glenncampbell, thanks. That's what I heard from last year. Hmm, thinking about doing lots of big loops round Grizedale to get those off road miles in. I was going to ask about tyre choice actually, but really didn't want to open that can of worms this early.

I'm going for faster rolling tyres this year too. Even after the rain last year, there was nothing horrendously muddy, just lots of energy-sapping slop that I think a faster rolling tyres would help with.

So Mike, Nobby Nics ? Maxxis Ardents, Kenda small block 8 ? None of the above ? What do you reckon. (Can't beleive I'm doing this already)

No idea.

I used 2.2" Conti Mountain Kings last year. I usually base my tyre choice on what's cheap at the time; I get a rash if I pay more than £15 a tyre 🙂

jonb I will drop you a mail I'd be up for a long ride that weekend in June.

JonB I'll be up for a ride around then, I rode with you a few weeks ago with midaircrisis, I was Matts old mate…

forge was out with Trekster on long ride (for me) up the local hills, I would say that is is far closer to what keilder might be like, didnt realise what options were available locally.

I'd be up for some more of those long ones, it would have to be a saturday first thing, up over the hills, hike a bike, bike climbs and big descents. John knows his stuff so im sure plenty route advice available, but as said above I will be doing it to get fit with Kelider 100 as a bonus, so happy to hook up if you fancy?

Ti29er – some really good pictures there so thanks for posting the link!!

trailofdestruction – never too early for tyre discussions! Anything fast rolling will do well as the singletrack is all weather, fireroads were pretty good and there wasn't much mud last year. Please note that the microclimate comment earlier is accurate – be warned! Nobby UST's were fine for me – nothing toooo nobbly given the distance travelled on fire roads, IMHO!

scotabroad we are planning a trip last Saturday of May, Trekster will let you know more about it, we were out tonight for a short ride of Mabie and it's many secrets 😉 be good to do a couple long training rides.

It's amazing what's local looking forward to a Trekster local epic reckon it will be a good one.

The OP on a pratice/training ride;




Basically just a great day in the hills!!

With a few months to go, he could easily shift 1/2 a stone as that last picture suggests his stomach is resting on the top of his thighs! 😉
No beer before the end of the Montane Kielder 100 & see the genuine effect that this will also have on performance.
Bet that hill side gets wind-blown on a bad day – where is that BTW and how's it riding up the switch-backs on the opposite hillside?!

Trekster great pictures! Apart from the beer gut last one :D!

I did conveniently forget to mention in the OP weight watchers is on the cards as a training option. 😆

Ti29er – Member

Bet that hill side gets wind-blown on a bad day – where is that BTW and how's it riding up the switch-backs on the opposite hillside?!

Those switchbacks are a LOT STEEPER than it looks in the pic. We saved an excursion up there for another day 😉 , need to find a way up from the other side(forest road?)

That hill, Croft Head(Cats Shoulder)is above the Selcoth Burn, just out of Moffat on the Southern Upland Way. We were heading towards Pawhope Bothy and then down Bodesbeck onto the Selkirk Rd back to Wamhpray where we started.

Try OS Getamap, search Moffat, D&G and follow SupW(green triangle/line)

With a few months to go, he could easily shift 1/2 a stone

Wish I could 😕
Will loose 5/6wks riding due to hols/work come June/July.
Following an 18hr/4 airport flight I am entered for the Kirry 10 the day after I get home 🙄

see you there trekster. Thats my ride to gauge where I'm at… although doing the C2C in one day too in June to really get a good long 12 hour+ ride in

also, was thinking about this today. they say they want everyone in for dusk, thats why they have cut off. As the event is earlier in the year this year, dusk will be later, so more time to make cut offs?

Isn't is something like 10 minutes every week.
Thus if the race is 1 week earlier, you have 10 extra minutes of day light.
I'm sure someone will be along in a minute to give us the correct figure!

Why will you lose 5/6 weeks – holidays are a great time to get in some miles. I always lose weight on my own holidays.

