Some mountain bike related news! Thought I’d let you know about the bikes I’ll be riding this year…
First up is my Dialled Bikes Prince Albert 853. Designed for the surrey hills by Dialled Mike… equally at home in the mountains - this is my all day riding bike, my fun bike, my XC bike, and most places in between bike. It’s spec’d up with Pike 454 air forks up front, Juicy 7 brakes, Sram X9 rear mech and shifter and a double + bash XT chainset. I had an old Prince albert before, the cheaper 525 tubed version, so knew that the new one would be pretty nice - and it is (in spooky stand up on it’s own mode)
Some upgrades on the cards this year - bigger rotors.. and a quick release for the seatpost… apart from that she’s sweet.
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment - something new on it’s way from Santa Cruz HQ…
Here we have it - the new flowmtb site and logo - what do you think?
A special thanks very much to Rich for his hard work on the design front - top stuff mate.
And thanks to our guests for filling out the comments book so we could add them to the site.
And thanks to Adam, Doug and Joe for the use of their photos.
More stuff lined up: Details about our autumn trip to Morocco, Routes and helmet cam footage from around here and some other cool stuff 
I’m off to bed.
p.s. if you spot something that doesn’t quite work, could you let me know!
I now have pictures of my newly powder coated frame. It’s looking pretty sweet so I can’t wait till it gets over here. Thanks again to Tom - the windwave service is second to none!
Now I need to dig out all the parts to build it up with. Will be the first bike I’ve fully built up myself….hoping i do a good job!
Excuse my french, but here I am - working on our new website wearing my beanie, with my hoodie up and the cords pulled tight… still cold though! I need to get some fingerless gloves. Why on earth did they build an apartment block in the mountains without double glazing or seemingly any sort of insulation… bring on the summer I say.
We’re busy working hard on a new website - it should be online shortly we hope. More content, more info, more photos, more everything. And a whole new logo. It’s looking good… now I must get back to work.
Joe and I travelled around Brazil together.
He brought us Cachaca.
We drank the whole bottle last night between the three of us.
Not big, or clever.
p.s. mountain bike related news will return shortly.
Guy’s mate Joe arrived last night and very kindly brought with him two huge lumps of cheddar cheese. Now I’m quite a big fan of cheddar so was very excited to see this and to have cheese on toast for lunch The selection of cheese here is amazing, and I love french cheese, but do miss cheddar. Guy was pretty chuffed with his two jars of peanut butter and bottle of Cachaca, in fact he’s out buying limes right now to make Caipirinhas tonight. We’ll definitely be inviting Joe back again!
I’m now officially very excited! You see, in December I sold my old NRS frame and decided to buy a cheap hardtail frame to build up with all the parts from that. Have been having a look around and found a DMR Switchback for sale second hand that seemed pretty good. What made it even better was that the man selling it happened to work for Windwave (www.windwave.co.uk) and be willing to indulge my request for a pink powder coat - which I realise is not a normal service when buying a second hand frame. I’ve just heard back that it looks like the coaters have done a good job, he can finish it off on Monday and get it sent out! So a big thank you to Tom at Windwave who I can heartily recommend for a great service. Oh and I should say that they don’t normally powder coat frames, but can do forks, so if you want your forks serviced and powder coated pink at the same time, you know where to go….
Why are the saddles on gym bikes so uncomfortable? Are they really bad or is it partly in your head as you’d rather be outside than in the gym?
Just some random wonderings after my trip to the gym today. You see, the problem with all the snow is it makes biking a little difficult. So I’ve joined the gym to make sure I keep fit. I’ve been a few times (trying, and so far managing, to go 3 times a week) and each time I go on the bike I’m really sore. I’m on for around an hour and having to get off ‘cos it hurts, rather than my legs being tired. This is particularly annoying after having discovered my perfect saddle this summer. Oh well, just have to wait till it thaws enough to get back on the bike. In the meantime, it’s less bad each time I go so by summertime it’ll probably be fine!
Rant over.
Well, finally the snow is here and our winter playground is great fun. We spent most of today up the hill playing around in the powder. We came back and got on with a little work, but I’m now tired and ready for bed. Good night.
