I have Rons on but am taking a NN for front and am starting to make excuses for myself to change to 6hrs…..

Some of the course was set up last night with the remainder being done today! I will post an update on course conditions tonight it should hold up pretty well with plenty of tree cover to most of the singletrack and open sections being on hard pack tracks.

As for tyres you wont need mud tyres that’s for sure! and if you have Tan side walls then there is no hope for you anyway, you wouldn’t put tan/white sidewall tyres on your car because that would look silly!!

😉

Taking both bikes. Solaris with beavers fitted and the tallboy with Ron and Ralphs. Start with the tallboy and see how it goes.

Well, due to logistical ‘challenges’ it looks like I’ll be riding my mates bike which is slightly too big for me, and I’ve never ridden before, on the race!!!

I guess 12 hours will get me used to it!! 😆

I’ve never remained any drier by sheltering under a tree!

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…

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/devizes-wiltshire#?tab=fiveDay&locId=350411&fcTime=1400886000

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 !!!