Planning to do this on 11th July. Excited.

Anyone else done it?

No. But wouldn’t mind a gpx file if you’ve got one. I also fancy having a crack at it.

Nope but planning it for early August. If you happen to have a gpx file I’d also very much like it! Have been ramping up my distance riding to prepare 🙂

GPXs are available (albeit in three 1-day chunks) here.

You lot going for it in a single day?

Ta, looks easy enough to stitch them. I’m aiming for 16 hours. Did 100km in 11 hours taking it easy a couple of weeks ago so reckon it’s doable. I might try to raise a bit of money for charity by doing it too.

No idea how long it’ll take me tbh.

I’ve also been mulling over this. I’ve never done that much distance on MTB in one go but I did equal the ascent over 70 miles in the Peak District recently. Anyone know if the route is actually any good? Or just field bashing? Mostly off road etc?

Navigation is supposed to be a little tricky in places.

The route is really quite good. The first half of the first day (if doing it in three days) less so, so don’t let the start put you off. Some great riding after that, all the way to the finish. Inevitably some road sections, but it feels like an off-road ride from start to finish.

Navigation is a bit tricky, as above, in a couple of places, but nothing particularly problematic.

Doing it in a day is a serious achievement!

I read there’s 40km of lanes in it. It doesn’t look too bad, trail wise, but I don’t know that much of it.

he first half of the first day (if doing it in three days) less so

I assume you mean the bit by Knighton. There is a suggestion we’d be doing it West to East.

My attempt at doing it in a day from a few years ago. Write up here

It is a good route. But if the weather is bad is pretty tough.

I’m intending to do it with a chap who’s done it twice in a day.

There is a suggestion we’d be doing it West to East.

Should have the wind with you in that direction, although Foel Fadian won’t be much fun 😉

Yeah.. that looks like a great descent turned into a massive carry by going w -> e. I’ll have to have words with my mate about that 🙂

Advantage for me though is that I’d be finishing near my parents’ house, so it’d only be a 20 minute drive to a hot bath and loads of cakes and scrummy food.

I assume you mean the bit by Knighton.

Yep, that’s what I meant. To be honest it’d be less of a drag riding down into Knighton rather than vice versa. That ascent out of Mach would be tough though!

If someone does a stitched together GPX, can you share it with the thread? Ta 🙂

I haven’t actually looked at the route much. That Foel Fadian has been on my radar for a while so stoked that’s on it! Should be pretty familiar territory once I’m passed that too :). I think I’m going to do it e->w, it’s a tough one to choose as I live in Aberystwyth and my Dad near Oswestry! If I was fit enough I’d do both ways…

If you finish at your own house, you’d have to get your own post-ride food. If you finish at someone else’s they can look after you 🙂

I’m going to camp in Aber overnight on the Friday with the family, they can have an adventre that way. And getting them involved in adventures will help get them involved in my adventures, to get them onside for the Tour Divide 🙂

A nice little album of pics from a couple of years ago.
[/url]P8091236 by chris, on Flickr}

A great route feels suitably epic and as if your the only people alive in places. We did it as a bivvy ride over 3 days using the gpx files up there and a photo of a os map. Id deffinately do it again knighton to mc is the way we did it and i wouldnt fancy doing it the other way.

Like that pic.

Hi molgrips – just found this searching STW for TCW stuff!

If you open up the 3 routes in Microsoft Notepad, you can copy and paste them all into one.

If you look closely, you’ll be able to find the different headers/bracket in/bracket out and just copy and paste the route detail, rather than the intro gubbins “gpx begins” type stuff. keep the beginning of day one and the end of day three, and just the track points from the rest.

You can download Notepad 2 too, which colour-codes the hierarchy so it’s easier to work with.

I’m all set for Saturday. Campsite booked, logistics planned, doing it West to East. Weather looks fine for the day (currently) with a tailwind, not too hot, hopefully trails will be dry.

Can’t find my biking camera, hopefully I can borrow my wife’s to get some pics on the way.

have a good do. i am doing it over 3 days in september as part of a 6 day welsh trip.

Spot tracker page:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0qHxefAzyioni45bZXSC21othTHSW1GZf

Should be on the off-road by 7am tomorrow.

Today you have three great sporting events to watch – Le Tour, Wimbledon and the Ashes. Tomorrow you will have four!

Have fun looks like youve picked a stunning wkend to do it.

