Life In The Saddle

ENVE make some awesome wheels, they also seem to be making some of the best MTB videos at the moment. Great stuff.

Earlier in the year I reviewed the potentially revolutionary OSMO Nutrition (Link) . OSMO is a sports and recovery drink system with a unique tack, in that it focuses more on effective hydration and leaves the fuelling element to solid foods. The theory is that you get a less troubled digestive system and your body can more easily process what you are feeding it, with the overall objective that it is more efficient during exercise. The previous OSMO blog created quite a lot of debate on Twitter, and people were sceptical that it really worked. Nutrition is a difficult thing to gauge on effectiveness, and after a month or so of testing before my first blog there were positive results, but I don't think I had really gleaned just how effective OSMO can be. After a long summer of racing and training, the real epiphany moment came in September during the 14 Hills Killer mountain bike race. 5 hours and 11 minutes of racing in Indian Summer heat, with just 1.5 litres of fluid. I f...

Incredible. (again).

Back in June, I reviewed the Black Mamba Workshop Gloves  and deemed that they were " quite easily the best workshop gloves that I've tried ". They last longer and work better than all other disposable gloves I've used for bike maintenance. However, for bike washing I did find that the Black Mamba gloves could have done with being a bit thicker, and had a tendency to let in water. In the end, I reverted to only using the gloves for maintenance and used kitchen sink (Marigold) gloves for bike washing. A few months later, I noticed that the firm that produces Black Mamba gloves also produces White Mamba gloves, which are slightly thicker and more resilient to water and detergent use. I've been testing them out... They work very well, certainly better than the Black Mamba for bike washing. I've used them for repeat bike cleaning sessions and they hold up well to strong detergents and rough use. If there is one slight disappointment, it's that I wou...

It's awesome what can be done with a pocket sized camera now... (make sure you put it in 4K)