My first ever 24hr race, my guess is it’s about keeping fed, watered, comfortable (OK that’s relative) so you don’t pack it in feeling miserable at 4am or something.

Any tips? Is it even worth trying to sleep? I hear it’s worth baking your brake pads…

Whisky.

It might not be optimal in terms of speed but for puffer, I like longer stints.. rather than doing single laps and swapping – do a few.

This’ll give you longer rests to get fed and warm again – and mean that you don’t need so many changes of kit (or to loiter in wet kit for so long).

It’s grim in between midnight and sunrise – but it’s a great feeling when you suddenly realise you can see more than just what your lights can pick out.

forgeet your racing – in pairs pacing is everything.

unless your in it to win it and have the fitness for it – keep a clip on but dont be breathing out your arse or you will pack it in at 1am.

Those that do best are those that keep going.

a chair beside a warm fire is worth its weight in gold

longer stints

First time @ Puffer and in a pair and this is what i was thinking. especially if it is wet.

I get you re pacing TR, I’ll be pacing to finish for sure. I’d thought of 2-lap stints mostly and maybe 3 at night.

try not to get beat by a couple of girls 😉

double/triple laps work well at the start – i would move towards single laps as you get tired – youll stay faster that way.

double/triple laps work well at the start – i would move towards single laps as you get tired – youll stay faster that way.

I suspect your aims are different from mine whenever I’ve done it.. not running out of dry socks trumped any hope of lap records for me! 😉

Edit – and accept the fact that a girl will overtake you at least once, and you’ll notice she’s on a single speed.. and doing it solo. Though that might not happen to everyone, seems to happen to me every year 🙂

ive only ever done puffer quads or solo – i know from experiance of other 24hrs is that the pairs catagory is the hardest one in any 24 hour race – its quads pace for twice as much riding if you want to win or are chasing alex glasgow/alex johnson.

We are mostly there to support the deeside divas womens pair but also riding a quad.

Al are you riding with greg/nobeer?

Done other 24hr races and in pairs it’s worth doing more laps in a stint if you are not racing to win. As laps of most places seem to be generally around an hour it just gives a bit more time to get back from the pits and dry off, eat, fix bike, etc. before going back out (especially overnight). Also unless you are warming up and cooling down fully (e.g. on a turbo) then you’ll probably take the first mile or two of a lap to properly get going so worth staying out longer. Echo the comment re single laps towards the end though.

Did pairs two years ago. We did 16 or 18 laps. Started on triples, immediately dropped to doubles then about midnight onwards singles. Was grim when partner decided enough was enough and I had to head out again when my head was ready fir stopping.

Trail Rat – no, Swavis from on here/mlehworld. I’ll say hello though.

I guess if I don’t hate it too badly then solo might be an option in the future.

First time for me too, my partner in the pairs was in a quad last year and we have the opposite plan, singles during the day, for as long as we can then move onto 2/3 lap stints if we can cope. We won’t be fast but we’ll keep going (as long as it’s not raining too hard).

Al, pop in and say hello, I’ll be the red faced dude in the big dales cycles tent! (Or on a green soul)

After pit bitching for six years and watching what was happening, maybe singles during the usual waking hours then double laps through the night.

Single night laps seemed to flatten the riders. You have come in, have a bite to eat, calm down, change, chat then have only a short time to sleep before its time to prep to go out… doubles give proper rest time.

Find devs. Be nice to him and you’ll get all the warmth, brews, cuddles and spannering you need to get round. Be very head strong. Keep checking your pace and wind it back, it’s a long game. There will be girls, kids and fat knackers that pass you, don’t race every one that does, you don’t know what cat or strategy they are on. Even slow laps are laps, just get out there or kick swavis out there. Double laps are best but it’s all weather dependent. You’ll find it really hard to stretch to 3’s late at night. 4 x 10 minutes sleep is better than 40 mins sleep, I found at least. I really struggle to sleep during the event anyways but going into deep sleep is fatal. Anxious energy is wasted energy, just relax and enjoy it and if you’re in with a sniff of a podium at dawn then you go girlfriend! 🙂

I’ve raced 24hr pairs a few times tho not at Strathpuffer, this is what worked for me/us, though obviously everyone’s different: we just just ran doubles all the way through. If you run singles you get barely any adequate recovery, by the time you’ve refuelled and cleaned up, you’re out again unless you’re really slow.

