Introducing the On One Pickenflick

My riding career, 'cross wise, started in steel - good old fashioned 531 and then 653, eventually handmade for me by a NW framebuilder. And great those frames were too - comfortable, light enough for the job and cost effective. As frame technology moved on, so did my taste in frames and a pair of aluminium Planet X Uncle John's served me well for many years. The Dirty Disco and XLS took things off in an interesting carbon direction but until last year, I hadn't ridden a 'cross bike made out of the one remaining mainstream material, titanium.

On One produced a Ti 'cross frame a few years ago - it was light and popular and ridden to winning effect by one of Britain's few 'cross pros, Matt Ellis and to 3 Peaks success by the ever-green Nick Craig, both of whom had a hand in the design. My old training partner had one too, and very nice they were, attaining a bit of a cult status amongst riders in the know. But production only lasted a couple of years and On One has never revisited the wonder material for 'cross.... until now.

Ignore the Planet X frame sticker - it's an On One!

The new On One Picknflick looks absolutely gorgeous - a sleek, Georg Jensen-esque tapered headtube doubles as home-art if your spouse allows you to keep it in the front room , the brushed Ti tubing is understated but beautiful and the tidy welds all give off an air of assured quality. Suffice to say that the frame has attracted many admiring glances and comments when myself and Dave have been out and about on the prototypes, including slightly breathless conversations about availability mid race in both the last two 3 Peaks Cyclocross events.

Formwise, a chunky 1 1/2" tapered headtube gives absolutely rock solid handling on the roughest of terrain, allied to a big beefy carbon fork, and the super clearance, even with a mini bridge across chain stays means that even at a Peel Park, Bradford mudbath, the Picknflick keeps running. In fact it clogs less than the other disc frames I've ridden, and they don't clog at all compared to many current canti offerings. Subtle changes in cross section accross the downtube and toptube allude to performance enhancing design of the tubeset - stiffer and broader in areas of most stress.  A lovely curved piece across the seat stays aids this, allied to rearward disc mounts and befitting a proper do-it-all 'cross bike, it has useful double bottle mounts. The toptube is left rounded rather than flattened and is still super comfy to carry, as many 3 Peaks-style Bull Hill sessions have proven as well as 2 outings in the Peaks itself.

The geometry has been tweaked from other On One offerings, and the overall effect is an extremely calm and compliant ride. The Ti tubing works to kill off much of the low level buzz, but is still more than stiff enough, superb for fast hacking across uneven surfaces, and with impeccable mud manners.

Whilst not a super stiff 'cross crit monster, it's still more than stiff enough to respond to sharp changes in pace and direction and has seen regular duty for me and Dave Haygarth at 'cross races over the last year or so, performing flawlessly in classic mudders at Bradford and Todmorden, as well as drier Yorkshire Summer Cross rounds. Finally, as a 3 Peaks/rougher off road machine it is imperious. Handling, compliance all come together to make it an all day bike on any terrain and the best Peaks bike either of us have ever ridden.

Update:

I have received the full production version of the Pickenflick now. Suffice to say that those little improvements that we asked for have all been included. It now boasts a brace between seat and chain stay by the rear disc, beefing up the braking performance at the back, a slightly flattened top tube for easier carrying, subtly moved cable mounts at the rear (away from rear wheel), more 'shaped' tube profiles for rigidity, and finally better clearance. 

Did I say clearance? It is now absolutely massive, when it was merely brilliant before.  If I had to have one bike (and not just one 'cross bike either), this is the bike I would have. It simply covers all the bases, and has a real 'wow' factor about it to boot.

3 Peaks Cyclocross 2013

“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”

 - Francois de la Rochefoucauld


That should be my 3 Peaks maxim from now on. I messed up this year, despite dishing out supposedly learned advice only the week before.

