Back on two wheels after recovering from bronchitis

Scott the Genius

I had a nice ride with my friend Scott the Genius on Saturday. Finally the bronchitis had let go and I could pick up my two-wheel activities again! The sun was shining and the wind was (as always?) a strong headwind, making me have to pedal even going downhill.











I went along the railway line for some km

Railway line

The trail crosses the railway, this is the famous Carls Crossing, named after my bike buddy Carl who had a spectacular crossing here some time ago:

Carls crossing

Abandoned train station

The railway is hardly used any more, except for some occasional goods trains. Public transport has been abandoned long ago, as can be seen from this photo of one of the train stations

Railway bridges are nice when you want to get across the river

Bridge

I rode up Husbands Hill, one of the highest peaks around here, about 1100 m above sea level. There's a very nice view from the top:

Husbands Hill view

Going down Husbands Hill in approx 45 km/h, I heard a sudden "bang" and thought there was somebody shooting. But I quickly realized that it was my rear tire that had exploded. Having experienced this before, I always carry a tire + tubes in my backpack - it came in handy this time, would have been a long walk back home. When I had just finished fixing the tire, a guy on a bicycle approaches me and asks if everything is ok? I assure him that, yes, all is fine. Then he says "you go bicycling? You go far?" I say "to Lilongwe", and he goes: "You don't have a motorcar?" ...well, wouldn't get such comments back in Norway, but hey, this is Africa ...:)

Intense S2 tire - so tired!

Looking at this tire, I observe that the nobs are hardly worn at all but the sidewalls are almost completely wasted! What a shitty tire, the sidewalls should not wear out before the nobs?!? Folks, I seriously cannot recommend the Intense S2 ...Will have to get myself some snakeskin tires like Schwalbe Albert!

Made it back home safe and sound, it was a very nice ride :)

Finally I got all the bike-equipment !

Scott shock pump

I now got all the bike-equipment, including two new Scott shock pumps from Torshov Sport Sykkel - thanks a million, Erik! :-) 

All the other stuff I had ordered from Chainreactioncycles.com also arrived safe and sound :)

Crank Brothers Mallet1 pedals

Included were the cleats for my Crank Brothers pedals. I had to order new cleats, because those that came with the pedals had in mysteriously ways disappeared when moving to Malawi, and I had to use my sneakers instead of bike shoes. But now I can use the bike shoes with cleats. Happy now! :-)

Crank Brothers cleats

Camelbak HAW

The new Camelbak HAWG backpack is highly welcome, as the old backpack I used was sticking to my back, warm and sweaty and not very comfortable on long rides. The Camelbak HAWG has a vented back, so it is sort of lifted away from your back, allowing the air to pass between your body and the backpack - it feels so good.

Big Betty

My Schwalbe Big Betty 2.4" tyres, those are supposed to be nice for muddy trails - we'll look into that when the rain starts. They are now fitted on my spare wheels, so I can easily swap between those and the Intense 2,25" System 4 tyres. Unfortunately I got a center lock for the bolt type rotors, so I have to wait for the correct lock rings too arrive. Disappointing!! :-( 

One of my Schwalbe Nobby Nic tyres are damaged and beyond repair, a sharp stone made a cut in the sidewall of the tyre, so that tyre is now history

GoPro HERO HD camera

This is the GoPro Hero HD video camera that I ordered, with helmet mount! Now, that is something I have been waiting for - being able to shoot movie while biking. I tried to do some film shooting with my HTC Desire phone attached to the bike but that was not very successful, a lot of bumping and shaking and the camera not having wide angle lens, the final movie was not exactly "directors best". But now, with the GoPro camera attached to the helmet, the bumps are absorbed by my arms and upper body (yes, I do have a soft, shock-absorbing layer on my upper body, especially around the belly region). My first video can be viewed here.

Nano 9 LED front lights - note: there are TWO!