Wasn't it the first weekend in September last year too? Shouldn't make too much difference.

It was just getting dark as I started the final set of descents to the finish, last year. I need to be 30-45 minutes faster this year to finish in the daylight. http://mactually.co.uk/?p=339

ti29er-
looking at a few of your photo's it seems a quite few people didn't have
back packs….was this to save weight?
Are the food stations regular enough that you don't have to carry much?

there were 5 feed stations, one with hot soup and sarnies. on three of the stations you could have bag drops, so you don't have to carry round 100 miles worth of gels etc. all the stations had energy drinks and biscuits, bananas etc

Ah, i see.
thanks.
J.

I didn't eat enough last year, despite carrying stuff around with me.

I'm planning on making use of the drop 'bags' this year so that I eat more regularly.

You need something like 60g of carb/hour IIRC

that's quite a bit of food

Or a decent energy drink.

yeah – I'm going to try various ones over the summer
I've got some SIS ones coming

Do any of the companies do trial size portions?

Why will you lose 5/6 weeks – holidays are a great time to get in some miles. I always lose weight on my own holidays.

AKIK there are no bikes where I am going on holiday for the best part of 3wks+work before & after means bike time is limited.
Hopefully friends we are staying with can find me a bike of some sort but they have only just moved into a new house/area.
Horse riding, kyaking,swimming and running are on the agenda.

All the front runners stuffed things into their ride-jersey's pockets.
Taped spare inners onto the frame that which wouldn't fit under the saddle.
They were the fast ones.

This is from my article:
"The winner of the vet’s category, David Hayward (9hr06m) currently the Vet’s National Mountain Bike Champion 2009 was keen to beat off the challenge from his arch nemesis, David Powell (9hr 09m), …. As for feeding, “My strategy was three gels & one and drinks bottle filled with a 6% strong Hi5 energy drink per hour but I drank nowhere near that, maybe ½ a bottle an hour & ran the risk of running out of energy.” Continuing, “At the feed stations I’d deposited a pair of brake pads, a bottle, an oil can, seven gels and two energy bars.” David kept all his kit, space blanket, multi tool, inner tube, whistle, car keys, CO2 can in a saddle bag, everything else got taped to his bike, confirming that the really fast racers don’t use any back packs."

Last yr, a pal of mine took his rd bike on holiday with the family to Europe. It worked a treat. Every day he rode from 6-8am. Think it really helped the whole family out!

I won't be one of the quick ones,did mere mortals leave drop bags?
I think I'd have to carry something to start off with though.
i never ride without the safety blanket of my camelbak and its contents.
Will have to give the weight issue some thought.
Only carry enough water to last to each food station for example?

J

That's one thing I got wrong last year. I didn't really use the bike as storage for tubes etc. and used a camelbak hawg. It was fine for purpose but I ended up doing the ride with too much on my back. I didn't carry enough food either as I'd thought the feed stations would have more substantial snacks. Oops.

The newcastleton stop was awesome – I seriously pigged out there – but should have used the drop facility and didn't. I will this year!

And I'll carry enough fluid for riding station to station.

All good though – looking forward to it!

I'm really looking forward to this event now.

My aims are plain simple
1/ To finish. As well as i did last year, finishing was really hard work
2/ To beat last years time
3/ To get top 20
4/ Not too bonk again.

Trailrat – 10 UTB, no chance of beating you and i know of some fast guys going up there. Hopefully i'll complete the 10 hours and get a good position. Its really just a test to see how i'll fair for Kielder.

Need to rest some more though .

And also, although i'll say it closer to the time, good luck to everyone doing it. Its an emotional rollercoaster but you'll love it

Remember that the weather last year was cool & things would be very different were it to be warm this year.

My Camelbak takes a 2lr bladder & nothing else & weighs only 2kg when full. All else went on the bike. I assumed everyone took advantage of the the food drops, clearly I was mistaken.