Pace is interesting. Faster than a solo, maybe not as quick as a team rider on a fast lap, can be hard to judge when people are flying past and your gut instinct is to chase them down. Other stuff to bear in mind is you barely get the chance to talk to your partner bar a few words at changeover, so chat about strategies in advance and leave notes / use a white board if there’s anything you need to communicate – people tend not to process stuff well when they’ve just finished a double lap session.

Keep eating and drinking – I do that before cleaning up self and bike. Take loads of spare riding kit, wearing the same stuff is morale sapping. Baby wipes/wet wipes for cleaning up between stints, get dry stuff on fast or you’ll get proper cold.

Caffeine in the small hours keeps me going. I don’t really sleep but whatever works for you. Use a whiteboard to write down changeover times, it’s easy to get confused in the small hours of the morning.

Oh, and if your partnered with someone really fast beware the downward spiral where they go faster, you get less recovery, so you get slower again, they get even more recovery and go faster and so on. Nightmare 😐

do a lap or two for show then let swavis take over… 🙂

I’ve certainly ended up (not through choice) doing a double lap in evening and then a little later a triple during the night, to be honest it was OK but then again it wasn’t the Puffer.. that seemed a better bet to survival than constant on/off bike, hanging about – and this was in summer..

Oh, and if your partnered with someone really fast beware the downward spiral where they go faster, you get less recovery, so you get slower again, they get even more recovery and go faster and so on. Nightmare

Thanks, you’ve just taken me back to my real low points last year. I was paired with munrobiker on a mission so I got very little rest. I compensated by sending him out on a triple which worked out in the end as it lined him up for the risky last lap. It’s amazing though how euphoria at finishing your stint can disappear in the time it takes to change, have a brew and some food, 5 minutes feet up time and you realise the git will be on his way back down again.

Like othe, a few years ago as a pair, we set off doing pairs of laps. We as riders were quite well matched for lap times. Keeps you out there longer and plugging away without the warm down/warm up happening too often. Gives enough time to get food, chill out, bike maintenance etc. Single lap rest times would have been too stressful fo me i think.
Near the end of the race – in the last 5 hours, we moved to single laps to just try to notch up as much as possible with the energy we had left.

Doubles are the way to go bit you will end up on singles, or in your scratcher. We only did a triple cause my mate “felt strong”, not so fricking strong later when I had to drag him out his sleeping bag. Then he gave up.

do a lap or two for show then let swavis take over…

Oi! 😡 😉

My biggest problem will be pacing myself although I intend to wear a hrm so I can see that I’m pushing too hard and ease off. Double laps sounds like the way to go, maybe a x3 in the night to get some kip.

Well, that was Paul’s plan in advance of the 10UTB .. (with me as the fall guy).

HRM would be a good shout, I used one a long time ago when I did a distance event and and had suffered from a cold, just to keep the revs to a steady and sensible level..

doubles + a triple if you’re feeling steady, with some coffee (but not too much otherwise you’ll come off the laps buzzing and not rest). Chocolate coated coffee beans FTW..

Being the tortoise and not the hare seems to be key.
Are you coming up to spectate kcal?

1/ definitely I’d have thought – no use shaving a minute or two off each lap time if you then conk out at 2am for a couple of hours!

2/ probably not.. have flashbacks still to being towed out of that field :/

I seem to have fallen into a pattern in team events of me doing 1, then my teammate doing 1, incredibly fast, then collapsing and insisting he can’t do another for at least a couple of hours, so I do another 2 straight away, then he does another 1. This works incredibly badly but it does mean you get to know most of the marshalls.

