Autumn colours, New bikes and the Taliban

Today was new bike day. Normally, whenever I get a new bike I prefer to do the first spin solo with just a set of allen keys and a torque key for company, in case any adjustments are needed. The latest addition to the stable is a Giant Contend SL1 Disc. On paper a basic, just above entry level road bike, but as I found out again today, you don’t need to spend a huge amount of money to have a lot of fun on a bike.

Leaving Clonmel via the riverside blueway is always a pleasure. No traffic and spectacular scenery makes for a great start to any spin.

In Kilsheelan I returned to the roads and headed over the bridge into County Waterford and the heart of the Comeragh Mountains. Rolling along the bike felt smooth on the very uneven surface, but this is the better part of a bad road so there would be more challenges to come.

An eruption of autumnal colours up ahead made me wonder if the roadside looks this good what must it be like in there inside the wood itself. I was on a road bike but wishing that I was on a mountain bike so that I could get in there off road.

A gate up ahead was like a carrot teasing me so I stopped to take a quick photo when a thought crossed my mind. The bike has tough 28mm tyres and disc brakes, an aluminium frame and feels stiff and strong. Wouldn’t that gravel track into the wood be a great opportunity to test out the tyres. Just for a 100 meters or so. But then, as soon as I clipped into my speedplays in the wood I knew that it would be more that 100 meters.

The Contend is not a mountain bike, or a cyclocross bike or a gravel bike. It’s a pretty standard aluminium road bike, but it seemed right at home on the rough track within the wood. Every few hundred meters I expected the tyres to puncture, start spinning and slipping or the bike to baulk at the rough terrain, but it just kept on going.

It actually brought back a memory of climbing Mont Ventoux. Every few hundred meters on Ventoux there are slight bends. On TV the gradient doesn’t look so bad but out there in 40 degree heat you suffer and think to yourself ‘I’ll just get to the next bend and if the gradient doesn’t ease up I’ll stop for a break’. You get to each bend, the gradient never eases up but you never stop. You think that you are at your limit but you still find the strength from somewhere within to keep on going. The US Navy Seals actually performed tests to find out where a persons limit lies and found that when you think you are there, you are actually only between 20 and 40% of the way to reaching what you are physically capable of. This bike seemed to have issues knowing where its limits are too.

I really hate turning back but there are times when you just have to accept that man and bike can go no further. No matter what type of bike it is. Even the big track machine could go no further.

Returning to the road I now headed for Kearneys road, or the back road to Baghdad as it is often referred to. There are massive craters everywhere, so much so that it looks like a practice range for a Taliban rocket launching platoon. Up here the potholes are so big that Osama Bin Laden could have camped out in one, with his 5 wives and 24 children, and never have been found.

This road is a favourite of the dawn Raiders. On Strava the route looks like a baby elephant or a bear. We normally head up there in the dark at 6am but the only wildlife we meet is an odd deer, squirrel or fox. The holes make it a lottery as to who survives and was a big part of the reason that I chose this bike as my new winter steed.

Half way up, now in daylight, I came to a point where an entrance into the wood looked smoother than the ‘tarmac’ road, so on this bike I found myself doing something that I never even considered on any other road bike and turned right into the wood.

Gliding along on roads that I had only ever experienced before on a mountain bike I felt like Christopher Columbus discovering a whole new world. It was an adventure and it was great fun too.

I rode on until I reached the foot of Boola hill and rejoined the ‘main road’. The bike is no lightweight but with a stiff bottom bracket it climbs well and I did one of my fastest times of the year up the hill. Then over the top and down Tickincor I reached speeds in excess of 80kph and with the disc brakes and predictable handling again did one of my fastest times of the year down the hill too.

At the bottom as I rejoined the ‘main road’ I hit a County Waterford pothole that managed to do what no rock, stick or boulder within the mountainside woodlands could do. I just about managed to stay onboard the bike but did pinch the front tube. Luckily the wheels weren’t carbon or I would definitely have broken something worth more than the entire bike itself.

Before getting this bike I considered Cyclocross and Gravel bikes, both of which are very popular. I wanted something that could deal with the incredibly bad surfaces of the roads of North County Waterford but which could also allow me to do a 4 hour spin at 30kph. I expected the Contend to be good enough for the on road part, but the off road experience that I had today was totally unexpected.

The Giant Contend is like a two wheeled version of a 4 X 4 that is more often used on road but can also take on anything that you throw at it off road. It is also like a Swiss army knife that can do a multitude of things very well.

Everyday is a schoolday and everyday should have some adventure.

Barry

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