It all started well - a personal best by minutes over Ingleborough and in a good-for-me 75th place too, a clean descent to Cold Cotes and a quick timecheck dib and bottle pick up and onto the road. However, I then made the mistakes that when compounded would cost me a trouble free and potentially personal best ride.

The gel tasted good in the shop out the squeezy sample bottle but when breathing out of one's proverbial after the climb out of Ingleton, trying to stay with a fast group, it was more akin to ingesting an acrid fruit concentrate. Result, a little gagging and some coughing and the group rode away. Lesson 1: try your gels/drinks in race-replica training situations and NOT on the day. Then my brain switched off and with hindsight I simply didn't drink enough. I'd had a vague notion of drinking water late in the race as it tastes cleaner and goes down easier when tired than a sugary carb drink. I hadn't communicated this to Mark who, on my instruction handed me this 'unloaded' bottle at Cold Cotes. My mistake, not his. Lesson 2: even your most trusted support crewer is not a mind reader.

Whernside went OK, well as OK as one might expect whilst being blown all over the shop by a mean spirited crosswind that actually dumped riders from on their bikes into a heap a little way downwind from their take off point. Being tall with a large gate-like bike to boot did nothing to improve my mood as it tore into me as I walked/jogged, pushing me around so I looked like a Friday night drunk weaving my way home.

I was hungry coming down into Ribblehead, hungry as in it would have been nice to sit down and have a nice pie and chips, or something equally comforting. A friend commented after that I looked grim making the change to the Penyghent bike there - truth was I was bloody starving and panicking a bit about getting enough food down. There's nowhere you can really eat on that descent so you have to wait till the road down to Horton. My wife's legendary Aga-baked flapjack tastes like heaven at all other times, but was simply too dry and sticky to get down easily whilst trying to push on, on that road section. I got it down eventually, not a pretty sight chewing and breathing at the same time. Cue another slightly less acrid gel and a reasonable amount of liquid.

But the damage had been done with the lack of fluids I suspect, being the prime suspect. I started slowing toward the top of Penyghent Lane and felt the first twinges. Cramp is a funny thing - it can tease, flirt with you and think better of it and bugger off to wait another time. Or it can decide that today is the day, it's having you and there's nothing you can do to escape its unwanted attentions. By the time I was approaching the turn right onto the final bit of the climb, it had done its worst and my quads were ballooning into Robert Fosterman-esque creations. In my mind at least.....

They locked solid and that was that. Cue the following rigmarole: sit down, look at the view for a bit, swear blind you were never coming back to do this bloody race, snivel a bit, try and stand up, fall over again, curse. Eventually they unlocked enough to affect a half-hearted shuffle and upward progress resumed. But my impetus had been lost and it was hard to pick up the pace, waiting for that 'laugh-in-your-face' twinge that signalled a return to a seated position.

I made it to the summit, disheartened to have seen riders I was racing only a short time ago, already well on their way back down. But I finished, not too far outside 4 hours, but still a way short of my target time and position.


The positives? My pair of simply wonderful On One Bikes Ti disc Pickenflicks were totally controllable, dependable and never missed a beat. And for 2 Peaks at least, I was going well and on target. As ever there is next year.... I think.

Thanks as always to my pit crew Mark for being there for the 20 seconds of contact time we had during the race.

30 days of Peaks

So for September, I thought I'd run a little microblog covering the 29 days leading up to + 1 after, this years 3 Peaks Cyclocross.

Follow it here

Geoff Waugh's Peaks film

Geoff Waugh is an internationally renowned cyclesport photographer, who's always taken some cracking shots at the Peaks. I was therefore pretty excited to see his video short of the 50th Anniversary race.

It absolutely nails the mood and atmosphere on the day.



World's Hardest Cyclocross Race from Geoff Waugh on Vimeo.

Peaks video selection

Here is a mini selection of visual reminders of last Sunday's epic, from the sublime to the ridiculous:



Rob Jebb Summiting Pen y Gent 30.9.2012 going on to win he was 8 minutes ahead at this point ... from CARL RICHARD SEYMOUR on Vimeo.