Hoping I can shake off this Manflu in time for the weekend so I can pop up for a bit of a chinwag with a few folk. I’ll likely be wandering around with a camera and/or a fatbike 🙂

*Waves*

I may be up sporting bacon butties/camera 🙂

Good luck folks!!

You’ll probably not get it perfect first time. Obviously, I’ve done a few with some success now and I find the following works-

– Eat after every stint. Even if you don’t want to.

– Eat what your body actually wants, not what you feel it should have (I always make a vat of pasta and at 3am I know I should have it but my body wants a bacon roll). If you don’t get into the habit of eating at least a little regularly you WILL bonk at some point, which when it’s snowing at 2am and you’re only a third of the way into a lap you will not appreciate. Take gels on the course.

– Make sure your bike is in perfect condition when you set off.

– In pairs, go fast. It’s a race, pairs is hard, but ride fast. You will have plenty of time to recover between laps. Pace yourself within reason, but you’re not doing it solo.

– Don’t sleep for more than 20 minutes or you will feel awful and not ride your best. Sleep regularly, though.

– Change your kit regularly, even if it’s not wet. It feels better and being happy is the key to success.

– Swap between energy drink and plain water. I find too much energy drink makes me ill and you do get fed up of drinking it if you don’t have water too.

A few Puffer specifics-

– Take every bit of cycling clothing and footwear you have ever owned, and some spares (particularly shoes). Being cold and wet will ruin the race for you.

– Even though the laps are short, I still find one lap on one lap off is fastest. Usually do doubles or triples in the small hours to cram in more sleep.

– Wear clear glasses. Getting grit in your eyes over the course of 24 hours will ruin them.

– Take many brake pads. It was much better last time I did it, but it used to be a pad eater.

– Take a gas heater or similar. We were in a caravan last time and it was wonderful.

– Come 2nd. 2nd place always gets better prizes than 1st.

Enjoy it, I love the puffer.

Hi Al, I did it as a female pair with Jojo in 2010. My first Puffer. We actually did 3 laps at a time, which suited me pretty well as it takes my legs ages to warm up. The conditions were so snowy and icy that year we were forced to take it steady and that was the crucial point. Steady as you go, its a very long 24 hours! Pete and I are prob going to do 2 laps at a time this year but its a case of seeing what the weather is like and taking it from there.
I concur completely with what Munrobiker said above, except he is a racing snake with 2 speeds – fast and fast 😉 and I’m a slower endurance type so the go fast point doesn’t appear in my to-do list 😛
Oh and also take as many lights as you can muster, just in case!
Its so absurd you will love it 😉
See you friday.

Oh aye, yeah- have a spare light on your bars. You may have a light you’ve used loads but the cold in the night does things to the batteries you can’t anticipate. I’ve had a number of different lights die up there.

luke knows his onions.

my team of 4 exists purely to keep our pairs team on the road – we just didnt fancy standing round for 24 hours just pit bitching.

the lightthings a good point – ive done it solo twice and had no issue …. then last year decending the final tunnel descent – the **** maxx D cut out …. wouldnt come back in.

then i plugged it in for a second and it rebooted – light was full again.

Al, I’ve another set of lights for you so we should be covered there.

I’ve a bit of ‘Puffer experience, but all as solo.

The best advice I can give is don’t stop and keep it steady. 🙂

This year should be easy – the weather is nice and warm at the moment and the track should be ok. Just watch out for the mobile chicane (that’s me)

Spare light is good advice. If you get de-lighted, you won’t be delighted.

Cheers all.

Sadly we’ve had to bin it as my partner has spent the week creating a vaccum in his stomach.

Im gutted not to be giving it a go and meeting folk there, but i had been feeling a bit nervous and under prepared.

Next year…maybe!