Having never done it (obviously), or any of the long (seemingly now non-existent) rides like the old Brecon Beacons Beast, is it, or are they, doable on a CX or gravel bike?

I’m just wondering because of the proliferation of gravel races in the USA, and questioning if the latter might not be the next generation…

The Puffer is type 2 fun, riding it on a CX bike, whilst entirely possible, would make it pretty miserable. I know someone will be along in a minute to say otherwise, but I think it is a silly idea. The Puffer earns you a tough badge all on its own. No need to do it any other way.

I’ve done it on fully rigid old school geometry 29er with 38c schwalbe marathons on.

More than once……I’m too tight to buy a dedicated set of 29er ice spikes.

The penalty in the short rough sections is often outweighed by the swathes of fire road that are a drag on regular ice spikes.

I’m pretty sure I saw someone doing it once, but may have hallucinated it. Maybe it was TR on his rigid 29er. Most of it would be rideable (icy conditions would benefit from spiked tyres), but it’d be a bit hard work for about half the lap, which is quite lumpy for a cx bike. HT 29er is my choice.

the long (seemingly now non-existent) rides

You mean organised events? There are a few, becoming more like US style gravel races now though. Just looking at this one:

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsingletrackworld.com%2Fgritcx%2F2019%2F12%2F17%2Ffrontier-300-will-you-make-brunch-on-the-beach%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3R_hX3Z7nspo19cQNAP4kDa-JMg_EERlFOWqWNgDhR0vKZIJqzEyGpax0&h=AT05HEPWQS2mRRWtLzSNnBm2VD9meaBNDs5FxfxNFAU8ptLzIzeo11YBbXWAwIASAiDaaBdxpatAHxn0_BmBwFCdoLMTdCUrOUtFlOF0mrPKF60_jk1vDyWKcTw1FtnxivbsftfqEc31K82tFtxpEyyj

US style gravel races are on graded dirt roads, cos that’s what they have. Strathpuffer is pretty different though I think?

IMO / IME strathpuffer on a cx bike would be torture.

Strathpuffer is rough in places, its extremely tiring, there is quite a lot of climbing and the conditions are awful and when concentration goes you crash and it hurts.

Its a completely different type of event to the english 24 hr I “raced”

trail_rat

I’ve done it on fully rigid old school geometry 29er with 38c schwalbe marathons on.

More than once……I’m too tight to buy a dedicated set of 29er ice spikes.

The penalty in the short rough sections is often outweighed by the swathes of fire road that are a drag on regular ice spikes.

Unless my memory is fooling me, there’s been a few do just that, including possibly Guy Martin.

The course can definitely be ridden on a cx bike (I’ve done it, but not in the race), but as Oblongbob says parts would be hard work.

I was actually thinking of trying it this year. Not for speed though. 🙂

On the narrow parts of the track I like to keep out of the way of the faster riders, and often if it’s snow that’s almost the whole track. As a result I’m often trying to ride the unrideable bits at the edges or more likely, off the bike pushing through parts I could otherwise ride. This adds heaps to my lap times which aren’t fast to start with.

It takes not much longer for me to run the whole ‘Puffer track than my slowest lap, so the thought that crossed my mind was to take the light CX bike and simply shoulder it and run in the places where I would be otherwise pushing my fatbike. That would be faster than pushing.

I can manage to jog along for 4-5 hours but I’ve never tried to run over a 24 hour period, and probably a winter ‘Puffer is not the place to experiment.

Anyone want to try that? Save me from being the guinea pig. 🙂

The reality is there’s no perfect bike. Turn up with spikes, and it’s mud; turn up on a fatbike and it’s ice; turn up on a 29er and it’s knee deep snow, etc.

And quite frequently you get the whole lot with bonus sleet and howling winds.

I suspect the best compromise is a carbon 29er with a couple of wheelsets, one spiked.

I used a rigid 29er. Later on each time I wished I had a suspension fork.

I wouldn’t recommend a cross bike. A more modern gravel bike with more relaxed geometry, lower gearing and 700×45+ tyres maybe, but not a cross bike.

My experience of straffpuffa.

The start is a fire road that seems to go on forever. This is a cx/gravel bike friendly section.

Then there is a slab section that’s fine at the start but at 2am it freezes and is a bit of a death trap and lots of tired people fall or stop here.

The rest is all up and down, nothing extreme. The only bit I enjoyed was the final section with a few burns.

Its not a course I would go out of my way to ride and it didn’t keep me entertained or wanting more.

When you are tired and cold you make mistakes. Bigger tyres or suspension might save you.

