It rained all night here in Surrey and the garden water butt I emptied yesterday for a bit of maintenance is full again.

How’s it looking at Thetford? Another year for the SS?

I don’t know, but if it’s anything like 2010 I’m really glad I’m not going…

Forecast for Saturday/Sunday is dry, so might be just nicely damped down.

My body is broken and work is bonkers, so I’d been thinking I would bail out, but I might just have to go along.

It pi$$ed down in epic proportions last night. It is due to do the same tonight and rain is forecast for today though it hasn’t shown up yet.

Tomorrow is forecast to be dry and cool. I haven’t been to the forest for a while now but my past experience suggests that with this amount of rain it will either be pants all the way round or the main trails may hold up ok with the whoops etc filling up with water. These in turn will deteriorate and grow. Either way, expect to get muddy and spend a lot of money on parts at some stage in the weekend!

It seems there won’t be as many riders on the course this time so that’s a help.

The Timber website has a trail conditions gizmo on it so it wil be worth having a peep there.

Same as every D2D “Plan for the worst – Hope for the best”

See you all there.

=Weather Forecast http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/bury-st-edmunds?tab=map&map=SignificantWeather

Looks like today’s rain has gone away. Saturday looks fine but tonight’s rain will not do the course a lot of good!

So muddy trails but hopefully no rain during the night (unlike last year).

Rode Thetford last weekend, and it was fine. A little rain overnight in Norwich, hoping it will be good for tomorrow night 🙂

Damn you Sam wish i hadn’t watched that, brought back horrible memories! i’ll be there tmrw, red Niner, looking worried no doubt

http://chris-noble-mtb.blogspot.co.uk

Rode in Sandringham last night (don’t tell Liz…) and that was fine. Conditions tend to be very somilar so you should be okay…

Rachel

We were up there for the 3rd year in a row…..expecting the worst but no rain this year!! Was a little muddy in places but compared to the last 2 years it was positively DRY!! Was a marked difference in numbers this year seemed much quieter, we camped in the back field where we had been the year before and there were half a dozen of us, in 2011 it was packed, many stayed away by the looks of it.
Route was 10.5 miles long with some new stuff. Flippin chilly though with a full frost and fog in places. 😯

Stayed dry but flippin’ cold! Trail improved as the event went on. Our first time so made some basic newbie mistakes: not taking changes of clothing, thinking we could stay warm in the catering tent overnight. Hoem now but still not warm!

But at the end of the day, or rather, night we had a great time.

Yes the course did improve as the race went on. One section never dried out – some gigantic puddles – but the rest did. No pushing! We lost a man with 5hrs to go and so had only 2 of us riding – pleased to hold onto 3rd. Totally destroyed now as I was banking on 5 laps, so went out at 5 lap speed i.e. flat out but had to double up a couple of times and ended up doing 7 laps … ouch. Massive respect to my team mate Phil who, on his 56th birthday, did 6 damn fast laps and was brilliant.

t’was a great night our guys (two newbies and a solo vet) loved it, a lot of events (cycling and running) that normally sell out seem to have taken a hit this year on numbers so I don’t think the past history with conditions is totally to blame.

Had a far more enjoyable night than last year- 9 laps, pretty chuffed with that.

Seemed to be lots more vocal encouragement from other riders for riding it solo – really helps!

first time here — proper eerie around 3 a.m., rode for about 20 minutes at one point without seeing a soul.

proper eerie around 3 a.m., rode for about 20 minutes at one point without seeing a soul.

Can often do that anytime of day or night, there is a lot of forest and trails to get lost in here. 🙂 But doing it at 3.00am is pretty special …. sunrise on a summer morning is pretty good too!

good to know, only my second time there — and the other laps I did were packed with riders.
special place.

I’m feeling properly broken now. Can’t wait for my bed. A good course, apart from the water feature towards the end which I managed to ride straight into twice.

We managed 12 laps as a pair and it was a darn site better than last year.

Had some FFS front wheel wash outs on my first two laps but fixed that with a Bonty Mud X wheel swap.

Definitely cold but after last year’s rainmudfest, we had more kit and shelter than you could shake a stick at.

According to my GPS (strava here) the lap was 9.9 miles. Managed one sub 50 minute lap and got passed by some real speed demons and saw plenty of sub 45 min laps on the rolling score board 8O.

Like Nathan I had two laps with big chunks of time on my own. As a roadie time trialler this wasn’t exactly a problem but was noticeable compared to 09 and 11.

Seemed to be lots more vocal encouragement from other riders for riding it solo – really helps!

And for those of us riding singlespeed – only saw one other! On my last lap, at about 730I put in a sprint from the 8 mile point. A real gent – thanks if you’re on here – heard my grunting behind him on one of the Singletrack sections and kindly pulled over. When he saw that I was on single singlespeed was really encouraging thanks again, that really lifted me! 🙂

Thought this years event was a really good friendly one, everyone giving each other space and respect (maybe the lack of congestion?). I’ll take those conditions over the previous 2 mudfests ADOTW.