I swear the wind got up considerably in the hour or so after Rob summitted,when I and many others arrived up there......

Now the somewhat exhausting Peaks in 3 minutes - check out the wind over the stile on Ingleborough...





And finally, the now 'viral' sensation that is Ian Ashworth's attempt at traversing the bog at the bottom of the Ingleborough descent. I know Ian and will enjoy reminding him of this at regular intervals....

Go on Ian!

La tempête

I had a little cry to myself as I headed toward the finish at Helwith Bridge. I usually feel a wave of emotion once down off the Penyghent track and heading for home on the last road section, but at the end of this year's Peaks my 'wobble' was particularly intense....

Part relief at being able to finish after all the preparation, part relaxation after several hours of deep concentration, and part a recognition of the almost primal feeling of having survived something quite threatening and at times deeply unpleasant.

Neil Welsh captured a pensive yours truly at the start

I know the Peaks well enough to know what I have to do to put together a successful ride. Even after some experience it still takes a bit of effort and luck to get through unscathed and enjoy the eclectic commentary as you ride up the finish funnel. This year was different though. The wind, the rain, the course conditions were as many observed, the worst they could remember and those with longer memories agreed that they were the worst in 30 or so years.

A quiet, grim mood seemed to grip all as the field hit the saturated bogs of the lower slopes of Simon Fell. There was almost no joking and chatting like in previous years - mostly an eerie silence among the riders. This soon gave way to greater anxiety as little tasters of the wind arrived from the left before morphing into a feeling of full survival mode by the top as the 50mph plus winds threatened to tear everyone's bike from their grasp, and throw any stumbling bodies after them for good measure. It was the same for all, though I claim a little special place in the insanity for riding with deep section wheels that turned my bike into even more of a sail. Muppet.

And so it continued. Wild, sometimes slow-motion but still careering descending in the howling gale down to Cold Cotes, a bike swap to get ride of the carbon sails, I mean wheels and then the relative aural calm of a howling tailwind to Bruntscar. A vicious two wheel slide over the cattle grid on the farm track to wake me up and then a repeat of the process as the wind wound up to maximum speed over the top of Whernside, again from the left but this time with a precipitous drop to right to punish a wobble on the narrow track.

I tried and failed to make the Whernside descent flow, it again proving to be my nemesis during the race. Got some of it right, lots of it not right. Must try harder next year.

Onto to Penyghent Lane in the now cold and heavy rain after a morale boosting cheer from the Cycle Sport Pendle gazebo crowd at Ribblehead, fretting about chilling down and becoming too cold to ride later in the race.

Luckily it eased for a bit, and the Lane passed in it's usual blur of pain with the brief excitement of 'The Puddle' which was indeed rideable down it's centre despite being almost up to my knees. Of course the weather worsened the higher I got as the wind returned for its final mad turn. Back down, praying I didn't make a mistake and puncture or worse, crash and then that slightly surreal feeling of tarmac again. And tears...

In amongst the wind, the bogs, the eye-stinging rain and the wrecked paths the only thing missing was cramp. And for that I am truly grateful. As grateful as to Mark my faithful support crew who turned up where I needed and expected him, without fail and was probably as wet and cold as me at times during the day.

I posted a time of 4:31 - over half an hour outside my recent best, and adrift of some of the riders I would normally measure myself against. Disappointing? A little, but underpinned by a deep sense of satisfaction as to having completed the race on a day that was too much for many folk. The Dirty Disco and the Planet X Ti were simply incredible on a day that tested equipment to the absolute limit. Almost no images of my ride seem to exist as evidence but the memories will be vivid for a long time to come.

T-363 till the next Peaks.

Countdown to the Peaks

I hate this period, with about a week to go, when you are just sitting around waiting for it to happen.

