A beautiful day in early September gives Jem and I an opportunity to ride from Fetcham to Newlands Corner on our singlespeeds. It’s Jem’s first ride on his New Voodoo Wanga.

Warm weather, drying trails and more enthusiasm than normal meant todays ride was great. Just over 27 miles by the time I got home so a 30 miler is in easy reach some time soon. Granted that statement will probably bring forth rain to make the flood of Noah’s time look like a small shower if the summer was anything to go by but it’s something to aim for.

This is not exactly a test report as Jem was really having a shakedown ride on his Voodoo having just had it built up from donor parts from his 2006 Marin Wolf Ridge. Jem looks like he likes the bike a lot though and by all accounts it rides like a steel hard tail so no surprises there then!

One thing I did particularly like is the drop out system that means its a doddle to set up and tension the chain or even to swap it over to geared. Not that my Inbred has any great problems but horizontal drop outs aren’t quite as quick to set up in my opinion. Anyway the Wanga’s a lovely red colour and I would have said quite a rare beast had we not seen 2 of them at the top of Box Hill last week.

The ride to Newlands Corners was a cracker. We opted for the easy route and kept to the main track from Ranmore which doesn’t involve any great changes in altitude given that this is the first long ride I’ve done on my Single speed. I’d swapped to a 20 tooth on the rear of my bike and although it’s a subtle change it did seem to make the hills a bit easier, especially as the 25th mile started to rack up. This is roughly equal to the 18 tooth gear on Jem’s 26″ wheel Voodoo so we were fairly evenly matched.

At Newlands Corner we parked the bikes next to each other and one guy congratulated us on keeping it real with steel frames but I noticed that they were intrigued with the 29er. On its own it looks like a normal bike but stick it next to a 26″ wheel machine and it looks huge. Anyway, we had a decent chat with them and they headed off while we finished our drinks and looked at some of the great old Classic British motor bikes that congregate in the car park.

So, off we headed home, feeling good enough to throw in a extra loop here and there before reaching home and setting to the task of breaking more concrete up for the new patio…ho hum…;o)

Check out our On-One Inbred and Voodoo Wanga pictures on Flickr

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About the author

Dave's been riding seriously since about 1997 and is one of the founding Molefathers — along with Matt and Mark — that came up with the idea of a MTB website for Mole Valley riders.

He's had several different bikes but it's now mainly 29ers in Dave's stable, apart from an Orange 5.

Current Bikes: Orange 5, Salsa Spearfish and Kona Big Unit