Gee – respect to your man Phil!

Quite enjoyed the course, huge amounts of pedalling though, but easy to spin along. Big thanks to the sponsors, thought the prizes were very generous, I’ve a shiny new exposure Diablo for 2nd male 😀

I won a six-pack of Carlsberg in the raffle!

I thought that was a great event. How lucky were we with the weather? most of the heavy rain on Friday had soaked away by the time the race had started, and even the damp bits dried up as the race went on – well apart from the big pond/lake on the fireroad. Although it was a bit cold, my Garmin recorded the average temperature as 1.1 degrees for the 12 hours. I thought the mist added to the event, it started in the open bits and slowly found it’s way into the woodland.

The atmosphere on the course was really good. I can’t remember a race were fellow racers were so polite, and overtaking/being overtaken was always very easy. I actually started feeling a bit guilty at people stopping to let me past even before I caught them, I am not that quick! I seemed to go through phases of not seeing anyone, and then I would catch a train of riders.

Pleased to knock out 13 laps. 130miles vs 100miles completed last year.

Jason

I thought that was a great event. How lucky were we with the weather? most of the heavy rain on Friday had soaked away by the time the race had started, and even the damp bits dried up as the race went on – well apart from the big pond/lake on the fireroad. Although it was a bit cold, my Garmin recorded the average temperature as 1.1 degrees for the 12 hours. I thought the mist added to the event, it started in the open bits and slowly found it’s way into the woodland.

The atmosphere on the course was really good. I can’t remember a race were fellow racers were so polite, and overtaking/being overtaken was always very easy. I actually started feeling a bit guilty at people stopping to let me past even before I caught them, I am not that quick! I seemed to go through phases of not seeing anyone, and then I would catch a train of riders.

Pleased to knock out 13 laps. 130miles vs 100miles completed last year.

Big props to you and all the other soloists 8)

Have to concur with everyone being very friendly with passing. I think I had just a couple of guys not say anything went they went past me.

D2D’s a bit of a funny for me as it comes straight after our summer hols which always involve two weeks of driving a sun lounger and drinking beer. I wonder how I’d get on if I actually rode a bike in the 2 – 3 weeks before the event.

photographing in the woods as per usual, made a refreshing change to not get soaked. wasn’t even too cold.
lots of smiling faces this year! 😀

d0ugal – Member
photographing in the woods as per usual, made a refreshing change to not get soaked. wasn’t even too cold.
lots of smiling faces this year!

Are they available to view anywhere?

I’m pretty broken today. Managed 8 laps solo this year; my longest off-road ride ever. I’m pretty pleased having not really done much riding at all over the last couple of months which my bum is testamant to (it’s rather bruised and swollen. My back, shoulders and knees are all feeling distinctly sub-par and I’ve somehow bruised an ankle.

Other than that though I’m fairly happy. Chuffed with my result on the whole although not as high up the category as last year but I expected that with the weather being better. On that note, it was so nice having the course improve rather than deteriorate through the night and there were some very atmospheric bits with the mist coming down.

Thanks go to all who helped, organised, marshalled and made the event run so smoothly again.

without wanting to open a discussion on wheel sizes 😉 does anybody know what bikes the podium finishers were riding? There were quite a few 29ers and 27.5’s at the event i noticed?
just interested..

Our team was riding one 26, one 27.5 and one 29. We came 3rd, but the 29er only did half the race. Think of how well we could have done if we’d all been on big wheels.

drofluf, photos are up on photos4all website.

Not up on Sussex Sport Photography website when I looked earlier. I imagine they were the bloke with all the flashes in the woods.

stumpy01 – Member
drofluf, photos are up on photos4all website.

Not up on Sussex Sport Photography website when I looked earlier. I imagine they were the bloke with all the flashes in the woods.

Got a link? Probably I’m being dumber than usual (which is most likely) but I can’t find them under events on photos4all.co.uk

I can’t either so a link would be appreciated

The photos link was posted on the TMTBR forum earlier 🙂

http://www.thetfordmtbracing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=681

Pics4all images are here:
http://pics4all.co.uk/p601518258

I was finished 4th in solo and was on a 29er. Last year I was 3rd on two 26er bikes, as one broke half way through.

We won the 4 man with 18 laps 2 of us on 29ers 2 on 26″

The-milkybar-kid – Member

We won the 4 man with 18 laps 2 of us on 29ers 2 on 26″

You lot are anything but slackers!!

Bonkers speed and effort from you all 8)

Oh and I believe my SSP colleagues have now got their photos sorted from the weekend – http://gallery.sussexsportphotography.com/home.tlx?containerid=13171514125

I finished 3rd solo and was on a 26er. It was a really friendly event with lots of support from riders passing and being past. The event certainly did not suffer from being lower in numbers from pervious years

Rode the course this morning, hope Paul uses some of those sections for the Winter Series! 😀