A Couple Of Thank-Yous

I would like to say a quick thank-you to a few people.

I had a slight incident in practice for the Classic Weekender on Saturday morning, I won’t go into details here as it was quite embarrassing. Anyway, I went down with quite a thump, landing heavily on my knee. I was only 10 yards from the medics (from Rossendale Mountain Rescue) and they pounced on me pretty much straight away. The flow of blood was halted and my knee bandaged up well enough for me to continue riding for the rest of the weekend, so they are the first people I would like to thank.

I then discovered that I had broken my frame, I won’t say too much now, there will be a story on here soon either about how fantastic the manufacturer concerned are with warranty claims and how everyone should immediately go and buy one or how useless they are and how no-one should go anywhere near them with a sterilised barge-pole.

Anyway, this being the Weekender only one bike is permitted for the event so for the first time in a long time I hadn’t taken a spare. However, as it hadn’t actually started I could change to another one. The only question was what? Where could I find a race-worthy bike at 20 minutes notice?


Look very closely at the top right-hand corner of this photograph.
Blue Sky!
I really landed on feet with it (preferable to landing on my knee obviously) The lovely folk at Cotic just happened to have a spare Rocket lurking in their pit area and very generously leant it to me for the whole weekend.

For the Saturday it was the ideal bike, very predictable handling and very stable on the descents. I immediately felt comfortable on it despite it being completely unfamiliar. It was obviously somewhat heavier (and sturdier!) than my own bike so I wasn’t expecting it to be very good at the XC race but I was very pleasantly surprised. The bike suited the rocky nature of the XC course perfectly and I thoroughly enjoyed riding it, which after all is what the event is really about.

If I do the Transvesubienne again next year I will be on the phone to Cotic, it really would be the perfect bike for an event like that. I would love to have one as a fun bike, when the old Marin finally gives up the ghost a Rocket will be very near the top of the list of candidates to replace it.

More about the van to follow, my camper project. Just look at the bike for now.
Full report of the event coming soon, when I have got around to writing it.

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