tracksterman

hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way

[tracksterman]

Banged out a quick 745m of climbing this morning on what I call the 'Two Trigs Loop,' putting me over the calendar Everest for July; miles of moorland singletrack that's running as well as I've seen it in the four years I've been living here. Worked a bunch of blackberry lanes into the return journey to see how they're getting on. Answer: very promising! This site (pictured above, right) did nothing in last year's drought, but is heaving with proto-fruit now. Three weeks, hopefully a bit of rain.... let the picking commence!

[tracksterman]

It's all starting to look a bit yellow and scorched on this morning's pre-work ride. And some fucker had cleared out the bilberry bushes since last week! I checked a few others I've been monitoring but they're not doing well in this ongoing heat, the fruit small and shrivelled. The dry weather looks like continuing for at least the next two weeks; great riding conditions, but....

[tracksterman]

I've always enjoyed the riding in the Dales although it seems to have fallen out of favour with the modern mountain biking community. Some of the tracks I was riding on Tuesday and Wednesday used to be impassable; wastelands of mud wrecked by off-road motorists. The ban on so-called 'green laning' within the National Park has allowed them to recover and, particularly in the current dry spell, they make for great traffic-free cycling, side stepping a road network that has become too busy for my tastes. On this 100km overnight trip I only encountered a handful of cars. Planning is everything.

[tracksterman]

Pleasant evening, although I woke to the inevitable mist this morning. I stopped a bit earlier than intended, taking advantage of a reliable stream that's still flowing. Given the current fire risk I left the stove at home this trip, subsisting on tinned tuna, nuts, biltong, cereal bars, haribo - and whisky. You can, of course, cook completely safely with a gas or meths stove if you're competent but, y'know, lead by example. You don't want to be 'that' asshole.

[tracksterman]

Some people say there's no gravel riding in the UK...

[tracksterman]

The Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe - 21st Century Folk - Summer of Sport 2026 - BBC Sounds

Five inspirational people have songs written especially for them.

I've said it before; mainstream music has disappeared up its own bleached, depilated arsehole. If you want political and social commentary, you now need to go folk.

[tracksterman]

Folk on Foot.

Bandcamp.

[tracksterman]

A quick 20km in Mediterranean heat before work, although it still netted me 500+m in climbing (and a couple of lovely singletrack descents, baked hard). But I had an ulterior motive to this ride: first bilberries of the season! Phwoar, so much nicer than the 'orrible, chalky agri-industry blueberries you buy in the shops...

This bridleway is the motherlode: bilberries down the shaded left hand side, blackberries soon to go nuts down the SE facing right. We're a week or two away from Peak Bilberry, but I'm coming back here next Friday with a couple of big tubs and a banging playlist to spend an entire morning loading up on free sugar for the freezer....

Work were badgering me from 07:00 to stand in for the usual sicknotes today. Starting early to slave away in 30+C heat with no air conditioning, making up for people who can't get out of bed to do their contracted shifts? It's a tempting offer.....but you can get fucked! All overtime entreaties embargoed until the heatwave's over - next week is bivi bag week...!

[tracksterman]

And summer's back! I was going to head over to the Dales for the day but changed my mind, keeping it local. The riding's just as good out of my front door and, mystifyingly, there was nobody about - trails running fast in perfect condition, only me on them....and a fridge full of cider waiting at the end of the ride rather than a sweaty two hour train journey! Hmm, tough call.

[tracksterman]

Great version of a classic track that featured on this week's R2 Blues Show. I first became aware of this song courtesy of Robert Plant, not knowing of the controversy surrounding Tim Rose's version. It's since been covered many times by other artists such as Jeff Beck, with Rod the Mod on vocal duties (plus Ronnie Wood on bass and Keith Moon on drums)! Hard to decide which version is my favourite, but the Lulu cover would be a good suggestion for Tony Blackburn's Sounds of the Sixties. I regularly message him requesting this Serge Gainsbourg track but, for some reason, he doesn't seem keen (perhaps understandable given that, if there was a posthumous French Operation Yewtree, Serge would definitely be on their radar....)!

[tracksterman]

Heatwave? What heatwave?

