[Closed] Last minute tips for the Puffer?

Don't die 🙂

Don't die

Tip top tip that one. I plan not to. I reckon the long drive back on Sunday is probably the most risky part of the weekend zzzzz

Good luck Frank..

Self supported Puffer Solo is quite a thing. Hope conditions are in your favour for a relatively easy weekend.

Take it easy on the return drive...

Any more tips?

Don't die

I'd be lost without the high quality advice offered on this forum

Take all your bike gear.
Wash your bike every few laps as the mud is horrific
Bring too much food - it allows for variety
Eat on the first big climb
Don't use a rear light. Please don't!

See you there. I'm solo too, riding either a Stooge or a fat bike

Lay out a variety of food on a table so you can grab what you fancy. Plus:

As many bottles as you have with water/energy drink/recovery drinks in. Wide neck flask with soup will keep warm for a while. You may find a spare supporter from near your spot who may do a batch refill.

Supermarket fruit jelly sweets are soft and easier to eat than many sweets I ate loads of these at relentless. Loads!

Box or bag up spare gloves. Leg wear. Tops. Water proofs. Label them so easier to find.

Put it all under a big gazebo so you can step out of the rain. Don't mJe it too comfy in there though!

Take every piece of cycle clothing you own.
Take every possible spare that you can - everything from mech hangers to a complete bike!
Don't use a rear light.
Have a clean bag with everything neatly laid out. Shorts in one bit, jerseys in another etc.
Have a dirty bag where all the muddy shit gets dumped.
More lights. Beg, borrow, buy or steal every light you can.
Don't die.

HTH.

Beg someone to go as pit crew, pay them even.

Break the event down into manageable mental chunks, and prepare yourself for the inevitable lows.

Oh, and use chamois cream

I did a puffer solo - calling what I did as racing would be a bit wrong. My tips?

don't get involved in the run at the start. Walk to your bike and set off slowly - that way all the traffic jams will be gone when you get there. You are likely to run out of miles in your legs before you run out of time. I did

Take a spare bike. Take loads of kit. Putoline on your chain so you don't have to relube all race. Decent pads in your brakes and a spare broken in set. Hub gear bikes are very handy. run low gearing - as low as you can.

eat as much as you can.

Don't just take all your bike clothes, take all your outdoorsy clothes too - you lose the ability to regulate body temp once you are properly f*d = need an endless supply of warm, dry clothes.

If its muddy (which is looking likely) a lifetime supply of brake pads may come in handy.

Lights, lights and more lights - and some more for use in the pits.

Oh, and final tip is maybe a bit late: Don't skip a months training to get the snip 😛

Start slow, get slower.
Take all your cycling kit and spares.
If you decide to have a kip get into fresh kit before you doss down. That way you're dressed ready to go when you get up.
A baby wipe wash can make you feel much better.
Have a variety of foods in small portions and eat what you fancy. Eat early and often.

Just do one more lap.

Eat from the start,
Keep eating
Have savoury/salty food too
Drink lots
If you stop for more than a few mins change into dry kit straight away.
Don't put a down jacket over sweat soaked clothes - looses its loft very quickly
Run single speed, and geared lower than you think (I found 30/17 on 26" worked).
Don't sleep. However tempting, once you have, waking up and getting going is near impossible.
Take a spare bike.
Bed in you spare brake pads first
Take a spare everything you can. Especially gloves.
Enjoy it
Persuade someone else to do it too- they can have my entry: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/strathpuffer-solo-entry-2?replies=3#post-8222983

Remember that you haven't fully enjoyed it until you've totally hated it...!!!

Maybe the thread for this

I am so evangelical about the putoline that I will offer to prepare anyones drivetrain for the puffer with it if they want me to do it. Edinburgh based if anyone wants to try it. I believe a putolined chain will not need relubing the whole race.

Bring sunscreen.

13C in Inverness yesterday.

Any snow left Scotroutes? Next week is my winter hillwalking week to play in the snow. If there is none I shall sulk.

Sulk.

*pouts*

All good stuff, thanks for this.

My strategy is to go and experience it. I am thinking of it as a series of bike rides over 24hrs, rather than a single 24hr event. I have a number of laps I want to do and plan a 'downward spiral' approach so each outing is less daunting than the last.

[i]Any more tips? [/I]

Miss out the middle man, put the ticket on the classifieds now rather than tomorrow.

I took 8, yes 8, sets of broken in pads with me. I was still using the set I started with 6 months after the puffer... 😆

Break it down into lap times, ie if you're targeting 24 laps, then take an hour between starts, if you lap in 45 minutes, take 15 minutes to either nibble or change socks, undercrackers, chill, whatever.

Makes it easier to think about during the low hours...

Dodgy takeaway on the way up and bail with the raging squits but offer to support your mate (no chocolate milkshake recovery drinks though)

I would actually really like to do the Puffer if (and only if!) I could guarantee that wonderful cold you get at ski resorts with loads of snow, blue skies, sunshine and the temperature never above -5 for the previous 2 weeks to ensure crispy snow and no chance of mud, slush and ice.

Night time snow riding is ace.

But seeing as you won't have any of that, just go with the plan of having all your bike parts, clothing and outdoor gear and winging it from there... 😉

I would actually really like to do the Puffer if (and only if!) I could guarantee that wonderful cold you get at ski resorts with loads of snow, blue skies, sunshine and the temperature never above -5 for the previous 2 weeks to ensure crispy snow and no chance of mud, slush and ice.

it'll never happen. Have you every tried to ride on snow that's already been ridden over thousands of times?

