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Doing 6 hour mixed pairs with a lady who is still fairly new to MTBing and complete new to the whole relay racing format...hoping she heeds my advice to bring everything she can possibly think of that she might need!
Course reports from Maxwall sound reassuring that the course will hold up OK in what could be some VERY heavy showers. Anyone else race there before in the wet?
I've raced at Erlestoke once in the wet. Very slippy and a bit claggy.
GB
Seems there's some mixed opinions. In the middle of Winter I'd say it can be claggy and slippy (the wind out in the open on the Plain is the real killer though in Winter!) but after a reasonable dry spell the water will hopefully be absorbed reasonably well. I guess it just depends on how much rain comes down. When I've been there before with similar weather leading up to the ride then Ralphs were manageable and Rons probably ideal. Basically something between a Thunder Burt and full mud tyre which seems to relate well to what Max has said...
I was ambivalent towards the weather but having tried Thunder Burts for the first time last night I would have rather like some dry and fast conditions. Those things are like cheating... when you have the grip
Local dad who rides Erlestoke a few times a week has advised Maxxis Beavers, reckons it's gonna be a mud-fest.
Gee tends to be an optimist on tires and conditions in my experience so as it's my first 12hr race with much tiredness and likely to be about managing attrition not speed = playing safer and Nobby Nics for me.
Hmmm. Kind of wishing we'd trusted the long range forecast now. Not hugely keen on a complete mudfest. The last one I did (gorrick100 a few years back) cost me a lot in bike repairs as the grit slowly destroyed my bike...new pads, chain, bb and lower headset bearing...
May have to view my £25 as a 'donation' to the cause.
If I do man up I'll be on NN /Rralph combo as I've only just set them up tubeless, not a huge amount of clearance on the back with a 2.25 though.
Pretty gutted, should have known with it being a bank holiday
Hey DT78 - don't give up on it. Reckon in this time scale it can't get that bad. Always best to give it a go!
I know sad isn't it....
Is there a stand there that sells SLX pads? Last time my limiting factor was the pads disintegrated and I ended up with metal on metal braking.
It isn't that kind of mud at Erlestoke. If anything you'll be fishing out handfuls of mud so your wheels go round .
Update from local dad - not thick mud, apparently I've taken comments out of context. Obviously ain't gonna be dry but nothing to worry about.
I will now take a deep breath and count to ten before commenting 😀
Kinda glad I did heed the forecast and didn't enter!
Just back from Course set up and it is wet!! No surprises, I think we are in for more rain tomorrow morning so it will still be wet, I don't think "mud fest" will be an accurate description of the event but yes it is muddy in a lot of sections the roots will be extra slippery and the grass climb will drain the legs but hopefully the course will provide a decent line through with the amount of riders doing the event.
I'm looking forward to seeing some muddy but happy faces tomorrow so don't be put off by a little rain, make all our hard work worth while!
*crosses fingers, legs and everything else* 😕
Well, at least the visibility's good to excellent...
This is going to be one wet and muddy stag do........
Good luck everyone, sad to not be doing it again this year. Btw i did one of the wet ones a few years ago (i forget which year but the time when the steepest climb through the woods before the long road climb ended up being closed) and it was still a great fun race. You'll be reet!
Well, I'm back, 4 laps in 5 hours. Really hard going. Very little grip on ralphs and the bike just kept filling up with mud and wheel stopping. Skinny mud tyres would have been a very good idea! The course was definitely improving as the race went on, I hope the weather continued to hold out for the 12hr nutters!
As usual the top guys made it look easy but I ended up walking several sections, unridable for me (and several others). Walking a strava sponsored segment will probably haunt me for the rest of my cycling career....
It would have been a proper fantastic track in the dry, looked really well thought out. As my first time at this event I was impressed with the setup, and seeing big names like redbull and strava is good too.
I plan to add the event to my ride calendar along with the Gorricks. Next time though, if the weather looks that bad I'm bringing the hack bike!
Mud tyres made such a difference today.
The ups were grim but the downs in all their slippy glory were fantastic. Loved it. Many thanks to SPAM for a great event!
A horrible mud fest and no 6 hour team prize as only 2 teams were in it .Still took our entry money though .Spent more time off the bike than on it .Should have run cross country at half the price instead.
Anyone any idea when the results come out?