Nice one, going to be riding a small part of it tomorrow as part of another ride. The part we’re doing is the Foel Fadian climb :/. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Omfg

I do not envy you having another 120-140km to go after that foel fadian climb. That thing was hurrendous, we walked it yesterday as it was just too steep for us to ride up. Never again. How was the rest of it?

Westerly section was best, some great trails in the while thing but after 100 miles it all got a bit repetitive 🙂

There are some crappy bits in the east though. Field edges and the last descent we did would have been a shitty grassy push in the first few miles going the recommended direction.

I didn’t think Foel Fadian was that bad, considering how bad it looked in the map. There were harder bits 🙂

I did not need to hear that there were harder bits! Hopefully it’s not so bad in the other direction :P. Well done :), I’m doing it on the 1st August and reasonable confident about it. We did 112km with 2980m climb yesterday although the pace was pretty poor (foel fadian didnt help that!). How long did it take you?

In the other direction you’ll be cursing it at the start but it does improve. The worst fire-road climb we did will be a long descent.. I think it’s probably easier E-W apart from the shitty start, so keep the faith!

It took us (well, me – my mate would’ve been way faster but he does this kind of thing regularly) something like 15.5 hours ish and I am absolutely properly wrecked. Never been this battered before, not even 24hr solo.

I’d been ill last week, with some kind of cold, and I was sweating buckets from the start. After 50km I started to feel ropey, and by 60km I felt rubbish and I thought there was no way I could continue past Rhayader so I set my sights there. However at the worst point I remembered I had a caffeinated gel, which fixed me right up. I had been sitting and spinning to conserve energy and I suspect that did me no favours, as I felt way better on much of it standing up and mashing, on my fully rigid. Got to Rhayader and I was completely focused on carrying on.. don’t get chips from Turkish Delight kebab shop as they are crap and not real chippy chips. I’d run out of Torq by that point having refilled at the toilets at Hafren Forest, so I stumbled into the Spar and bought four bottles of Lucozade sport, two cokes and a can of red bull. I have to say that Lucozare sport (which I bought cos it contains elecrolytes) makes a fantastic energy drink in extremis, went down really well – and it’s available in most corner shops.

My legs were remarkably decent, I could attack most stuff surprisingly well until the last couple of rises into Knighton, so I think I fuelled well, but my arse.. jesus.. I wore some baggies I thought were comfortable, and my sit-bones and crotch are fine (which is where I thought I’d have trouble) but the skin under where the pad went is rubbed raw, I look like a baboon in heat. When I got past Rhayder it was excruciating, it took me ages to lower myself onto the seat in agony.. well when you’re riding rigid you want to be off and on the saddle all the time so for most of the off-road I had no choice but to stay standing up.. that was a chore. So we had a lot of stops – around 12hrs riding time I think. I also found out my bike has actually bent somehow – took some time to try and get it moving again after I found the front mech rubbing the tyre.

That and the mental side of it was the worst in the last hour.. I just wanted to get off the **** bike more than anything else!

I think it’s better E-W – it gets wilder and more intersting, with better trails as you approach the end, for a bit of a finale. Only thing is that going the other way, Rhayader is a great stop. You can pin your hopes on refreshment there and you’ve ‘only’ got 50km left. Llangurig, the corresponding town in the other direction is off the trail.

Well, did it Saturday and it was brutal. Took us almost 18 hours, 14 hours moving, and we cut to Mach instead of Dovey junction at the end as it was already 2230 and we had lifts home waiting for us. The amount of grass climbs did not impress me in the slightest, bloody hate riding on grass! I think I was prepared for the distance and the elevation but hadn’t anticipated how draggy a lot of it was.

Glad to have done it, don’t intend on doing it again! Also managed to raise £2000 for the MS Society 😀 (https://www.justgiving.com/chvck/ cheeky link…)

Good work chvck! (got a couple of friends with MS, and my wife works for MSIF) And molgrips. Sounds painful.

This is on my “maybe soon” list. Just reading the “best UK trails for foreigners” thread and wondered if the TCW should be on it.

Sounds like maybe it shouldn’t! 😀

I was planning on doing it a bit slower, bivi-ing half way. I have to say it’s not leapt up to the “definitely soon” list now I’ve read how you got on.

However, BiL lives close to the finish, and ParentsiL live close ish to the start, so it’s still a maybe soon!

I’ve got a monstercross type thing and a 26″ hardtail – 120/150mm. Which would you take given that choice?