Well – what a day for a ride!
We were slightly anxious as we headed out as we’d only been on the tandem once in the past 4 years, and that was only 5 days ago!
The changes I’d made to it worked wonders – avid BB7/disc conversion on the rear, and high orller DH tyre to prevent (previous numerous) flats!

The campsite was a lovely little footie pitch in a small Gloucestershire town..
Showers were warm on Sat am…freezing on Sat pm..oh well!

The route was brilliant. Very tough, but brilliant!
MrsDrP (My stoker) was the ‘decider’ on which route we took. At the dividing point we felt strong enough to take the longer route, but at pretty much halfway (second feed stop) the energy had gone from under us, and even a chilled pub lunch (Little diversion through nympho-town, or something like that…) wasn’t enough so we took a mostly road route back (that still had a biiiig ol’ climb in it!).
So in the end we did just over 50k – the first half of the 75k route, then our own little way back!!

Not what we were aiming for, but had a great time none the less!

I still had some energy left in my legs for some dancing and roller racing though!

A big thanks to the organisers, and loved the cause it went to..

Anyway, here’s some pics..please share yours in this thread too 🙂








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Any pics of us on the tandem would be appreciated (for the blog!)

Ta!

DrP

I passed you on the grassy climb after the wet bits. I was on the SS Krampus.
You did well 🙂 there were some tough sections on first half of the the route. I did wonder how you would cope with some of the tight singletrack on the last bit near North Nibley, but sounds like you sidestepped that problem!

Great day out and much more challenging than I had anticipated, but nevertheless a fantastic course mixing everything you could throw at a mountain-biker. A snapped chain on one of the long, narrow, muddy, wet bits didn’t help – many thanks to the guy who stopped and helped me repair it!

Great event again. The weather couldn’t have been better and the route was brilliant-apart from the push past the fallen tree -did anyone manage to ride up that bit?
The organisation was first class and everyone was so friendly, the food was very good-to feed over two hundred meals on Saturday night from that tiny space was amazing- and for the second year running I even won something in the raffle. Will be back next year.

Full-fat pre-ride brekky 😀

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nCceYS]P5170160[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

DrP’s tandem getting abused

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nEdYeN]P5160158[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

Basecamp, just cranking up the disco

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nnKdS1]P5160156[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

And just to prove we did do some riding in between drinking cider…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nnKhYC]P5170161[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nDX6xz]P5170162[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

And the cider stop at the top of that last killer climb…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nnKKhi]P5170166[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

Fantastic event, so chilled, huge thanks to organisers and participants for a great weekend. Off to rub aftersun cream onto exposed flesh now 😳

3rd pic in, from the OP, man who’s photbombed the picure – is he scraping shite from his shoes?

I think he’s just overdone the ecstasy from the 1st night rave

3rd pic in, from the OP, man who’s photbombed the picure – is he scraping shite from his shoes?

I think he’s walking himself through correct fosberry flop technique.