Lurcher has Lift Off

The Lurcher is finally up and running after what seemed like the longest bike build in history. I have been helping my girlfriend Debs to move house which has meant we have had no time to ride let alone time to build a bike, but we somehow managed it and we got to squeeze in a ride here and there too.

Full specification as is in the pics
On One Lurcher carbon 29er.
Rock Shox Sid 29er 120mm XX tapered forks.
FRM 1/8-1/5 zero stack headset
Stans Crest tubeless rims on red Hope Pro 2'S wheelset.
Schwalbe Rocket Ron 2.10 tubeless ready tyres.
Shimano  XT m785 2x10 silver groupset with a direct mount front mech & Shadow rear mech, 38t-26t XT chainset and full XT cable outers.
Shimano XT m785 silver brakeset.
Aligator Aries 160mm discs (red)
Look S-Track pedals.
Red Token press fit BB92 bottom bracket.
eXotic carbon ti in line seatpost 350mm.
Selle Italia Flite XC ti saddle.
Red Planet X seatpost collar.
Truvativ noir 700mm flat carbon bar.
90mm 10º rise Thomson stem flipped.
ESI chunky grips.
Hope bar end bungs.
KCNC red jockey wheels.
KCNC red cable ferrules.
Red Thomson faceplate & top cap upgrade kit.
Red Middleburn cable oilers.
Red Mt Zoom shroom bottle cage bolts.

Planned upgrades are some red Blackspire chainrings which in my experience are lighter, harder wearing and shift just as good if not better than the stock Shimano chainrings. A KMC X10 SL DLC red&black chain which are bloody expensive for a chain but they are bloody good too with a special coating that makes them very hard wearing and one of the lightest 10 speed chains around which KMC developed  for some Pro Tour teams.

I have weighed the bike with luggage scales and the lowest reading I got was 21 1/2 lbs or 9 1/2 kg's so I reckon I can safely say that its about 22 lbs which I'm more than happy with and with the planned upgrades it should come down a little further. I'm not trying to make it a weight weenie but if I can shave some weight then why not.

Well there it is my newest member of my growing On One quiver of bikes.

How does it ride ?

Tune in next time to find out...

Lurcher Update

The Lurcher is coming together nicely now with just the finishing touches like the fitting of the gear cables and the brake lines to cut to size . After trying the 0º rise 70mm Thomson stem off the Pompino with a low riser I have had to fit a 0º rise 50mm Thomson with a flat Truvativ noir 700mm wide carbon bar to keep the front end low, a 60mm would probably have been just right but  Thomson don't do a 60mm. I thought with being tall and long in the arm the 70mm would work but Jez you were right ! I've fitted some pimpy bits for a bit of individuality and to make it stand out from the crowd. The Aligator aries discs give great stopping power,  way more than stock discs and they only weigh 75g and look great too. I'm just waiting for the bleed kit so I can cut the brake hoses and then I can take it out and give it a good thrashing and I can't wait !

Aligator aries disc rotor

Want it Wednesday- Planet X Pro Carbon Tour De France Limited Edition

Anybody that's read my blog lately will know that I'm a big fan of Planet X / On One and that I'm building a nice collection of their bikes but there is one type of bike that's missing and that's a road bike. Currently in my stable I've got a single speed cross Pompino , urban single speed/fixie Macinato , my girlfriend's Inbred  mtb and a carbon Lurcher 29er mtb that's still in the build stage, but I would love to add a road bike to my collection at some point in the future. I love the look of road bikes, I think they are far more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than mtb's and if I were to have one it would have to be from www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk and the one that's caught my eye at the moment is the Pro Carbon Tour De France Limited Edition in homage to the 100th edition of the race . I would love to have a high end all singing all dancing pro level racing machine and Planet X have got them but I think I would probably look a bit stupid on one so the Pro Carbon Tour De France Limited Edition will do me just fine. It has a mix of Sram Rival and Force groupset with an FSA Gossamer crank but what gives it a bit of an edge are the 50/50 carbon rimmed wheels and a stealthy all black finish to give it that pro look and all for a very reasonable £1,299,99. 

So there you have it folks my Want it Wednesday and if you would like to see some more have a pop over to Jez Andrews Following the Chainline blog where it all started.

