“2 wheels move the soul…”

I’ve always thought so I fail to understand why a fat bike is disrespectful?

great, thanks for sharing

I find the idea of somebody needing to get ‘permission’ from someone else to ride on public roads laughable, if unsurprising.

you don’t need permission to ride the fred whitton route. you could wait outside the gate and ride alongside everyone else the whole way round.

but if you want to put on a Fred Whitton number board, use the feed stations and get an official time then you play by their rules.

I’ve never wanted to do the FW. I still don’t. Pointless and overpriced exercise in futility.

But that’s the point isn’t it? You don’t have to want to do it, but you can still accept that other people see it differently and take something from participating in an event they see as iconic and important.

Most organised events are ‘pointless and overpriced’ if you’re going to look at it like that, 24-hour mtb racing, XC racing, downhill, enduro, etc. That’s kind of the point, it’s a conceit where participants kid themselves that it’s important because it’s important to them. And as a result it is. It’s a sort of suspension of disbelief scenario.

Sporting events generally? Pointless and overpriced exercises in futility… ban them now.

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

I bet the boys on fatbikes won’t be pushing up wrynose and hardknott, unlike a lot of the roadies.

they’d have appropriate gearing for a start.

now that raises a question to me: if a fatbike is innappropriate, then surely the same could be said about typically massive roadie gearing…?

or maybe the organisers just balked at the idea of wearing out those expensive fat tyres, in which case i can understand.

*checks in to see if there’s still a load of frothing……. leaves happy*

Given the ban on fancy dress etc they probably want to stop it becoming some sort of roadie Mountain Mayhem.

The two lads completed the ride today in less than favourable conditions 13 hrs!

Did you find that out while “working” 😉

Doesn’t sound too shabby. What’s a “good” and “average” time for a roadie?

Edit: never mind:

The very top riders complete the route in just under six hours but eleven hours and over are not uncommon for the average Sportive rider

Be interesting to know what time they came through the cut-offs and whether they’d have made it on the day.

Actual ride time was 11.5 hours not bad considering riding with other riders motivates you to go quicker!

So towards the back, but not last based on the 2015 results.

Maybe the organizers should invite them along next year to pace the back markers, they’d get to go home an hour earlier!

Just driven over Wrynose – given the really crap road surfaces fatties might just be the tire of choice 😉

I suspect the organisers don’t want the ride to become some sort of novelty event. Next thing you have riders dressed in drag, on unicycles, chasing a pantomime cow on a tandem, like some two-wheeled London marathon dystopia (or one-wheel even…).

They want the challenge to be completing the route itself, rather than looking like a plonker.

They want the challenge to be completing the route itself, rather than looking like a plonker.

We are talking about grown adults dressed in lycra. You can’t look more like a plonker if you tried.

that may be so, but lycra is functional, whereas fatbikes aren’t (for the Fred).

Just driven over Wrynose – given the really crap road surfaces fatties might just be the tire of choice

CX bike for me, the weather is looking crap. And yes, the 35mm tyres are perfect for the roads!

Only joking about tyres – I was just shocked at how bad the roads were. If you are flying down Wrynose you need to be careful to miss some big holes.

that may be so, but lycra is functional, whereas fatbikes aren’t

Evidence ^ would suggest otherwise

that may be so, but lycra is functional, whereas fatbikes aren’t (for the Fred).

It’s a bike ride that goes in a circle, functional?

Hmm. Wanting to start early is clearly a question to which the answer is no, however

novelty entrants who take places that a more serious athlete could use (and be more likely to finish the course)

made me lol.

Just going through some of the privateer photos on Flickr to see if I could find any of our group and found this

😀