Bucks Off Road Sportive roll call….

Me and three friends doing the long route on hardtails. Me on a Hummer. Tempting to go rigid 29er singlespeed.

Sub 7 hours past 2 years

MM

“Sub 7 hours past 2 years”

Does that include the hour you spent crying at the second feed station? Oh Philip.

I’m carbo loading with Leffe.

Wonder if I’ll be on the oldest bike. 1999 Marin…

Wonder if I’ll be on the newest bike? Trek 29er due to be collected tomorrow morning…to replace an old Marin that would also have been one of the oldest out there – but is now in two pieces (for the third and last time !)

woohoo the good lady is out of hospital and safely back at home 😀 (she is much better now thanks to all those who asked).

Which means I’ll be down for the 132k, missed a few planned short, easy rides this week(expected) but I’ll be out later for a quick spin of the legs. If conditions and traffic aren’t too bad I’m hopeful for about 6hrs, a puncture and a foot,pedal interface problem(the sole came of one of my sidi’s just before the last feed station)which slowed me down last year(also happened this year at the Honc with the other shoe 😕 )

I was contemplating a 75mile local road sportive today which has a wicked finish up a steep cobbled climb but I thankfully managed to talk myself out of it, thought I might just be asking a bit too much out of my legs.

Finally managed to fit and bed in new brake pads last night in between rain showers so the bike is all good now, right now I’m off to wash the car and fit the roof carrier.

Nice one for Mrs ace-sparky.

6hrs? That’s a 15mph average – please tell me your on a Crosser?

I’ll be attempting the 100k. This will be the 4th time for me. I’m expecting the trails to be in pretty good condition. They were nice and dry a few weeks back, and the recent showers should have done nothing more than damped down some of the dust (I hope).

6hrs? That’s a 15mph average – please tell me your on a Crosser?

It’s less than 14mph actually.

Ha, you are right. Maybe my sub 8 hours aim is more achievable than I think.

6hrs? That’s a 15mph average – please tell me your on a Crosser?

Avg 13.5 – 14mph will put you around 6 – 6.5hr mark.

No crosser for me,I’ll be on a pretty light 2008 Anthem.

so its tomorrow..
bit more wet stuff forecast today, but i would expect most trails to dry quickly
the nettles are late this year

the long route usually covers some of my local stuff, so the guy on the black harddtail, riding the wrong way, saying hi…thats me.

have fun all

semi slicks off…2.35s on. gonna be a hard day.

1st event ever I’ve thought ‘wow that’s amazing value’ £20=132km of top (dry!) riding, endless yummy cake, bananas, drink, pint glass and a free pint of Stowford Press to put in it. Brilliant day out with a good group of riders too. Thanks to WDMBC for organising it.

Some people taking it all a little too seriously; skidding into feed stations and not stopping for an ice cream 😉

Good event though I thought the course wasn’t quite as good as last year.

Really? Never done it before so can’t compare. Were there any big changes?

Maybe I’m getting used to it! I just thought there was a bit more road than last time but it’s still got a great atmosphere.

great conditions out in the chilterns this morning too 🙂 didn’t bother with sportive but only cause I forgot about it 😳

Was a good ride. Was in a quick group who started being picked apart by punctures until only 3 of us left.

Scraped a 6.40 for the long route and just missed the rain!

Tell me about it – we lost 2 of our group to punctures too.

I really enjoyed the event – just fantastic to nimble around and not worry about the lost second here and there.

GB

Enjoyed that, put in 7:26 with a target of 8hrs for the 132k so
I’m chuffed.

Great riding. Sore now though, in sure this red wine will sort it….

Great ride. What a wonderful way to spend a day.

Apologies to the 2 lads I took 100 yards down the wrong way near the end.

“I just thought there was a bit more road than last time”

I think it just felt that way because the off road sections were so fast and dry, so you you got back to the road that much quicker. I did the 100km in just over 6 hours, my fastest ever.

I’m one of the puncture victims, we were going great guns (42km in the first 2hrs) then I sliced open a tyre on one of those really steep little climbs…you know the ones I’m talking about.

Lesons learned

1. Dont bother trying a trailside repair of a tubeless tyre, just bang a tube in and get going.

2. Dont forget to check a tubeless tyre for thorns!

Tube went straight down, I couldnt find the hole so limped down to Amersham where I was glad to find a bike shop open who were good enough to charge me £8.50 for an inner tube. Yes I’m glad they were there and open, but seriously people wonder why we all buy stuff online.

Great day, thanks as ever to Chris Denman of WDMBC, that man really grafts away to put on terrific events for us. Next one I think is the Night of the Knobbly Tread and Duathlon at Black Park in October.

A really good event with some really beautiful bits of singletrack/countryside.
One puncture here & got lost a couple of times near Princes Risborough
& Great Missenden ( I think) and ended up taking an unplanned shortcut( wasn’t complaining at the time!).
Big thanks to Kryton and his riding buddy (1×10 Br!) for dragging me back the last 15 miles.
A bigger thanks to the event sponsors – Lindt!! 😀 😉

Thought the signs were poor, but great place to ride. All in cracking day

Signs were nearly all there – our group of 4-6 spotted them between us at nearly every turn.

4 of us had the route on a GPS and that was perfect.

GB

Lovely day out, great route!

One particularly stunning downhill right at the farthest point – really fast, trees rushing past, seemed to just keep on going for ages. Got to the bottom, after a while I reached a road, and, no signs to be seen anywhere….

It was a long walk back!

Without the GPS bonging “off course” we would have missed a few due to speed more than anything else. GPS are quite cheap these days…

Yep…you need a GPS on this one

No GPS here (work of the devil) and not a missed turn.

(Ok apart from that bit near the end).

Well I was lucky. Just checked over the bike and there is a one inch split in the front tyre with the tube bulging out 😮

God knows how that didn’t let go!

One dead knobby Nic