I'm sure the SPAM guys who are up early to clear up post race love that comment Edric. Having organised one E12 (luckily the one where we had riders with heat exhaustion) and helped at others, I can appreciate how disheartened they will have been by the conditions for the race. With that amount of rain yesterday am, the conditions were pretty inevitable. It would be great to promote the positives - it is an excellent venue - I take it you managed to load up on hard standing and drive unhindered from the car-park (not like the Devon County Show that had to be cancelled yesterday because of the parking conditions) It is a wonderful location, admittedly in the right weather, and it would be great if numbers could be such to give prizes. Entry fee is still excellent value, £30 cheaper than Bikefest for 12hr race - and difficult to compare cost to running a 10mile multi terrain race such as the Terminator.
There were only a couple of sections where pushing was required.
I thought it was great.
It rained(a lot) it was muddy(very) that was inevitable, sorry about that, out of our control!!
Thanks to everyone who came along. So many people still smiling at midnight last night even though conditions got worse from 8pm(so much rain)
Now for hours of course take down and clearing up(its sunny now)!
Thanks for putting on another well run event max wall. I really appreciate the hard work you and the rest of the spam crew all put in to put this on. I'm sure you're as disappointed as I am that the weather didn't play ball this year. I'll be back next year when the sun with hopefully be back. Im afraid I didn't last very long as my wheels just kept clogging up and I couldn't face that for 12 hours. Well done to everyone who rode.
I have every right to moan and have organized stuff in the past.I`m peeved at the refusual to award prizes because only 2 teams entered a category on the day when they still took our entry fee and I think they awarded prizes in another category that had only 2 on a podium .Also the timing was woeful and no one knew where they were during the event .Should have used DBMax timing
Well the results are taking a seriously long time to publish....
They are being delivered by carrier pigeon which works better than the chip timing they use
Just as an aside a 10k run I was going to do today but pulled out of through injury had the results up an hour ago .That finished at about 12.30
I've just returned from the event.
I did 10 laps to this fantastic course. It was really muddy during the first laps and sometimes wheels clogged, which annoyed everyone I guess, but after a few hours the course settled and became much faster and fun to ride. It was then when I really started enjoying the event. At about 6 or 7pm I calculated 3 laps in the night. So first one went fine but started a little rain making it a bit spicy towards the end. Second one got much worse with more rain and darkness. I had to push the bike a lot but still had the energy. Last lap started at 1030pm really wet and cold, as I had no proper waterproof clothing. I forgot to take the water bottle and managed to arrive at around 11:45pm in a really bad shape, but happy.
Anyway, I understand weather conditions put many riders off.
I'll come back next year, hopefully with better weather conditions.
10 laps was good ,well done
Thank you to all the SPAM team for putting on a great event. It deserves a bigger field and the course (which is ace) can easily take 500 riders.
Thankfully it was dry most of the day when racing, but the previous day and nights rain made the course muddy and hard going. It did improve as the day went on but was still a battle. The course and venue are superb and would be really great in drier conditions.
This is definitely an event to put in your diary for future years. A good setup, nice relaxed atmosphere, great course and nice touches like the Strava & Red Bull sections.
My only suggestion would have been to maybe shorten the lap a bit. Given the conditions cutting out some of the very tricky stuff would have made it a bit more rideable. I know some riders flew through it all but the majority had a lot of walking and pushing.
Overall though, excellent. Well done SPAM.
See i thought a longer course with more fireroad to declag the bike on would have been good. The first half of the lap held up well second half a bit of a pushfest! From the brief it sounded like they did change the course removing some of the more technical bits
Thanks to everyone who took part and enjoyed the Erlestoke 12. The weather wasn't entirely to our liking but then mountain bikers are hardy souls who will brave most things. I'm sure you will be pleased to know that Spam Biking take no money from these events and that on an annual basis we contribute to many charities, of which we hope you never have need to avail yourselves of their services. So even if it wasn't perfect, those that benefit will be extremely grateful without knowing the pain that competitors and organisers alike went through to provide a truly superb event, as witnessed by the "we'll be back next year" comments received from so many people. Thank you to all those who contributed in a selfless manner.
Massive respect to the guys and girls who slogged it out for the full duration and to the organisers who I think probably did the best with what was available. I wouldn't be put off going again either in drier conditions or in the middle of Winter but if the weather was in an unfortunate middle ground again then I give it a second thought before entering without some changes to the second half.