[tracksterman]

For use with Shimano SLX SPD PD-M530 right hand pedals. This Body Cover & Bolts can also be used on the following right hand pedals: - Shi

After decades on Time pedals I switched to Shimano three years ago because, at least in theory, spares are available. SJS Cycles are the go-to store for this kind of stuff, with a vast range of spares usually in stock. However, going back to the economics of servicing pedals rather than simply replacing them, it's not clear to me how much sense the former approach makes. My ME700s, for example, will at some point require new ball bearings and four of these body covers - which, again, comes to about the same price as a new set of pedals (with cleats)!

Of course, one could make the counter argument that, rather than spares being too expensive, it's pedals that are too cheap; heavily discounted by monopolistic online stores in an unhealthy market that's driving local bike shops out of existence. This is the fucked up reality of the modern bike industry, designed to relentlessly shift product in a cycle of constant gear churn. It's a phenomenon that reaches it's nadir in the form of e-bikes, but permeates every level of the sport, and is one of the reasons I feel so disconnected from it.

[tracksterman]

Looking into buying the specific Shimano tool required to more conveniently service the cheap M505 pedals on the commuter bike, I was faced with two choices:

A) pay c.£30 (RRP £60+) for the TL-PD33 tool that I only need for that one set of pedals (which cost less than the tool), or:

B) pay less than a fiver more for the superior ME700 pedals I prefer, which are easier to service with tools I already have (and which come with a set of cleats).

I hate this economics; there's no way such a simple tool should be costing almost £30, let alone the ridiculous RRP of over sixty quid! At £34, the ME700s are currently a tenner less than the original pair I bought three years ago. I don't need them yet but, working on the logic they won't be getting any cheaper, there's now a set in the spares box (along with a new bottom bracket). Sustainable cycling, right?

[tracksterman]

So that's my seventh Everest completed on the first day of the seventh month. I'm cat/veg patch sitting at my sister's this week, knocking out a quick ride on the monstercross across the Lancashire plains this morning. Where I live, 40+km would get you 1200+m of climbing, but here you're lucky to get a measly 400m.

Exactly halfway through the year, I'm slightly behind 2025 on distance - but 5000m ahead on elevation. This reflects my preferred choice of route these days: I'm not a roadie, slogging along dangerous flat A-roads (or, even worse, Zwift) to notch up junk miles that don't boost your fitness. For me it's all about the climb and the aesthetic; eliminating cars by careful planning, stitching together enjoyably testing routes through objectively pleasant surroundings. It pays dividends. At the age of 59, last week's ascent of Great Dun Fell, the highest road in the country (cars not allowed), saw me slash five minutes off my fastest time without even really trying. On a loaded mountain bike. Might have to go back with an unladen monstercross and see how that goes...

[tracksterman]

The minimalist fork bag rack I installed as a test coped fine with this week's fast'n'furious descent to Blencarn, so I've put the second one on. Strapping on bags is slightly more faff but they're fine for my purposes: just sitting there out of the way, ready for the occasional 1-2 night trip. No fiddly mechanisms to break, don't tie you into an expensive ecosystem of proprietary 'luggage solutions.' Couple of straps and a simple dry bag, good to go (I've never used the Velcro straps that came with my Brae Drookit, preferring to use conventional buckled webbing).

The only issue encountered during installation was that one of my fork's threaded mounts was slightly too low relative to the others. No problem with my existing cargo cages because, like bottle cages, they have slightly elongated holes to permit some up-down adjustment. These Bentley Maxi-deck racks don't, just equally spaced countersunk holes for the (supplied) T25 bolts. Not a big deal, 30 seconds with a small round file sorted it out. It's a fork issue, not a rack issue.

[tracksterman]

And that's June's Everest ticked off. Major flashbacks to cycling through the hill country of SW China and SE Asia on this morning's Calderdale ride; something to do with the heat and humidity following dawn rain, the greenery, the sound of grasshoppers, even the smell and taste of damp earth. You don't know, man, you weren't there....

[tracksterman]

Just a lovely summer's morning up on the local moors; another one of these and that's June's calendar Everest in the bag - a bit more before the end of the month gets the seventh Everest of 2026. If only I didn't have to go to work...