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Alan Goldsmith has now scratched too. He'd already missed out a bit of the northern loop. I reckon he realised he was going to miss lunch at the Kylesku Hotel.
No cut-offs. If doing an ITT then you have to compete within 8 days to get an official time.
Crispin Hoult going well on the fat bike - round the top now.
Josh and Andrew in the poolewe hotel I guess for food and perhaps a warm-up/dry out
Liam should make camban for some refuge to get his head down for a few hours id expect.probably about midnight knowing the shove up the hill Unless he chooses the Edinburgh uni but porch in the valley.
Early start , Lateish Breakfast in fort Augustus before a final push/early hours finish I'd expect . The canal will be the other folks best chance at catching him on his ss
Liam is on roughly the same schedule as Neil Beltchenko's time, he was about an hour behind at the Torridon CP. However looking at their times between Inverlael (where the route leaves the main road after Ullapool) and Kinlochewe Neil was 2-3hrs quicker, Liam had half an hour stopped in Poolewe so the new way in and out of Fisherfield is a bit slower. Quite possible that on the same route Liam would now be in front of Neil's time.
From his tracker http://trackleaders.com/highland17i.php?name=Neil_Beltchenko it looks like Neil had an hour or so's power nap at Camban bothy. No-one's meant to be using the bothies this year as they are officially shut.
Further back there's a few looking to make it to Ullapool before the shops shut - it'll be a close run thing for some of them.
I seem to remember Javi (current SS record holder) saying he took 12hrs from FA to the finish. Might depend on the wind in the Great Glen, a headwind would be soul destroying.
It’d be good to get some more info on the people who have scratched
Greg May posts up over on Bearbones the basic reason why they scratched.
Good point re bothys.
Hope it's not pishing down as much as it is here ....
The glen Licht hut has had the open porch covered in since I was last there also. The yha has no covered areas for refuge. Dornie will be the last chance for that till the pill boxes on the hillside between tomich and FA
My mate is doing it, her tracker is on the blink, her brakes are rubbing, belly gurgling and is very wet but seemingly happy to continue after getting dry and some sleep.
The answer to *where will Liam sleep* appears to be ...Tyndrum for the moment.
Looks like a tailwind in the Great Glen according to the Met Office. Presumably that will help the chasers a little more than Liam on the SS, but it's not going to change much.
What an incredible effort, makes me feel even less fit and more fat than ever!
Would love to see Liam's training regime.
First time I have heard of Liam what’s his race history? Incredible performance so far especially on a SS
He won the 2016 edition of the HT550 in 4d2hr48mins - https://highlandtrail550.weebly.com/2016.html
He's done various editions of the BB200, I think he did last year's on a singlespeed in about 15hrs, might have been quicker.
Is he the same Liam Glen who was a jnr/ neo pro road cyclist about 10 years ago ?
Would make sense if he was. The time lines align
Dunno, I think he's from the Bristol area. Whatever - I won't be trying to keep up with him!
Yep, that's him. Think he was elite XC and raced in Belgium for a bit. Also contributed to road.cc I recall.
Almost home. Watching these dots has really given me the bug to do something more adventurous.
I've enjoyed this over the last few days. I've been checking the dots and the satellite images of the rain clouds blowing in from the North Atlantic. Knowing the area a bit, kudos to everyone who has kept on going. Must take some grit.
Blown away by Liam Glen's effort - at the moment he has done 535 miles in under 3 days 10 hours on a rigid single-speed! Thanks Liam, I'm feeling like a proper shandy-drinker.
Oooohhhh....it’s getting close....
Keep hitting refresh
Keep hitting refresh
Tick the box next to "Refresh every 60 seconds". Given that the trackers only update every 5 or 10 minutes depending on the account being used and device settings there's no point in doing anything more. What we don't need is Liam's SPOT to go silent for an hour or so.
Can't see him beating the record now. 31 minutes to do the last 12 miles!! Fair bit of downhill though to the finish. I reckon he will miss out by 20 - 30 minutes
There's quite a bit of uphill as well! Took me an hour from Bridge of Orchy to the finish in 2017.
He needs to finish by 19:17 to beat Neil's time. Not sure you can compare though since the new route through Fisherfield is at least two hours longer. The 2017 route along the Postie's path offers no advantage or disadvantage to single speed but this year's route along from the Tollie Path is just a flat main road best suited to gears. If he'd been on that route he'd have finished by now.
Really enjoyed that win but I'll keep watching till they're all home 🙂
Yep, still following a couple of the riders I know well. Gary Davies is currently in 9th place and going well. However, Iwona is continuing to ride to the end, despite missing out the top loop due to major problems on day 1. Good luck to them both and good luck to everyone still out there ridinng. Hell of an acheivement just being fit enough to even think about starting, let alone riding it.
And well done to Liam. That is one hell of a thing to do with no suspension and no gears.