Jake's Rides

Cleaning water bottle tips

Is it me or are the press constantly telling us more and more about the things we shouldn't do because of the health risks. A few weeks ago it was "Don't eat farmed salmon more than 3 times a year". Before that women were warned not to use under-arm deodorants. The list goes on.

One scare I do remember from my days working in an office is that it was suddenly bad to drink water from the cooler. Reason being that they weren't all cleaned properly and turned in to a bacteria breading. The same was supposedly true of re-using water bottles. This was one scare I took notice of as there seemed to be some possible truth in it.

Obviously the water bottle on my bike get re-used over and over. Hence I sterilise them every now then. How? I will share another tip from the Ministry of Useless Tips (MUT) - the same team that brought you such great tips as Making Good Use of Yellow Pages and creating tool-bags out of old tea towels.

This tip involved using Steradents, those tablets your dad (well, mine anyway) uses to clean his false teeth in a jar in the bathroom. I've bought myself some and have been using them with some hot water to clean my bottles for a few months now. Can't say I've noticed any difference but there's that piece of mind that you just can't put a price on.

Blast from the past

Remember the old photo I found of my first ever mountain bike? Well, I've found a whole load more photos. Check this one out:

What was I thinking!? The hair! The purple jumper with 3/4 length arms!! The attempt at showing-off by climbing a park bench!!! Oh dear, oh dear. I don't know what's worse - the fact that I thought being able to tackle the bench was a challenge or that I thought it worth getting my brother to catch it on camera.

Caring for the clothing

Years ago I went through a stage of buying all my clothes from Reiss. Not the cheapest way to dress! Especially when you consider than almost all their clothes were "dry clean only". Looking back I realise there was no need to take such care (or to spend so much on a wardrobe). It's just their way of making sure you don't come back complaining when they shrink in the wash. There are still some clothes that I see the need to care for though. My Gill Freedom jacket for one.

Reading the care instructions it says that, in order to preserve the water-proof coating, I should hand wash in cold water and use nothing by pure soap flakes. Off I went to the local supermarket in search of these "pure" soap flakes. All I could find was non-biological washing powder. None of them claimed to be pure soap. So my jacket remained dirty for weeks until I managed to track down Granny's Soap Flakes at a Tesco I happened to be in. Jacket clean - Jake happy.

Death Road, Bolivia

A friend called from Bolivia last week. It's bad enough that I'm not there, I think he wanted to rub it in some more. Prone to getting things wrong, I was dubious when he said he was going mountain biking on the "most dangerous road in the world". It turns out he meant "Death Road", which leads from La Paz to Corroico.

I did some Googles and found a story and a photo, form people who've dared the same ride.

During the call I asked my friend, half knowing the answer, how long it had been since he'd ridden a bike. "I can't remember" he said...

My First Mountain Bike

Rooting around in my photo archive I find this gem. My first ever mountain bike. Can't remember if it's the 1990 or '91 model, but it's a very old Kona Lavadome.

There's a story attached to this bike, that I shared with a reader not long back. The result being that swore I would never buy another Kona as long as I lived. I was young and naive at the time. But it's a good example of how brand-loyal I am.

At the time I bought the Kona I was about 14. To earn the money I spent a long cold winter block-paving my parent's yard, driveway and paths. As you can see, it was a big undertaking and involved laying new drains and makor excavation.

The end result was ok though:

And still survive to this day:

For my work my parents bought me the Kona for £430. To a fourteen year old this was a lot of money. The most I had ever forked out on any one thing.

You can imagine how I felt when things started to go wrong with the Lavadome and I realised I had to fork out (pun intended) more money (that I didn't have) to replace parts. First things to go were the forks. They literally bent double! Being young and stupid I thought I was well within my rights to expect a free replacement. What a lesson in life that was!! For the rest of my time with the Kona I would spend lots more of the little money I had on replacing parts. Almost to the point where it was only the frame that was original.

During this time I was working weekends and school-holidays at my uncle's garden centre and managed to earn enough money to buy a Trek 7000. With this bike I had no problems at all. What a blessing this was. A bike that, no matter what I through at it, failed to break.

