Rain, rainbows and carbon forks

After a day spent putting carbon forks on rigger, no-one told me removing a crown race could take so long. In fact before today I didn't even realise you had to remove it from the old forks to put on the new ones! But after about an hour I got it off - thanks to everyone on twitter for the helpful comments and advice!

I rode over to fairfield to meet Odile for a similar ride to last time, only I had planned something slightly different. On the way over I wasn't sure of them yet, they felt different. I'm wondering now if its the weight of the wheel, when I was stood up climbing it was an odd feeling, almost as if they were pulling back when I was pulling the bars. Not sure how to explain it? Once I got there I dropped the bars even more, the bike felt different to before, which means I now have a huge amount of steerer above the stem!

I arrive a little late after forgetting that we were meeting the far side of Bury but we were soon on our way. The ride was going well on the first bit of downhill I flew off and then got scared - my bike is going to be different. The mind is so powerful! I must stop using mine to talk myself out of things! We then headed down the downhill that last time we had to carry up! The top part was ok, but I stopped when I reached the complete boulder field. A bit further down I got on and after repeating "its flat, its flat, its flat" to myself made myself ride down!

After this the route got a bit sketchy, we dropped near to ramsbottom and then somehow ended up wandering across a boggy field.


This was followed by waist high grass and then a muddy cliff to clamber up. Once out of that trying to get back on the route failed as I led us in circles. Eventually a bit of cycle path and some road brought us back to the start.


The weather went from fine when we started to torrential rain, at one point I was ready to head for home. It had gone from fun to can I endure this any longer. I was also beginning to feel cold and unusually for me had no more clothes to put on! But things felt better once the rainbow came out. The picture is rubbish but it really was a perfect rainbow!

Once back at Fairfield we split and I headed home. Still wondering about the forks. Its hard to explain the feeling and I am not sure if that is just because they are light carbon forks or if it wouldn't be there with longer ones! Need to try them out a bit more! I did notice that the turning circle was reduced when I got up some tight switchbacks easily though. Think only time will tell so for now the steerer is not being chopped and I will just look silly!

28.76 miles @ 9.2 mph
610m climbed