On One Lurcher new build- Shimano 2x10 XT groupset

On One Lurcher 29er

The Lurcher has been patiently waiting since I fitted the Token BB92 press fit bottom bracket  and FRM D-SET 1,5" Tapered headset  for the arrival of a lovely Shimano XT 2x10 groupset . Well it's arrived and what a sexy bit of kit it is.

2x10 XT Groupset-lovely shininess

I have chosen the 38-26 chainset and the 11-36 cassette. I did want the 40-28 chainset but for some reason that option wasn't available with the direct mount front mech, also as you can see I chose the silver group over the black because I think it's more classic looking and also in my opinion the black looks like it's OE component's. I'm not sure if it was a mistake but the front mech supplied  is black but I'm glad because as it's direct mount on to the black frame I think it looks better black. Bonus ! I chose the massive 11-36 cassette because I might go 1x10 at some point in the future. I think my favourite bits though are the brake levers, they are just gorgeous. I can't wait to get it all fitted.

Also arriving this week are the carbon low riseCrankbrothers Cobalt 11 bar  which look real quality and my favourite saddle the Selle Italia Flite XC   which I have on my Pompino SSCX and will be my third Flite saddle. I had pondered about trying a different saddle as the Flite on my Pompino had a bit of the stitching and cover come away but I have decided better the devil you know. Both these items were bought from www.on-one.co.uk at half the manufacturers rrp, yet another great deal from them. I'm picking up some Stans Crest/hope 29er wheels from 18 bikes later this week. Just the tyres,seastpost grips and discs to get then and it will be ready to roll.

Hot cross Pompino Fun

Today's ride with Deb was our biggest ride so far and It was a scorcher too with the thermometer hitting about 26-27 C and probably our hottest day for a few years. It was a nice steady ride and nothing technical on farm tracks/bridleways and forest trails. Deb had her first puncture from the usual suspect, a thorn ! It gave us a chance for a breather and Debs a lesson on how to fix a puncture. I'm running tubeless with Stans rims and haven't had a puncture since I had the wheels before Xmas so I've told Deb we will get some tubes with removable cores and put some sealant in so she doesn't get anymore punctures, which she likes the sound of.

It's great to watch Debs confidence grow with each ride, she really does try hard but I think I might be a bit hard on her sometimes, it can be difficult finding the balance between pushing her just hard enough and too hard, I think I might expect a bit too much at times but it's a learning curve for both of us, and one we are both really enjoying.

Greenedge Rocks-Tour De France Highlights

Look Quartz pedals - Debby goes clippless

Debbs took the plunge this week with her first ride on her new Look Quartz pedals. I had been trying to persuade her that clipless was the way to go but I think she just couldn't get her head round being attached to the bike and not being able to bail in an emergency which, of course she could.  Debbys flat pedals were nice but they terrified me with all those sharp pins just waiting to shred her shins to pieces. The pins they came with were basically just rounded off screws, so we replaced them with some nice colour matched pins with bolt heads that screwed in with a little spanner, very tedious.  They were a lot safer but they would still make a mess of her legs if she stacked or her foot slipped.  Debbs was struggling with getting her feet positioned right on them which was starting to bug her so she finally agreed to give clipless pedals a go.