Hence my brand-loyal tendency to Trek. My current bike is my third mountain bike and my second Trek 7000. Next time I come to buy a bike it will no doubt be a Trek. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Cyclist Killed By Lion

A friend called this morning and mentioned he was anxious about his trip to California, US, becuase his first few days would be spent alone. I joked that he should hire a car and dive through Death Valley.

Joking aside, I was reminded of some news from last month - Man killed by mountain lion, which, in turn, reminded me how lucky I am to live and ride in the UK. Here, our biggest threat is daring to share the road with the motorist. Not much chance of being mauled to death by wild animals.

Guilt-ridden Mondays

Today is one of those Mondays I thought I'd managed to put behind me. The ones where I feel guilty about my excesses of the weekend. Friends were visiting us, so there was never any avoiding the Friday and Saturday night in the pub, bacon-butties for breakfast, pizzas, crisps, pork pies and Chinese take-aways.

At least we found the time to get out for a walk up the coast at Alnmouth [photos]. I even managed to find this Geocache. The first where I didn't use the clue and found it in the first place I looked! Our friends were suitably unimpressed by the whole thing. Especially at being made to climb fences and cross mud patches to get there. Some people just don't get it do they.

There was a great moment when Karen - normally the one who goes for walks in high-heels and avoids any risk of falling over or getting muddy - proved herself by being only one of us willing to take a chance on a shortcut down to the beach.

We took the winding track down, listening to her squeals from behind. Good on yer Karen.

Stupid is as stupid does

After a little head-scratching I managed to re-build the hubs on my front wheel. Remember I was having problems trying to take them apart? Well, I was out of line having a go at the Haynes book. It wasn't at fault. I was. If I had taken the time to read the caption beneath the picture of the man and his cone spanner I would have noticed that it says:

On mountain bikes, there is sometimes a rubber seal around the cones...

Stupid me! I'll shift the blame from Haynes over to Halfords for not employing staff who can help idiots find their cones.

Too long a gap between outings

Finally made it out on the bike today for a 25-miler. Looking at the list of previous rides shows a disconserting trend appearing. Each of the last 4 rides has been on a Wednesday and separated by a fortnight. Once every two week just ain't good enough. Not going to make any excuses. This is just a note to self: Sort it out!

Had the chance to pay my first Geochace a visit for the first time since planting it. Good to see the evidence of people having found it. I know that, as the owner, I should keep an eye on it, but do I also have to validate that people who say they found it really did? Who knows? Who cares?

Well done Jen

I got a typically vague email from my dad the other day. It was along the lines of "Check a web site in New Zealand. Your cousin's doing well in downhill racing". Yeah, thanks dad.

Well, I did some googling and it turns out he's right. The cousin in question is Jen Conlon, who emigrated to NZ years ago. From the results I managed to find, she was 1^st in the Texco DH Mountain Bike Series Race 1 and 4^th in the 2004 Subaru National Downhill, Round 2.

Congratulations Jen. Last I heard, she had given up after a particularly nasty fall and some severely broken bones. Good to see she's back in the saddle.

A little hub maintainance

You know it's been too long since your last ride when you go to get on the bike and it looks like you've got a flat! That's what happened to me today anyway. Yet again, a two week gap, following a trip to the US.

While I was adjusting the tyre pressure I noticed that the front wheel had some sideward travel in it. I still went out as it was only a short ride to town and back, but it somehow didn't feel safe to corner. Getting back I took the wheel out to find the axle was definitely loose. Ball bearing gone I thought?

To get a closer look in the hub I went for the toolbox only to find that this was no hub design I was used to. Hard as it is to admit, I've never had the hubs apart in the four years I've owned the bike, which might be partly the cause in itself. So I went to my copy of Haynes' Bike Book only to find they too still thought hubs were accessed using two spanners on the one side. My hub only had grip for one spanner on each side. This was the first time I'd felt the need to use this book and it's let me down in assuming all bikes have "normal" hubs.

As embarrassing as it is that I don't know how to get in to my hub, the worst was still to come! I had to go to Halfords, yes Halfords to get some tools/advice. Kind of like me having to go to PC World for computer spares/advice, which I really hope will never happen. Not all is bad though. They actually had a clue, stocked the right tools (Park Tool no less) and I even managed to buy a spoke-key while I was there. More on that later.

So, there you go, I admit it - I didn't have the tools or the know-how to open the hubs on the bike I've owned for four years. We live and learn.