+10c last night on the 'tops' (Scottish Borders) and muddier than a muddy thing.

Take lots of spare clothing?

Sweet foodstuffs have a tendency to set hard when cold- you'll be amazed how tiring it is to try to chew a solid bar at 3 in the morning. Take something that will still be soft- fig rolls don't set too hard.
A really good chicken curry pie or a chicken, white pudding & mushroom one (J Pirie & Sons butchers in Newtyle, Angus) could be a life-saver. If you don't have an oven with you, someone nearby probably will in their motorhome.
Finally- Keep going. The forecast looks .....

loads of snow, blue skies, sunshine and the temperature never above -5

It doesn't matter, it's dark for over 70% of it.

Anyway, if you need last minute tips you're probably stuffed. Everything above apart from singlespeeding is true.

If it's warm and wet pack as many brake pads as you can eat.

Pack every item of cycling clothing you and all your friends your size own.

Change if you stop for more than a minute. The wet clothes clinging to your body robbing heat is what has done for me in the past.

Precook some food (I used pasta and some sauce with bacon in it) that you can heat on stove. Warm food will be your saviour.

Do whatever you can to get a pit bitch. It will make everything so, so much better for you. Get them to cook your food, sort out changes of clothes and fix your bike.

Enjoy it, it's amazing.

is this supposed to be fun,? sounds like carnage.

That's why it's fun.

Its type 2 fun. the solo I did is the single toughest thing I have ever done ( I did it the year of deep snow) Everything I had to give over 24 hours meant 67 miles IIRC - and I was 28 out of 42 solists. to put it in comparison my usual sort of ride is 30 - 50 miles

Yeah, I think when we came 2nd at Relentless in Pairs we did 240 miles between us.

At the Puffer we did 165!

Aye - and you had good conditions at the puffer

the year I did it the leading solo did something like 140 miles

Just had a look through- that was the year of the warmest conditions, but as it was warm it was also wet so the trails were slow. That's the least mileage I've done as part of a team at the Puffer (yet, oddly, my best result, 2nd). Even on a cold dry year though I've never done more than 180 miles as a pair.

Beg someone to go as pit crew, pay them even

This^

It's not as daft as it sounds. I did the first puffer as a quad. Without my team mates supporting each other it would have been utterly utterly miserable.

My bike was trashed by the end. I took a week to recover. We won a mug for second place.

I'll never do it again. 🙂

Pit bitch certainly helps a lot. Its also surprisingly quite fun to do. Bribe a mate with beer to pitbitch for you

Went round today. Too bloody warm.

Plenty promising bottomless black puddles though.

Quite a few sizable rocks are lying loose on the line, and a few thousand riders will loosen some more.

I think we'll see some very fast laps this year.

The claggy bit has been sanitised and it's too warm for the interesting stuff. There will be mud, I got plastered with it today, but it's the thin runny granite stuff beloved by bike shops that sell drivetrains. 🙂

I think most of the brake pad problems are a thing of the past - pads seem to have improved. I'll be using disks this year instead of my usual drum brakes.

The slow wobbly fatbike with big white mudguards is me. Please don't use me for traction, I'm going flat out.

Racer to watch is Ron Smith, he's 77 and it's his first solo. I've been trying to get him to go solo for the last 10 years - he's done all the 'Puffers. He's a real machine, ex(?) fell runner, rower and trials bike rider, he's lean, mean, and fast. He's going to surprise quite a few much younger guys IMO. Give him a rousing cheer if you see him on the track. 🙂

Please don't under-estimate the drive back. Doing the puffer might feel as if it will kill you, but it won't. Falling asleep on the way back really could kill you and/or somebody else.

Ranulph Fiennes fell asleep whilst driving home after an endurance event and crashed into another car leaving the driver with collapsed lungs, in a coma for 17 days and with a broken collar bone, broken ribs, a broken wrist and a shattered left knee and right pelvis. Typically Fiennes just got 4 points on his license............

Please don't under-estimate the drive back

I don't. There are two of us driving back, we are not in a rush and, given my lack of training, I fully expect to spend a significant part of Saturday night safely tucked up in my sleeping bag fast asleep.

Good for you Frank, and good luck 😀

Two months ago MBR showed you how to make some disc brake covers that they claim keep the mud off the pads and prolong their life. Looked like they might be worth a go for the puffer

Myself and Yokaiser ended up stopping in a lay by near perth on the way home for a break. Woke 2 hours later. 😆

Definite for a pit bitch. You don't want to spend your rest time between laps queuing at the bike wash. Even if you have a spare bike and you can get one of your neighbours to wash the bike down for you whilst you're on the spare bike for a few laps.

I'm going to drop something into the conversation which might give some food for thought that I was reading recently and found quite interesting, more for the folk going for top places and not planning on stopping for much.

[i]Power files of 24hour racers have shown that putting out more wattage in the first 4 hours of a race creating a gap on the competition can be a huge advantage later in the event. In an ultra race (over 6 hours) most athletes fatigue at the same rate over the next 18 hours, so a gap of 45mins from rider 1 to 2 at the 6 hours mark is most likely going to hold for the next 18hours.[/i]

Power, racers, wattage, competition, ultra, athlete.

All words that do not apply to me