Endura Stealth Jacket

Hammerhead got funded and met the stretch goal!

I visited Edinburgh recently for a film festival and got to catch up with David from Laid Back Bikes as well as pay a visit to the local bike shops.

Riding in the rain and Hammerhead

So I've bitten the bullet and funded Hammerhead. They're pretty close to their goal with 10 days to go at the time of writing. One thing to be aware of is the $20 shipping charge outside of the US, which it would have been nice if they'd mentioned on the front page!

Here's hoping it succeeds so I can have a play with it.

Today's ride was a miserable wet mess. My aging Gore-Tex paclite is now basically dead and gone, as is my hat made of the same material and my gloves lines with it. Last Christmas my big trip was a complete washout from start to finish, I thought that my waterproofs at least lasted a couple of hours in those conditions, but they seem to have deteriorated in the meantime.

So I'm after a new jacket, hat, gloves and longs this year. I think I'm going to plump for the 'nuclear option' for jackets, the Rapha Hardshell (I can now smell smoke, wallet probably just burst into flames) and a set of Endura Stealth waterproof longs. My Berghaus trousers are still waterproof I think, but they have a wide ankle that will let water in on the recumbent and also get caught on the derailleur stem.

Going to be an expensive winter!

Longer Christmas Prep Ride: Return of the Recumbent - with added turn-by-turn

After a week of shame, I returned to Lincolnshire to fetch my bike:


I tried a different route enabled by the BikeHub app on my phone which does route planning and offers turn-by-turn navigation. This had mixed results. Most of the time it really helped navigating little villages and unnamed links on a route with far too many turns to memorise (well, for me).

Longer Christmas prep ride

As I mentioned previously, there's another location I usually visit come Christmas time on my bike which is almost 100km from door to door.

Emboldened by my previous 70k effort I thought I'd just go for it and set off a couple of weeks after (this last Saturday the 28th).


This one didn't end so well! The weather was lovely, almost 20 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately there was a 15km/h easterly wind, which did help to keep me cool but was in my face for the entire journey (it wasn't a round trip, so I didn't get the payback of riding with the wind in the second half). I was also slightly more heavily laden with overnight luggage and a larger amount of water. Thank goodness for the more aerodynamic recumbent profile.

I was slower than I expected but felt ok until I hit the last 30k, where pains in my hip and knee started to manifest. I plodded on to the destination after a brief stop to extend the boom another two centimetres. When I arrived I genuinely had trouble standing up. My thighs and glutes had basically melted.

I think it was a decent effort distance wise, but I really need to up my game to do the same route in winter with luggage. I'm also going to investigate the local Specialized store to see if they can do a bike fit, as I suspect that my asymmetric pains (left knee, right hip) may be due to different leg length or flexibility.

It's rather humiliating having to leave a bike and limp home on public transport. Thankfully my old mum didn't mind locking it in her garage until I man up and return to collect it.

Abus lock on a Brompton

I saw a great idea on a Brompton dealer website while I was looking for a front wheel, so I've basically stolen it. You get one of those Abus folding locks and attach it to the frame behind the swing arm, which has a conveniently sized gap for one. Even more conveniently, I already had that type of lock!

This does involve inverting the clip for the swing arm so that the lever points upwards, but this is pretty easy. Result with the swing arm down:

Christmas prep ride

For the last three years I've tried to cycle to my relatives in the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire for my Christmas visit (two successes, one hideous frozen near-death failure). Getting there usually involves one 72km ride (or a 100km ride, depending where I go first) followed by a bunch of eerily consistent 32km rides between places on different days. By the last day I'm usually totally ruined and somewhat frosty.

This will be the first year on the recumbent; so I thought I'd try an unladen test ride of the shorter first leg:

Derailleur cable switch

The derailleur cable on the Fuego was getting a bit frayed. I don't know how old it was when I bought it (three years, max, I think) but it was due for renewal: