It’s booked for next year with them…

What tyres for it

Sorry

I loved it. We did Pensnett, Gornal, Brierley Hill…that bit between Wordsley and Kingswinford that sometimes gets overlooked.

No specific tyre recommendations for the Black Country though, just use what you would for Birmingham.

Otherwise known as a bathams pub crawl?

haha, I see what you did there 😆

There will be some pedalling up but mostly fire road and road climbs with lots of down. There were lots of rocks and pinch flat opportunities, not much in the way of thorn type stuff, and lots of buff loamy single track. Some was pretty technical but it all gets tailored to your group. It isn’t downhill racing but is more like all of the hardest downhills you would normally do in a lakes weekend put back to back before lunch. We averaged over 4000m of decent a day and pushed 5500m on one day.

I used dual ply high rollers with a super tacky front in 2.5 and a 60a 2.35 rear run tubeless. Low pressures really helped. My personal advice would be to go for the toughest, stickiest tyre with knobs on that you can pedal on road for 20 minutes uphill.

I loved it and want to go back ASAP.

Kinda depends on how fit you are!

I’d say it’s worth pushing a little extra drag on the climbs for the security and “pinitability”(TM) on the downs 😉

(i ran HansD’s in super gravity flavour)

Not quite the same but the backcountry day we did in our first classic singletrack week was a highlight… Fantastic riding, but also stunning locations- the riding always takes precedent for me but when it’s in places like these I do not grumble. The lift assist meant it didn’t feel like too much pedalling either- I’ve done an entirely pedalled week in the pyrenees and it makes a big difference (not just tiredness, mostly time- you spend too much of your holiday climbing otherwise)

Mind you, when we went back this year it was always going to be an uplift week but the backcountry week will also be bloody brilliant.

I would go back at the drop of a hat. You do some climbing but not masses. A tiny fraction of the descending. Stunning views, great technical mostly natural riding, you barely meet a soul when riding and the chalet food is lovely. In fact I did straight away book a week’s skiing with them.

I used 2.5 single ply minions. This was fine but is also what I ride at home on that bike and approx what I’ve used elsewhere in the alps. There is plenty of pinch flat opportunity so heavier riders than my short arsed 75kg might want more.