I'm not robust enough to undertake and recover fully from any further hard training, though I might race cross this Sunday just for the intensity, though for me I risk being a little tired still by the Wednesday before Peaks Sunday.

It's just a matter of sorting equipment, clothing, nutrition for the day, as well as looking after body and soul as best as one can. Germ avoidance is the biggy - I enter a state of horrible paranoia around now, jumping when anybody sneezes around me and praying my kids don't commune with the walking pathogens in their respective schools. That my wife is a Teaching Assistant in a third school doesn't help either.

Whilst I am almost always a positive sort of soul, the Peaks eats away at your psyche and all sorts of doubts can invade your head, most irrational, some real enough and none of them helpful. It can be an effort dealing with them all. It's not that the Peaks is impossibly tough, though it is hard, nor unfeasonably dangerous. It is just 'the Peaks' - it has an aura.

Social media doesn't help these days - someone's bound to have a cold, an injury or their own demons that they share with the world. I'm no different but I'll struggle with my own issues thanks.........

As to bikes, this year I have what I consider to be my ultimate set up, and along with team mate Dave, possibly the best bikes in the race full stop.

As ever I will go for a 2 bike strategy, changing either after Peak 1, Ingleborough or at Ribblehead after Peak 2, Whernside, depending on how I feel. Both bikes are set up for specific purposes - bike 1 for the more runnable, and less rocky terrain of Ingleborough and bike 2 specifically for Penyghent with it's long grinding but more rideable climb and slightly frightening rollercoaster and rocky descent.

Bike 1:

So bike 1 is a standard On One Dirty Disco with the new Disc and Canti Pro Carbon wheels. It has a mix of SRAM Rival and Force parts with bar top levers, 32mm FMB tubs with Racing Ralph treads and a bottom gear of 36x28. Carbon wheels?! For the Peaks? Well, yes. They are super light which will be appreciated on the mega steep Simon Fell, strong enough for what is one of the less rocky and boggier descents and just roll nicely everywhere else. I may continue on to Whernside with this bike, as again it is one of the steeper walking climbs. Coming down Whernside is ofter people's nemesis - I don't find it too bad and have other non-rocky options for route choice anyway.....

 Bike 2:

Bike 2 is a Planet X proto Titanium disc frame and beautifully comfortable. This bike sports much lower gearing, 34x34 (using a WiFli mech that will go on after racing this weekend), bar tops levers again as well as traditional alloy tub wheels with fatter 34mm Gommitalia tubs for the rougher climb and descent where punctures when tired are a real risk. SRAM Red parts complete the package for what is for me the best suited cross bike I've ever ridden round the Peaks.

There we go - equipment excuses effectively ruled out, it's down to me....

Holcombe Moor

Dave Haygarth has been filming again  - both mtb and cross, all with friends, all on the big hill where he lives.

Holcombe has something for everyone, all year round and also doubles as the venue for the infamous Bull Hill Cyclocross Reps we use to prepare for the 3 Peaks Cyclocross.

Watch for a 'flowered up' yours truly with Dave in the second half of the film.......

Bull Hill 2012

I've written about the delights of Bull Hill before here - '...a warm up on a monster climb up onto the moor – a descent down a shattered river bed (under 6 inches of water) but posing as a track – a walk/scramble up a 45 degree slope easing off into water logged peat bog caressed by a howling gale – an attempt to shuffle into a run and summit up further steep slope onto Holcombe Moor – before an exhilerating career down the other side, wiping sweat from my eyes and trying not to crash before turning left to go down the shattered river bed again and repeat.'

It still remains one of the most accessible (Friday lunch break) and effective (just over an hour for 3 reps) 3 Peaks cross sessions I've found. This year is no different, though the first session a couple of weeks ago was less of a shock to a pre-Peaks training constitution than in previous years.

Rather than writing, I thought I'd showcase some of the cracking images that Dave Haygarth has taken recently that show you much of the character and beauty of the area.....