Yesterday's ride on the "wrong" KH24...
The story so far. Mikefule ordered a KH cross country, received a KH
Muni instead, and decided to keep it, despite some residual doubts
about the very fat tyre, the cranks, and the weight.
My previous MUni was a Pashley 26, fitted with a Holy Roller 2.5" tyre
and 170mm cranks. The KH is a 24x3" with 165mm cranks.
So I drive up to Sherwood Pines and park in the car park. My initial
attempts at riding on the path outside my house had been twitchy, so I
pumped a bit more air into the tyre before setting off.
I freemount easily, and set off like a bat out of hell (not to be
confused with John Prescott, who told his secretary, "Like a prat out
of Hull I'll be gone when the morning comes..."😉. These cranks are 5
mm shorter than the cranks on the Pashley, but they are somehow easier
to spin. The wheel diameters are not far off identical (I think
there's less than an inch in it) so the difference must simply be that
the 5 mm shorter cranks fit my legs better.
300 metres into the ride, I am passing the cycle hire shop when I see a
lady with a yellow tandem. She is perplexed. It has too many gears,
and none of them is working. The chain is hanging sadly, and she is
picking at it with oily fingers, while her young child looks on,
glumly. Bicyclists pass her without a second glance.
Ta daaa! Mikefule: Unicyclist of Desssstiny... I screech to a halt and
offer to help. We 1:1 seat:wheel ratio cyclists should stick
together.
Within minutes the tandem is working. I give the lady some basic
advice about using the gears, and see that none of it is understood. I
decide to keep it simple: don't touch that lever at all, whatever you
do. Push that lever if you want to go faster, and that lever if you
are stuggling up a hill. She smiles dimly.
Off I ride again, spinning that wheel like it's national spinning week.
The giant tyre smooths the minor bumps like a hovercraft. Straight
over the first section of "yeller brick", I wiggle through the wiggle
gate, and I'm on grassy track. Somehow, this machine feels
ridiculously fast, but already I'm breathing hard.
Left and up a gentle grassy slope, then across the "yeller brick" and
into the woods. Alleged mountain bikers pass behind me, plodding along
the firm flat track. I scoot through the woods on an undulating
winding muddy rooty path. So who's having more fun?
At the next main track, I turn left up a steepish hill. Up out of the
seat, and honking on the pedals, I'm doing OK until suddenly the tyre
slips beneath me on a pebble, and before I can react I UPD.
I take the opportunity to get my breath back. It feels worse to be out
of breath in a full face helmet. It sounds louder, for a start.
Remounted, I turn down a narrow straight muddy track between tightly
ranked conifers. The uni is still demanding that I spin it. I have no
way of measuring, but it feels like my cadence is faster than I could
sustain for more than a few seconds on the Pashley. Is it the tyre?
The cranks? The price I paid? Either way, I have a good feeling about
this uni.
Left at the next junction and up the hill. Bang!: the tyre suddenly
slips beneath me, this time on a small twig. I UPD and swear. That's
two UPDs that I don't think would have happened on the Holy Roller.
I slow down a bit (I need to anyway) and find my way along a variety of
tracks. Like a naughty boy, I splash through the muddy puddles,
pleased with the feedback I get from the tyre, and the general lack of
sideslip. Here, the tyre is far far better than the Holy Roller.
I find the BMX course, and ride some of the obstacles. I manage the
"grand circuit" with the fast swoop, the steep little climb, the tricky
bump at the top... then the swoop and slog, teetering at the very top
of the bank before keeping tight control down the first long slope,
rushing up the next bank, then stomping back the pedals on the next
long descent, before spinning out at the bottom of the hill.
Brilliant! I have lost a lot of height, and gained a lot of fun.
That's the sort of thing where I wish I had someone watching, but I am
alone.
Which is just as well as the next thing I do is UPD on a discarded
Rizzla paper. Weird this: the uni eats up the difficult stuff and
trips on the easy stuff. I think at least part of it is that I am
getting overconfident.
I reach a short steep section of hill which I sometimes ride up without
a stop, but not always. This is one of the unsuccessful times. Again,
it feels like the tyre slipped on a pebble.
Down the long gradual descent, then I carry the uni across the big rock
and wire barrier onto the footbridge across the railway line, and up
the steep sandy slope onto the old track bed.
The old track bed is a former railway embankment. It has been out of
use for decades, and subsidence has set in, so that the surface
undulates like a roller coaster. After heavy rain, each dip is full of
black mucky water. Today, it is fairly dry. The undulations are hard
work because they are not perfectly even, and not quite in phase with
the size of the wheel. It's the sort of riding that's fun at first,
but gets a bit wearying after a while.
At the end of the old track bed, earth has been piled up to make a bit
of a barrier to kids in stolen cars and jeeps. The barrier has been
worn down a bit (by kids in stolen cars and jeeps, no doubt) and the
ground is fairly dry. for the first time ever, I make it over the
barrier onto the wasteland beyond without a UPD.
The wasteland... an area of black gritty and dust, scored deeply with
wheel ruts, many of which are full of slime and sludge. It is April,
but no lilacs have bred out of this dead land... it's not a nice place
to be.
The way down from here is a sandy slope. I'd guess the angle is around
30 degrees, and the sand is chewed up by jeeps so it's soft and
yielding. I launch over the edge of the embankment and ride down, fish
tailing slightly, but always feeling like the tyre knows what it's
doing. I make it to the bottom (a ride of 20 metres or so) without a
UPD, and feeling elated.
I usually turn right here, but today I turn left, and find my way past
bright yellow gorse and broom bushes to a steep gravelly hill where I
have to dismount and walk up. This brings me into a narrow strip of
woods, and then onto an area of high ground that overlooks the
"desert".
The desert is simply a large area of sand and gravel on a site that has
been quarried. Local kids ride motorbikes there, or torch cars. Today
(Saturday) I am the only person there. I choose my ramp, and ride down
the gravelly sandy slope to the desert. This tyre gives me confidence,
and I make it to the bottom without a scare.
I pause to gather breath then set off across the desert, managing to
get further on the soft shifting sand than ever before. When I do UPD,
I decide that enough is enough and walk to the main track.
From here, I ride down the rough gravel road, under the bridge, and
towards the black lagoon. I've done this section many times on the
Pashley. I notice myself taking slightly trickier lines on the KH.
To my surprise, the lagoon has almost been drained. A rusted car roof
sticks disconsolately out of the quicksand. Abandoned gas cylinders
lie next to it, supported by the dried and cracked crust. The first
time I ever came to this place, it spooked me a bit, but today I notice
the embankments on each side are ablaze with yellow and white blossom,
the few scraggy willow trees are alive with new leaf growth, and the
birds are singing. I pause for a while, take a couple of photos, then
move on.
--
Mikefule
Last night another soldier, last night another child
No one seems to worry, no one sees his mother cry
They're just facts and figures on your TV screen
Another child and another soldier, is peace just a dream?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mikefule's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/879
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/49017