This year I have some new pedals and not ones that brake after the first feed station! 😉

Photos of the actual race if you want to see what people were wearing and using:
Montane Kielder 100 Photos

My Camelbak takes a 2lr bladder & nothing else & weighs only 2kg when full.

Last year, I carried 2 750ml bottles on the bike and refilled at every stop but might just refill one this year until the lunch stop, when I'll switch to two. That makes my bike 3/4kg lighter for the first half of the race! (And I should be on a lighter bike anyway.)

Last year, I carried a rucksack with waterproof, warm top and spare food. All tools/tubes were in a saddle bag and pump on the frame. This year, my spare food will be in the drop bags which should make the bag lighter. I'm also probably not going to bother with a warm top and will probably strap the waterproof to the bike. Result should be no rucksack.

Joolze – awesome pics – thanks for the link!!

Ti29er – I for one was just under prepared to be honest! I think the organised chaps made the most of it – there were a lot using the drops. All great experience though – that's why I entered and have done so again this year!

Scotabroad – the funny thing is that nobody really knows if they're going to finish or not. The declaration of intent is made by showing up at the start line, the finish is down to your efforts plus fate \ luck \ whatever. Serious mechanicals, injury, the weather etc. can stop anyone. The fact that you've entered and are training for it in most respects is enough in my book. Just prepare as you are doing, turn up and ride! It took me over 11 hours last year – not a time to be proud of but I'm really happy that I entered. Oh, and don't forget midge repellant!

Drop bags sound like a REALLY good idea. I'd not really considered that and was wondering how I'd get on carrying 3L of water around on my back all day. How does the drop bag thing work then, do you just hand in 3 plastic bags when you sign in?

You could of course talk to the organisers who would happily answer any queries;0)
They're incredibly experienced riders as well as event organisers. In fact Sara has quite a few solo 24hr rides to her name as well as long distance epics, both are a font of information. I think we worked it out that between her and Paul they had about 40 odd years of experience between the, both on bike and behind the scenes of many major bike races….

Drop bags sound like a REALLY good idea. I'd not really considered that and was wondering how I'd get on carrying 3L of water around on my back all day. How does the drop bag thing work then, do you just hand in 3 plastic bags when you sign in?

Water is available anyway, so you wouldn't need to put that into the drop bags.

From memory, there was a box for each feed station. Into that box, you could put a 'bag' marked with your race number with food or whatever for the feed stations. I think the 'bag' was limited to an A4 plastic wallet.

I suppose you could put spare tubes and stuff into the bag too.

You could of course talk to the organisers who would happily answer any queries

Speculation is so much more fun though 🙂

You could of course talk to the organisers who would happily answer any queries

Rubbish, its far better to get opinion and hearsay of a bunch of people who don't actually know what the answer is.

So I've managed 94 miles over the last 7 days now all I need is to do it in a day 🙂 3 long (by my standard) rides and one short but it's good training, what did feel good was I did a 37mile on Monday so the two 24ish mile rides this weekend didn't really feel too bad where as in the past they would have.

Just entered the Kirroughtree 10 under solo and will just ride and keep riding and see how it goes and what works food and pace wise.

Really looking forward to the challange of the 10 under and the Kielder.

I will still use a 3l Camelbak I'd rather have to much than to little water, though appreciate the weight issue. But I will make use of the bag drops.

I've managed 94 miles over the last 7 days

97 miles is my best 7 days so far in 2010. 72 miles is my biggest day out, but that was mainly on the road. I'm about 40% up on this time last year though, so a better start to the year.

Just need to sort my asthma out now (540 peak flow, when it should be nearer 700 = not good).

Mike – that gives me some comfort I am going in the right direction as you finished the Kielder on a similar mileage. If I had worked it out sooner I'd have popped out to do 6 miles 🙂 Counter for the week resets tomorrow. Good effort doing a 72 miler. Goal this month is a 50+ mile ride in one day.

Good luck sorting the asthma both wife and I have it.