My current favourite all-round MTB tyres are the Bontrager Jones ACX in varying flavours, however in their infinite wisdom Bontrager have  stopped making them. This leaves me with something of a conundrum, what should I buy instead for the 69er?

The rear tyre isn’t too much of a problem, I’ll probably get a 2.2" XR4, but what do I get for the front? There isn’t a 29" version of the XR4, so I’m left to pick between the 29-3, 29-4 (which isn’t on the Bontrager website), the FR3 or the last Jones ACX hanging on the wall at the LBS provided they haven’t sold it in the last few days.

Why can’t they make things easy and bring back the ACX?

Update: Decision made, the 29-4 will not available for a while, so it’ll be 2.2" ACX on the front, with a 2.2" XR4 on the rear.

Tonight was the first evening ride with Ian for quite a while. I rode as far as Avoncliff then turned round and headed back home again, a round trip of just under 20 miles. There must be some sort of weird phenomenon alongside the Kennet and Avon canal which messes with shifting. My front mech shifted perfectly on the way into to town, but as soon as we rode up onto the canal towpath it refused to shift back into the big ring and took a good couple of minutes of fiddling to get it to work. After that I just left it in the big ring for the rest of the ride.

The biggest problem tonight was the cold. My winter tights don’t fit properly, but probably wouldn’t have been much better, and despite thick Merino socks, shoes, and toe covers, I still lost feeling in a few toes.

The warm weather can’t come soon enough.

Today was my first proper ride of the year today, and the first proper ride on the Singular Peregrine. Nicky wanted to do another 17 miles before the end of the month so after procrastinating with the aid of toast and coffee for a few hours to avoid the rain we ended up heading out along the cycle track towards Saltford.

Leaving the track at Saltford we headed up the Double Gravity climb, looped round through the back of Keynsham, picked up the cycle track again and then headed into town to top up the miles. We arrived back home after 20.5 miles in pretty much two hours dead just as the rain started again.

The Peregrine worked superbly now that I’ve fettled the brakes a bit more, it still weighs a ton but thanks to that it was fantastically stable on the downhill bits of the route. Despite woolly socks and toe covers, I still ended up with cold toes though.

The Lemond now has almost a full compliment of Campagnolo Centaur components fitted. I bought it with Centaur hubbed wheels, and quickly replaced the Veloce brakes with the Centaur equivalents. Following the purchase of some pre-enjoyed parts, it now has carbon Centaur levers and a matching rear mech, leaving just the Veloce front mech to let the side down.

The hand me down Veloce shifters and normal Centaur mech will probably make a move to the cross bike at some point provided I can source a Campagnolo spaced, Shimano splined cassette.

I decided to drive to work for a change this morning. The roads are fairly clear once you get out onto the main roads, and I suspected the car parks would be empty at work today, however my plan was thwarted by the doors on the car being frozen shut. The seals along the bottom of the two front doors have frozen solid, and neither door will open. I did get one rear door open, then couldn’t close it again. Judicious use of a can of de-icer means I think it’s locked properly again now.

At that point I gave up, changed coat and shoes, then dug the geared 69er out and rode in trying to avoid the worst of the ice. There was still a few inches of virgin snow at one end of the site which made the ride worth it.

After 3.5 years and 1700+ miles, the Ribble has been retired. It’d been my main commuting bike since I bought it, especially in wet weather. However after breaking yet another rear wheel I have replaced it with a Singular Peregrine. It’s got the drive-train from the Ribble, a pre-enjoyed Bontrager Race 29er front wheel, a new XT on Mavic A319 36-spoke rear wheel, 38mm cross tyres, Avid BB5 Road brakes, a mix of finishing kit (Specialized, Thomson, Bontrager), and some rather shiny Gilles Berthoud mudguards. Total weight is a rather hefty 29.5lbs, a planned swap to 32mm road tyres should help reduce that a bit.

The first proper test ride will probably be to work and back on Monday.

• 180 CDs
• 4 SACDs
• 2 DVD-As
• 43 gigs
• 617 DVDs
• 26 Blu-rays
• 6 cameras
• 12 lenses
• 18 bicycles

• 41 CDs (15 of those were promos)
• 17 gigs
• 72 DVDs
• 10 Blu-rays
• 4 trips to the cinema
• 33 additional films from the top 250 watched
• 1 camera
• 3 lenses
• 2 bicycles

My Christmas bike project is nearly ready for me to start building. It’s an ex-demo Peregrine frame and fork from Sam at Singular Cycles, and despite trying to do this cheaply there’s a pile of new parts including mudguards, disk brakes, bars, bar tape, headset, and cables sat on the sofa. There will also be a new rear wheel arriving early next week once it’s been built. I am at least re-using a front wheel, drive train, seatpost, saddle, stem (until I sort out the length), and tyres (provided they fit).

All being well it’ll be up and running for the new year.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened, although a wrecked back has a lot to do with it, but over the last few years I’ve fallen out of love with riding bikes for fun.

I still ride to and from work every day, but that’s riding for a purpose and is only 14 miles per week or so. The problem is that riding after work for fun seems to be a thing of the past at the moment, and I don’t really know why. When I do ride I enjoy it, but there seems to be a massive amount of inertia stopping me actually getting out there and riding.

New bikes help for a while. In the last couple of years I have “discovered” 69ers and seen the light, but two new 69ers were not enough to turn me back into a proper cyclist.

The biggest problem is my back. While still officially undiagnosed, the symptoms seem to point to lumbar spinal stenosis. Drugs don’t help much, Osteopathy might have helped, but then again it might just have been the natural progression of time between appointments that waved it’s magic wand and reduced the pain to a manageable level. However it’s a catch-22 situation, my back problems stop me riding as often as I’d like which means my fitness reduces, my weight increases, and my back problems get worse.

Still, there’s always next year…