Personally I’d do it on rigid 29er or hardtail.

Go 1x as your front mech will probably freeze and stop working.

If the weather conditions are bad then you end up with everyone using one line which will either be muddy or icy and the fast riders using any line they can spot to lap you.

Id take 2 bikes. 1) in case one breaks 2) to give you options to make it more interesting and keep the boredom away at 3am.

Don’t forget when you have taken a drink from your camel back to blow the water back in so the tube doesn’t freeze.

My advice would be to try and camp on the fire road. Bring tyre chains or winter tyres. Get there early.

Good luck

It could, but why would you?

I’ve done it a couple of times and I’m sure I could get round relatively efficiently on my CX bike for a lap or 2. However, it would be pretty unforgiving and there are rough bits and rogue rocks here or there to flat spectacularly on a CX bike.

The ideal bike, IMO, is going to be a nice light 29er racey hardtail or short travel 29er full suss with fairly fast rolling tyres.

My advice, take only 1 bike and hope that it breaks so you can go to bed and stop the madness! I used to take FS and HT but these days just take the HT and the wheels from my FS with spikes on. Basically what epicyclo suggests, but mine is a ti HT. Spare mech and many, many other bits.

In answer to the OP, yes it could be ridden on a CX/gravel bike, but IME it would not be ideal. Some of the techy/rocky bits can get pretty slippy in the ice/snow/mud where some bigger tyres and at least a little bit of suspension will help with grip.

I’ve seen guys doing it on CX bikes, but they’ve never been that fast and they’ve walked/carried through all the tech sections.

I did meet someone who was doing it on a CX one year – @trail_rat – Phil Kelman – but then he’s mental, he biked from Deeside to to 10 Under the Ben on a CX bike, bivvi on the Friday night, race, bivvi again and bike home on Sunday.

I think it could be but you’d have to be a good runner to carry your bike over the rockier bits. Also you would need the weather to be ideal for gravel bikes ie dry and above freezing to give you maximum advantage on the fireroad sections.

Overall though, as plenty others have said, a 29 inch hardtail is the best choice in general.

I chatted to someone at the end of the puffer in 2017* who had done it solo on a CX. It wasn’t his first choice of bike, I think his other bike had broken with no time to fix and he gave it a go on what he had available.

He gave the impression that it was pretty miserable, and would not be doing it again on a bike like that. He used up all his spare inner tubes and had to send someone out to buy some more. I think he did about 7 laps.

* I wasn’t racing…I was looking after our 3 month old daughter while my partner raced 🙂

Sounds horrid. It’d be doable, but I imagine at 2am when you’re tired the CX bike would forgive no mistakes.

I’m doing it on a hardtail for the first time in January and I’m worried about that after 5 attempts on a full susser.

OP – I’m sure many of the ‘Do lots of laps in the time limit’ races are do-able on a gravel bike, but as others have said it doesn’t seem like much fun. I think the key thing here is that MTB racing (and riding in general) has a well-established ethos of riding the same loop over-and-over for a lot of the racing. The gravel events seem to be more about the big journey, so I suspect we’ll see more events like the Reiver (and their new 300km beast). I can’t imagine a 24h ‘do laps on a gravel bike’ race would get many people excited.

Don’t use a cx bike, use a gravel bike, cos they’re just awesome and are so much better and faster than any other form of ATB, must be, folk claim this on here on a daily basis! 🙂

To come back to the OP… there will no doubt be a big increase in the number of “gravel” events over the next couple of years. I don’t think that will necessarily impact the number of MTB events. In fact, having seen the sort of questions being asked on a couple of the UK Gravel groups on Facebook,, I’d say that road events were more at risk as it seems there are more roadies going off-road than MTBers going gravel (or maybe MTBers just don’t need to ask such fundamental questions).

Of the gravel events I’m aware of (in the UK) they mostly seem to be about distance covered than a proper race.

Unless my memory is fooling me, there’s been a few do just that, including possibly Guy Martin.

Iirc he did it on an orange 29er with cx ish wheels. He passed me and the front was like a Pringle.

Given the clearance on some gravel bikes these days it would be doable and be quick imo. But a whole lot less forgiving when the tiredness sets in and you need to be on your toes.

I’m sure it would be rideable (with spiked tyres) just not that fun/fast.

Last year did my first lap on fast XC tyres, but switching to ice spikers didn’t slow me overall as I made plenty of time up on the descents – I did think it might slow me due to the fire road sections. Also, I didn’t crash, and on an event like that (even in a team of 4 as I was) not putting yourself out of the running by crashing badly is essential!