My first experience with clipless was in the late 90's with a set of Ritchey copies, which themselves were a licensed version of Shimano's SPD setup. I never really got on with the direct feel you get with the SPD type of pedal as I have a bit of Osteo-Arthritis in my left knee which gives me pain from time to time, but is generally ok as long as I don't play football as it's mostly sideways movement that causes the problems.  I did a lot of reading of mags and stuff at the time and they were saying that if you suffered with knee pain you were better off with a pedal that gave you lots of float, which basically means a pedal that gives your foot a bit more movement and a less direct feel when your clipped in. At that time to my knowledge there was really only one company that was making a pedal that provided lots of float and that was Time with the Attac. I bought the Attac and used them for a few years and much prefered the open twin bar design that gave your feet more movement and good mud shedding ability but still gave you that connected to the bike feel that clipless pedals give you. The Attac is a great pedal but they weigh a ton so when Crankbrothers came out with the Eggbeater pedal which was a lot lighter but a similar twin bar system and which I liked the look of straight away, I had to try them. They were great from the off with a 4 way entry and easy to service too as they had a grease port so you could pump fresh grease in and force the old grease out, but you would end up using a lot of grease. I happily used the Eggbeaters for the next few years even though the bearings didn't last that long, until I came across the Look Quartz . Like the Eggbeater I liked the look of them straight away, but what was most striking was the weight ! The standard model weighed less than the bling carbon ti models of their counterparts offerings and they were cheap as well, about £50 if you shopped around. I've used these pedals for a few years now on my mtb's and now on my Pompino and think they're great. I have read a bit on some forums that people can't stand them, that the cleats are a nightmare to setup , well I just don't know what they are doing because I have found just the opposite,  you get some different thickness wedges that enables you to set the cleat up easy to clip in and lots of float or setup to make it harder to clip in and less float, simple.  I had no problems in advising Debs to go for the Quartz and that goes for anybody new to mtbing who is thinking of trying out clippless pedals, they make sense for a new rider because of the easy way they clip in/out and the generous float they offer.

Debby is using the pedals with Shimano SH-WM62 womens mtb shoes which are a great shoe for the money and makes Debb look quite pro. She loves the pedals and shoes and has found them to be quite easy to get the hang off and she admits to being quite frightened off them at first, but to her credit she just got to grips with them and is now clipping in and out without incident but I'm still expecting her to have the falling over clipped in moment that most of us have had when we first started out riding clipless, I just hope there's no one around unlike when it happened to me many moons ago.

I'm still pinching myself with how much my girl has taken my passion for cycling to her heart...

On One in the Peak District

Hi de- Hi Campers

Deb and I spent a night under canvas on Saturday. It's been a couple of years since I slept in a tent and several years for Deb, although I have bivvied a few times, but the way Deb slept like the proverbial log and I tossed and turned you would of thought it was the other way round,  the campsite being near a busy road didn't help but it didn't bother Deb so I shouldn't really complain about that.

home for the night

The tent is only a cheap little two man or a one man & one woman to be precise but it did the job although we very didn't nearly make it only arriving at the campsite at Newhaven in the White peak, Derbyshire at 9 pm and it's only just over an hour drive from where we live in Stoke on Trent. We decided to camp because I wanted to give Deb a flavour of some real offroad riding that you get in the Derbyshire Peak District and because we are pretty crap at organising ourselves, always getting side tracked with kids and all the other stuff you have to deal with day to day, so I thought it would give us more time to spend on the ride.

As I said I didn't get much sleep so we took it easy Sunday morn not putting the coffee pot on till about 9.30 am but that and the bacon butties soon got me going. We weren't in a rush but that didn't stop me from leaving one of my bidon's in the camp toilet block ..Doh

The ride started in Youlgreave and followed some quite technical bridleways along small valley gorges that characterize the area. Most of the climbing was on roads which were long but not too steep, again I was amazed how Debs toughed them out and kept the hammer down trying to keep up with me because as I was on my sscx pompino I have to keep my cadence up. We did a bit of hike a bike & pushing along Gratton Dale which was a bit too technical in places and hemmed in with overgrown Hawthorn bushes making it even more difficult without getting off and pushing. Debs was on her new 14" Inbred which she was glad of or else she would of had to get off and do more even more pushing.

Gratton Dale

By the end of Gratton Dale Debs was beginning to flag but with 2/3rds of the ride done I wasn't too worried but I couldn't say the same for Debs though because after I showed her the map she was convinced we had another 15km to go instead of the 5 there really was. We had a little steep push up out of Long Dale, which was rewarded with a fast 1.5km 80m decent along rutted double track, across some fields, dodging the cows down to Smerril Grange which put a big smile back on Debs face and a Queen of the Mountains award on Strava and 10th place overall out of 34, pretty good for a novice.  She says she was glad that she was following me or she wouldn't have gone that fast. I came 9th overall which I'm pretty pleased with, I would be interested to know if any of those that are higher were riding a ss cross ?
There were a couple of little road climbs left but it was just a short ride left to where we started after that.

Overall it was a great little taster for Deb for the hopefully bigger and better adventures to come, I for one can not wait and I hope Debs can't too