I've Gone Wireless

I didn't write about this last year, but I've had an absolute mare of a time with my 2013 Tarmac gears, pretty much since I got the bike. Although running one of Shimano's top of the range sets, they have always been difficult to tune, suffer from frequent chatter, stiff gear change and chain drop. Last year I tried replacing all the cables; no small deal as they are integral and my local bike shop were less than pleased with how long this took. I even had to return it to them to do it all again! Still the problems persisted.

One option considered was to scrap the whole thing and get a new bike. A bit rash may be? Well, I thought so too, so I've taken the plunge and invested in a wireless electronic groupset running SRAM eTap. Although still pretty revolutionary, I preferred this over Shimano's Di2, as the latter would have had bulky cables and battery packs to thread through those dreaded down and cross tubes, and wireless seemed so much more forward thinking.

I went for the SRAM Red eTAP with the WiFli rear mech to handle cassettes up to 32 teeth. This enabled me to reinstall the Tarmac's original semi-compact chainset (52x36) which I replaced with a compact back in 2015 to handle the Devon hills; the reason being that I would be able to have more teeth on the rear due to both moving from 11-28 to 11-32 and from 10 to 11 speed. Trust me, this is the perfect setup for this area. This will allow me to spin on a climb and still pedal on even the steepest descents.

I set up in the corner of my friendly bike shop; more for moral support and having access to all the right tools. I felt the real bike mechanic! I had booked 2 days off work to complete the installation; I'm a project manager by profession, so knowing my mechanical capabilities, having plenty of contingency was key! As it was, the removal of old and the fitting of new bar tape, leavers, cassette, chainring and derailures, including tuning, took around 5 hours, so I was done and dusted before closing time.

I still have a little bit of fine tuning to do, but the change is dramatic. No more sore wrists pushing on cables and no clunking, rattling, missed gears to contend with. Yes, I'm going to have to keep an eye on battery levels so as to avoid returning from rides on a fixie and walking up hills, and I'm a little lighter in the pocket; but I now have the equivalent of a £6k bike for a fraction of the cost and one that works, looks great and should at least last me another year!

Hottest Ride of the Year

'Twas an epic Coffee Club Ride today in so many ways .. definitely the hottest ride to date, with Andy's Garmin recording 28 degrees in the shade! It was also the longest, as we broke with Coffee Club tradition and headed out to Honiton via Sidmouth on a 50+ mile pedal. We also added in 2 additional feed stops .. ice creams in Sidmouth and coffee in Honiton.

The plan had been to stop at Escott (a superb Country House coffee shop) as it was rumoured Dawn's ladies may have been calling in on their ride; as it was, we arrived just as they were leaving and so agreed to delay our next stop 'till Honiton. It was amazing to see so many ladies out today, the peloton seemed to stretch on for miles!

After Honiton we climbed up to the Stockland 7 mile straight via the Tue TT (Time Trial Club) route and an added narrow hill climb; which it's unlikely I'll ever find again. It was then a dash to the A35 and the most direct routes home for all.

A top ride, incredible weather and proud to see so many Pedallers crisscrossing the Devon lanes today

2017 AVP Treasure Hunt

Last week I held my 3rd Treasure Hunt for the AVP, you know the crowd, the Axe Valley Pedallers, my cycling club. Before writing up this report, I checked back to last year's event and saw that we had 22 participants forming themselves into 9 teams. For this year's event, we had 20, making 5 full teams of 4; it couldn't have been planned better.

This year, we also had a change to the format, with a minimum £5 donation per team going to my club's charity, DAAT - Devon Air Ambulance Trust. Before continuing with the ride report, let me digress onto a related topic of charity donations. The AVP has always been a supporter of DAAT, indeed, I understand this dated back to the formation of the club in 2005. In recent years, however, the DAAT logo on all our jerseys has not necessarily reflected the level of financial support we've given to this great organisation. Last year, we agreed to increase our subs by £1 so that we could guarantee a flow of at least £100 of donations to them. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but it had the effect of removing any further incentive to raise more. So, in this year's AGM I fought to remove the sub levy while still committing to guarantee we'd donate at least £1 per member by the year end. So, what difference has this made? From all the events we've so fare run this year, we've already raised 2x our 2016 achievement, with £45 coming from the Treasure Hunt!

Back to hunt .. the route was mostly a well pedalled one for us pedallers; from Seaton, via Seaton Hole, to Beer, up past the caves and down to Branscombe beach. From here we climbed collecting treasure all the way to the observatory returning to the famous Donkey Sanctuary in Branscombe for refreshments and the debrief!

Our treasure hunters went on safari through the seasons in search of sculptures, counted petrified fungi, made calls from green telephone boxes, stared at skulls and journeyed back in time to when St Winifreds School Choir sung Grandma! Yes, it was a surreal adventure for our brave Pedallers! And if you're interested to know if our champions, Roger & Becca, walked away with the yellow jersey again, the answer is, no, we have new victors for 2017. I think teaming up with a fellow pedaller to devise the fiendishly challenging clues, threw all, just, I guess happens when the Times crossword changes its question setter!

I guess with the continuing success for this event, I'll be back again next year to do it all again.