and birthday’s, changing jobs and getting ready for this trip. I’m afraid there’ll be another week of it as I’m off tomorrow until Sunday, but at least this time it’s biking related and I’ll get something pretty cool to write about at the end of it all.

As for the preparations, I’m riding the Giant XTC Zero that I mentioned previously so I’m getting it fixed and set up for my riding position as well as fitting my own tyres. I’m currently typing while nursing skint knuckles thanks to some stupidly tight UST tyres which required lever-snapping forces to remove. The beasts are off now though and I’ve fitted the new ones so I’m just waiting to see if the new ones deflate thanks to the inevitable tyre-lever puncture which I probably inflicted during my grunting and groaning getting the old ones off. I put the same tyres on a normal Mavic wheelset last week without a tyre level in sight, shows you how much more tightly fitting UST wheelsets are…

Anyway, it’s too late for any more, off early tomorrow up to Kyle of Lochalsh to begin the Coast to Coast and I can’t wait. I’ll be putting a proper report up here over the next couple of weeks with some good maps and tips of the whole route. I haven’t seen a detailed free guide to it so far so hopefully I can help out anyone else planning the trip.

Signing off for now, I’ll talk to you next week!

Technorati Tags: Coast to coast, scotland, mountain, bike, biking

It was Will that first came up with the idea after finding a site detailing a few epic rides in the UK. Other options included the England coast to coast, from the Lake district over to County Durham, and a pretty big loop around Wales but since we’ve never done any of them the local Scottish option seemed the best place to start!

The exact logistics have still to be decided but it’s looking like we’ll be following the schedule below.

Day 1. Arrive at Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast in the evening and take a leisurely ride down to Ratagan Hostel at Glenshiel. Only 20 km the first day.

Day 2. Glenshiel to Fort Augustus via Glen Garry. This’ll include plenty of elevation and a lot of sweating on my part…

Day 3. Fort Augustus to Aviemore via Corrieyairack Pass and perhaps Laggan. Quite keen to revisit the Laggan Wolftrax on the way but I suspect I might be gasping for some of Aviemore’s finest ale by this point, and, probably more likely, one of it’s finest hostel beds…

Day 4. Aviemore to Braemar via Rothiemurchus, Tomintoul and Glen Builg. Plenty more off-road in this section, although over 100 miles in I may not be glad of it!

Day 5. Braemar to Montrose via Jock’s Road, Glen Doll, Glen Clova. The final drag to the East coast which involves a fair bit of road near the end but plenty of Glens leading up to it. No doubt my bike will be shedding parts by this stage and I’ll be just about hanging off the back…

We’ve more or less planned the route on the map but exact paths could change a lot at the time depending on conditions. Because of that I wont post a map until we’re done, but I’ll keep a wee journal as we’re going and put a decent report on here afterwards, along with a map to guide future trekkers.

The main thing that isn’t going to plan at the moment is the training, but hey, when does that ever go to plan? Due to various work and leisure things I’ve barely been out in the last couple of weeks so the trip is going to be interesting. I’m totally looking forward to it though and I’ll let you all know how it went when we get back!

Technorati Tags: coast to coast, scotland, mountain bike, biking, epic ride

Image: Mrpattersonsir