It’s that time of year. Riding fitness starts to zone in on peachy trails.

‘Fitness’ is doing a lot of work in that statement. As is ‘zone in’. Speaking personally, ‘approximation’ is probably as good as I can hope for. Anyhow… the trails are definitely peachy.

Monday night was a ‘recovery ride’ in Lloyd parlance. Again, ‘recovery’ is a subjective concept but a suspicion the word was chosen simply for its alliterative qualities remains.

In any case, a recovery from what I hear you ask? Well, for me I’ve been riding a goodly chunk of miles by my standards this June. My average is about 100 miles a week split across trails and tarmac thanks to finally getting my bikes into a semblance of rideability.

My gravel bike for example has had new tyres (some excellent Specialized Pathfinder Pro 42s) and a new drivetrain from the ankles down – chainset, chain, front and rear derailleurs and cassette. With the exception of the seat post every part has now been replaced over the 7,200 miles I’ve had the bike.

I’ve even added a rear rack and panniers so I can commute to the office one day a week, simply to keep the gravel bike moving and to bank some base miles. It’s hard work.

Similarly, the Bird Aether 9 is was in good working order after a recent bearing swap.

That was until Monday night when Stuart, Lloyd, Tony, MarkJ and myself headed out for an early bonus ride to start the week.

Puncture!

After some brisk miles I managed to pick up a two inch nail in my rear tyre as I neared the end of Pseudo Pig, leading to a rapid deflation over the last hundred metres of trail.

Approaching this incident from various angles, the issue of ‘can I fix a tubeless puncture’ has divided opinion between my riding associates and me. I say I can fix a puncture, the others say… well you can fill in the blanks.

In reality, the issue was (of course) multi faceted. In our case, what ensued took the act of puncture fixing to the level of performance art.

How to fix a puncture

First of all, just stop. Don’t rush. Breathe. Be in the moment… by the time we reached the end of Pseudo Pig we were feeling both tired and a little excited. This makes puncture fixing a more challenging affair right from the off.

Pseudo Pig was running nicely in itself but our enjoyment was enhanced by the discovery that our regular entry point to the trail misses out a good chunk of fast flowing – if splashy – singletrack. If you heard anything out of the ordinary early Monday evening it would have been the sound of a large penny dropping.

Second – use a decent tyre plugger to fix a puncture. After all, my tyre had a huge nail in it, leaving a gap that definitely needed plugging. Having now been challenged a few times, my tyre plugger is really not up to the job. Fortunately Stuart has a better solution, which soon sorted that problem out.

Puncture as performance art

And yet… the tyre remained flat.

At this point, our application for Arts Council funding to demonstrate the value of co-operation in a complex and disparate society quickly foundered. Art may have the power to explore the cultural zeitgeist – but when it comes to pumping up a tyre, let’s just say there are limitations that can’t easily be conceptualised.

My pump didn’t appear to work; Lloyd’s impressively girthed pump… didn’t appear to work either; Tony’s C02 cannister definitely didn’t work.

Despite the added hindrance of no reading glasses (and a secondary but emotive debate over sealant levels in the tyre), it was clear the valve itself was leaking air. All in all, we’d reached the ‘inner tube or team car’ stage of the show.

Fortunately, Tony had a spare tube; and our years of experience helped us realise we needed to remove the rear wheel first to fit it. Some enthusiastic pumping then ensued, ending when Tony pulled out the valve core as he unscrewed the pump!

The only things happy at this stage were the mosquitos, but we persevered.

At times like these I swear I can hear the Laurel & Hardy theme tune playing in the background. However, after fitting a new valve, the previously inoperative pumps Lloyd and I owned miraculously started working again.

Thankfully, the inner tube actually held and got me home after a decent pause at the Running Horses in Mickleham for rehydration.

Closer inspection of the wheel at home in daylight and with reading glasses showed not just dodgy tape at the valve opening but a two inch gouge in the tape where the nail bit in. So it was never going to seal and a straight-to-inner-tube-strategy would have saved us all time.

For my part – new rim tape is on order from Hunt but in the meantime… the Bird is back to being a wall decoration.

A different trail

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the extra singletrack we found earlier because to be honest it’s easy to over hype and it doesn’t really warrant that.

Suffice to say the extra run in to Pseudo Pig adds a fun bonus section of relatively fast flowing and poppy singletrack. It turns the whole run into a long 6-7 minute run. I guess that bit of singletrack has probably been staring us in the face for months without our realising it. Dark, winter riding and supreme lack of curiosity can do that.

But it’s always nice to add another tune to the repertoire isn’t it? It’s just a shame I picked up that rogue nail right at the end.

We missed valuable drinking time but with the hours of daylight pretty much at maximum we managed to recover and then find a nice sunset (as well as Lee) on the way home.

Later this week comes our infamous Solstice Ride. A small core people who (charitably) have nothing better to do are going to get up to see the sunrise; I’d say it was upholding a long druidic tradition but it might the appeal of an English breakfast afterwards that motivates us.

Hey, it’s bikes and a tenuous excuse to ride bikes! Creativity rules!

About the author

Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main administrator of the website.

Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years then a 2016 YT Industries Jeffsy 29er, he now rocks a Bird Aether 9 and a Pace RC-627.

An early On-One Inbred still lurks in the back of the stable as a reminder of how things have moved on. You can even find him on road bikes - currently a 2019 Cannondale Topstone 105 SE, a much-used 2011 Specialized Secteur and very niche belt drive Trek District 1.

If you've ever wondered how we got into mountain biking and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more.