Mobi portable washers

After listening to some of the comments about bike washing at some of our events, we thought we'd do something for venues that have little or no access to outside water. The solution was to grab two of the new Mobi Portable Pressure Washers out of stock. These are portable pressure washers and are designed to be put in the back of the car/van to clean your bike after a day on the trails. They run from the 12v socket in a car and come with an adatpter for mains supply so you can use them from home as well.

We used them for the first time in Scotland and I have to say, I quite impressed! First of all they are not full blown Pressure washers so don't expect the nozzle to jerk back in your hand. 130 psi it may be, but through a small nozzle so it's a strong but not large jet of water. If you think about it, a large jet will use too much water and mean you'll only get a bit of your bike washed instead of it all. If you look at the picture of Papa Smurf using the Mobi, you'll see the kind of pressure achievable.

Downsides? Well there's two that I can see and they won't apply to the normal user. First is that we have to keep filling them up to wash all the bikes at an event (we may have to impose a time limit at events) secondly the hose fittings are plastic and I'm not sure how long the're going to last with riders pulling at them. We have cable tied the ends to protect them, so time will tell!!

For more product details visit the main Evans Cycles site - Mobi Portable Pressure Washer

Dean

Today's Off Road Ride

From speaking to people at the finish it seems that everyone found today's off road ride pretty tough going; most people ended up taking at least one short cut or missing the final loop on the medium/long rides so well done to the hardy few that actually completed the full route.

See the post below if you were wondering why there was no drink station.

The Missing Drinks Station

Some of you may have noticed that we were missing a drink station on today's ride, well it was all down to Tony trying to take a short cut that didn't quite work out.


Thanks to Ewan from the local pub for driving up and pulling us out with his 4x4, without him the van would still be there now.

Off Road Preview

Just finished marking out the off road route for tomorrow, it's definately one of our tougher routes with plenty of long climbs and some fun single track descents. It also takes in some pretty impressive scenery and we've got permission from the forestry commission to use some of the trails usually reserved for walkers so all in all it's probably one of the best Ride It! routes we've done so far.

Most of the trails are fire roads or rocky paths so even though we've had a bit of rain today there's surprisingly little mud around. The forecast for Saturday is cloudy with no rain so the trails should be a bit drier than today.

Road Ride Route Marking

We've just been out marking out the road course, it takes in some great scenery on some really quiet roads. It seems like you can ride for miles with out seeing any traffic so a bit of a change for us southerners.

Weather has been a bit overcast and a few rain showes but the roads are fairly dry and the forecast at the moment is for brighter weather by the weekend.

Scotland this weekend

We're off to Scotland for this weekends event soon, so a quick run down of whats going on.

Saturday is the Off road ride and uses the trails around the David Marshal Lodge in Aberfoyle. The trail are mainly firetracks around the forests leading up to some fantastic views over the surrounding countryside. There are sections of single track spread about the ride with the medium using some purposely made stretches to finish on.

The Road ride has three loops give distances of approx,25, 50 and 70 miles. These will be in the valleys and around the Lochs of the area. Climb wise, you'll have the Dukes pass to do either once or twice depending upon your choice of route. Again, some stunning scenery on relatively quiet roads should make this a great day out.

As per usual, the Gore free demo service will be available - kit yourself put with lovely clothing for the day and give it back dirty at the end of the ride, free of charge.

As usual, we'll be updating the Blogg on a daily basis towards the end of the week with reports on the ground conditions etc.

Dean

The right desicion?

After waking up on Sunday morning to mild weather ( Gotta love those weather forecasters!) I was wondering if I'd done the right thing. The TCR show was going to be a good event for us, with our highest ever Road pre-entry and a passing traffic of riders going to the show who we could try and get interested in the series. I spent Sunday morning in a T-shirt telling riders who did turn up that the ride was cancelled due to bad weather! The first guy to arrive had stayed off the beer on Saturday night in order to ride on Sunday which was also his birthday. How bad did I feel!!! Still, he left with a Gore Birthday pressie. The last rider to turn up did so at 10.35am after a train journey and a 10 mile ride. She was in such a rush to get to us that she pushed her bike through the 10km runners and ran up asking "Am I too late?" No, she wasn't.

Anyway, in the afternoon I drove home in sunglasses and the window down with loads of questions going through my head about should I have run it. The answer came on Monday morning when I found out some Mountain bikers from our Head Office had been up on Boxhill on Sunday and said that the roads were sketchy. Although our route didn't go there, we did go that high and our routes would have been as icy.

So, right desicion.

Next event is in sunny Scotland..........

Dean