I can cope with rain, slippery conditions, normal MTB stuff... but much of the second half was unrideable for normal Joes. The fast guys seemed to be off the bike a lot of the time too but running the sections rather than walking so not just a fitness issue in terms of staying on the bike (for the vast majority). It would be interesting to know if George found the course any easier going on the fat bike or if it was still tough for every man and machine 😀
With the back wheel clogging, pedals being full of clay, losing the chain 3 or 4 times a lap and feeling like I was pushing most of the time rather than riding, I just didn't enjoyed it and sulked home early. Never had to do this before but I wasn't prepared for the clogging and pushing which just broke me 😐
I felt a bit negative coming home but there are far more positives for the event though I think. Great venue, nice and relaxed, friendly organisers, the fast guys were extremely polite and never pushy, hard ground parking near the start/ finish, lots of the course easily accessible to spectators... everything perfect except for the second half of the course really (in combination with the recent weather).
Has anyone found the results yet?! I can't believe they're not out by now but they're evading me!
Pain in the a**e that rain, but still had a load of fun... And I'm definitely average... We gave up at about 9 and had a beer or two, but it was raining hard!! and we did see someone wipe out heavily on the finish straight 🙁 hope they were ok, they took a while to get op. Back next year, thanks to all of the organising team !!!
I didn't do any endurance events in 2013, so this was my first 12 hour solo for well over a year.
I started out on the Qoroz belt drive Rohloff, but after the belt jumped off on my third lap, I swapped to my single speed Lynskey, only managing another four laps before retiring at about 10pm as I doubted my ability to finish another lap in under two hours.
The tracks that SpamBiking use really do make the best courses that I have ever raced on. They are not purpose built and surfaced trails though, so when it rains it means more pushing than riding for me.
Thanks to all the marshals, especially those who were mucking in by helping riders drag their bikes up a couple of the steep climbs. It can't have been much fun hanging around late at night in the rain.
My sub 9km/h race. 😳
http://www.strava.com/activities/145248701
http://www.strava.com/activities/145248681
Hi
Given the rain the clagfest was inevitable. The trails were really fun though - it's a fun course.
On the fatbike it was all rideable apart from the 2 steep sections out of the field into the fire road, so about 50 yards of a 7mile lap which, given the weather, would have been the case anywhere. I let some air out of the tyres after lap 1 and the grip was immense. It must have been 7ish psi. I was on Dillingers though - I think anything else apart from Nates would have struggled in that mud.
I think most of the fire road ended up attached to my bike. It looked like it had been pebbledashed. The bike didn't clog up at all to the extent that it stopped the wheels going round, but it must have weighed about 40-50lbs at the end of the race. I could barely pick it up. Clean, it's 26lbs...
Couple of things re the event - the entry info said there would be limited drinking water available. I needed to refill one drinks bottle prior to the start and asked 3 different people where the drinking water was and they all said there wasn't any. The lack of results updates either on paper or via a PA was a shame as we had no idea where we were in relation to other racers. I had no support at this race so the only reason I thought I was winning was because I knew who to look out for. Having positions called as you come through the start is really useful when you're on your own. A friend'd dad tried to find out the placings and time gaps during the race but I think he got a frosty reception.
Still, I'll be back next year - this is definitely an event that should be bigger. It's a really fun course - the final sections after the road climb were excellent.
GB
Results out!
Quite pleased as came (just) in top third in my class (6h solo male).
Not bad for an old duffer who didn't get any sleep on Friday night.
Here's to a dry one next year! Thanks to all once more!
Massive thanks to all involved in making the event happen - putting up and taking down a race in those conditions is horrible.
Where are the results mikertroid?
Difficult to read results here http://www.ticktocktiming.co.uk/services.html
See to be missing some red bull times as well.... Not sure as hard to read, you need you chip number...
But once again, thanks loved the event 🙂
That just seems to be a entry list on the 12 and 6 hour "results".,or am I looking at the wrong page?
Well, that's cheered me up a bit.
Looks like there were only 4 serious racers in the solo male category, so I managed to get 5th/28 simply by plodding on slowly after everyone else had retired.
Edit;
Interesting to note that the top three solo riders all did 11 laps and were only beaten by two of the teams of 4. That's some impressive riding.
it's a tabbed excel spreadsheet, change the tab at the top 🙂That just seems to be a entry list on the 12 and 6 hour "results".,or am I looking at the wrong page?
I seem to have won session 3 of the red bull timed section and 2nd overall by 1 sec. Proof fat bikes are best.