I have done it a couple of times, once solo and once as a pair. I'm in the pairs again this year and have a hankering to ride it on a rigid. Now I can't remember all of the course that well but IIRC there isn't anything that harsh is there? I seem to remember one rocky bit and that's it. (Every time I have ridden it so far it has been on a full suss.) Anyway, I did the 100k West Drayton course this weekend on a rigid (Swift) and there were a few sections where I felt it was a little, shall we say, challenging as I was pinged off course on descents, almost lost my fillings on the way down, or on one or two climbs the bumps just caused me to stall (along with gravity, fitness deficit etc).

The options are:

Swift rigid
Swift as HT ( I need to buy the forks)
Superlight

There is a smoother line if you know where you're going, but the course is full of holes and we won't have time to fill them all before the bikefest.

There is no super tech, you're right, but if its dry and hard, Ashton Court can give you a right battering.

it was very dry the other day and i did it on a full suss then hardtail. was thrown around like anything. going to do it for the first time this year

I was thinking about doing it rigid then I remembered some of the rooty sections that just battered me last year. So I will take my hardtail and a full sus!

Rich, are you entered? I've just done our mixed pairs entry for this year. 🙂

(did you get my email earlier too?)

Us localers ride rigid quite often but many of us also put the suspension forks back on once things dry out as it is pretty bumpy/rutted/rooty and for 12 hours that can really take it out of you, not to mention that the singletrack just flows much better (at least for mere mortals, no doubt the STW heroes will be capable of flowing perfectly while riding a road bike on it with tyres at 20000psi) with suspension forks to take out the bigger hits at the front.

It certainly can and often is ridden rigid at the bikefest but I wouldn't unless I had no choice.

I'm in a team of 4 as I am super un-fit 🙂

Saw the many emails not sure if I can make it but will try to 🙂

riding a road bike on it with tyres at 20000psi

If you will run soft tyres mate! 😉

Anyway, some form of suspension it is then!

I ran my swift rigid using a 2.4 up front no problem a couple of years ago

Ran it rigid last year, but in team of 4. 😕

did it rigid as an ss pair in 6 hr race a few years back, stuck a sus fork on towards the end but i think it'd be fine tbh

I did it as a pair on a HT last year and the time lost on the single track was more than made up for on the climbs

A fair bit of the course is fire road, including the big climb, so there's the opportunity to make up time if you're on a nippier bike. You will get a bit bashed about on the singletrack sections though.

Last year I did it on a rigid SS and found that the "bridge of death" over the bombhole was genuinely quite sketchy (due to the ever-increasing size of the hole at the bottom of it) and that I couldn't always carry enough speed to get through the bombhole, especially once it started getting cut up.

On the whole I was a couple of minutes slower per lap than the previous year when I did it on a burly hardtail – some of that must have been due to the crap conditions though.