I sometimes go riding in the late afternoon when the sun is not so hot. I do attempt to be back home before sunset but I do not always succeed. It gets pretty dark here when the sun goes down, and the darkness comes fast. So I got two Nano 9 LED front lights mounted on the handlebar, giving me sufficient light to see the trail even after the sun has set.

The Intense 2,25" System 4 29" tyres for my wife's bike has also been mounted, so now she has no excuse whatsoever for not joining me for a ride in the bush :)

Singletracks, here we come! :-D

Ride across the Ulemu corn fields, the day after a heavy rain

It was a nice day for biking. 

View video of this ride:

Ulemu, bike trailride, November 23, 2010 from Gunnar Trondrud on Vimeo.

A nice day for biking

The sun was hidden behind clouds causing a fairly ok temperature of + 25 degrees celsius.

Helga and I went out at 8 in the morning, picking a route leading up Ulemu hills, across the corn fields, down the other side of the hill, up to the railway and then a roundtrip back along another trail. Nice long floating trails and smooth dirt roads here and there in between

Stray dog

There weren't many people to be seen, we met only a few, and a dog. 

Rainy day leftovers (aka puddles) on the trail

At the end of the ride we discovered the trail was cut off by a deep ditch that had been dug out by the heavy rain from the day before, so we had to go back a little and find an alternate route. 

Women carrying wood

We encountered some large puddles, but managed to get across with only the shoes getting soaked.

All in all it was a good ride :)

The story of: servicing my own bike and the Scott shock pump

Servicing your bike yourself, and then accidents you don't expect to happen, happens. That's Murphy's law, isn't it?

Scott 600 psi shock pump

I myself serviced my bike last week. The service is mainly washing the bike, rinsing the chain with diesel, rinsing the rear and front cassettes and lubricating all vital parts. I also checked the pressure of the shocks. My bike is a Scott Genius 30, and on Scott Genius bikes the rear shocks are somewhat special compared to other bike brands. The Scott Genius "Equalizer 2" rear shock consists of three chambers with extra high pressure, e.g. above 400 psi depending on your weight.

Valve blown off the hose

So I screwed the shock pump on to the rear shocks "positive chamber". Since the pressure was a little too low I started pumping. But when I almost had reached the desired pressure, the hose on the pump suddenly blew off with an angry "pffft", and the air in the rear shock escaped :(

Quite frustrating, sitting in Malawi with a broken Scott special-high-pressure-pump and no air in the rear shocks! Luckily I have other "normal" shock pumps, the kind that goeos up to 300 psi, and with one of them I managed to get the pressure up to 300 psi. However the rear suspension was still too soft, and the bike was also lower than normal. I went out for a ride, but after 20 minutes with the pedal constantly hitting rocks and small humps I realized  that the supension wasn't as all as it should be so I just hit my way back home.

Hose clamp fitted - ready for high pressure

So what do you do when you need a new Scott schock pump, and the nearest Scott dealer is 3000 kms away? Right, you might try to repair the broken pump. So I did, with a hose clamp I managed to tighten the hose onto the valve and I managed to get nearly the desired pressure into the rear shock - the only unexpected problem was that the hose clamp didn't resist pressure above 400 psi, so the hose blew "pffft" off the valve again emptying the shock for air once more. I refitted the hose clamp and desided that I'd better stop pumping at 400 psi before the hose blows off, although with my weight I should have had 437 psi.

I then went off for another ride into the bush, but it was exactly like the previous ride - pedals hitting the ground too often and almost throwing me off the bike at times :( With the rear suspention in this condition the bike was only good for riding on a plain surface, like a tar road.

..from the Scott manual

I had no biking for days until I, by e-mail assistance from Erik the mechanic in the shop in Oslo where I bought the bike (a million thanks to Erik at Torshov Sport Sykkel), found out what was wrong with the rear shock, and thus the cause of the low riding position: The air chambers on the Scott Equalizer 2 needs to be pumped up in the correct order,from 1 to 2, and there must be no air in #2 before #1 has been filled! The Equalizer2 has two valves, one for the positive chamber, and one for the negative chamber. So what had happende to me was that when the air escaped from the positive chamber, the suspention entered a "negative lock state", where the pressure in the negative chamber inhibited bulding up correct pressure in the positive chamber. Nasty little detail ! And this is not all mentioned in the Scott bike manual ! Scott should do some rewriting of the manual there...

So now I had a solution: to let out the pressure out of BOTH the chambers, then start refilling in the correct order: first the positive chamber, then the negative chamber. Now the rear suspension works almost as it should - except that the pressure is a little too low for my weight - and I can ride on trails without hitting the ground with the pedals. I'll be getting a new Scott pump by the end of this month, so things will work out smooothly, eventually ;-)

Trailbiker

Happy trailbiking :-)

Bush biking

Sunrise

One has to get up early in the morning and get out and ride before it gets too hot now in october. I start biking at 7: 30, 'cause I have to drive Monica to school first. But by 7:30 I go for an hour / hour and half into the bush, but even then temperatures are around +30 in the shade. Fortunately it's often windy here on the plains so it doesn't feel that hot. I hope to be able to get up and out to at. 5:30 - that's when it dawns - and then the temperature is quite comfortably at about 19-20. ...working on this ;-)

Trail

Dirt road

There are myriads of beautiful trails and dirt roads everywhere, only a few minutes biking from where we live. There aren't many people out in the bush either so I can speed up and ride as fast as I like. I have observed, however, that the only difference between a trail and a dirt road is the width! Otherwise they are quite similar (=bad), with deep traces from the last rainy season, both across and lengthwise. Quite nice to ride now when it is dry, as they consist mostly of hard-packed earth and sand. It will be interesting to see how they become when the rainy season sets in towards the end of November.

Offroad bikers

I have met a bunch of offroad cyclists and join them for a ride whenever possible. Bikes are mainly mountain bikes - both hardtails and full-suspension - no street-racers to be seen around here. 

I was invited to a premiere opening of a trail-run inside Lilongwe Wildlife Centre game reserve a few weeks ago. Great trail, with good opportunities to meet the wildlife while you ride (or hit a tree if you don't manage the curves). I saw a lot of birds , and some of the others had encountered a herd of bushpigs. 

Close encounter with a 
rope across the trail

This day was also the day I had my first bike accident after moving to Malawi: a rope was strung across the trail at head height . The two guys riding in front of me slipped just under the rope while I managed to hit it perfectly with my nose and in return got a deep cut. The rope then slid down my face and wrenched my lower lip downwards. Fortunately at that point the rope snapped, most likely thanks to the combination of my body weight and the high speed - I was riding at about 40 km/h -  so the rope did not cope with the pressure! If it hadn't  snapped, I would probably have been thrown off the bike, landed on my back and things had most likely been a lot uglier. 

Check the picture ... The inside of the lip was the worst although it doesn't show, I could not eat anything but liquids for three days : (

Sometimes you'll just have to wait a little before riding on

Last week I was on a morning ride and took a wrong turning somewhere out in the bush and suddenly I found myself way too far out in the country. I met some locals and asked for directions back to Lilongwe (the city), they pointed and smiled and said, "Lilongwe, Lilongwe. So I rode off in the direction they indicateded and came to the Lilongwe River! But with 10 meters high slopes it was impossible to cross, and in addition there are crocodiles there so even if I had found a place to wade across, I would not have risked it. No bridges nearby either, so I rode back following the same trails, and instead of an hour-long morning trip, it was close to 3 hours in the heat of the sun! But I found my way back. Nice trip :-)

Backpack with water, bike tools, 
spare tyre and tubes

I learned one important thing that day: that some people are so keen to help you that they give you the answer they think you will be happy with. Can't rely too much on that you'll get the correct answer all the time, nope. So I carry my GPS with me and trust that the battery will last throughout the ride.