More footage to follow once it’s better edited and yes it was a bit of a pig up the climbs 😀

I too was amazed at the number of nobs forcing their way past in innapropriate sections without as much as a shout to pre-warn.

I would say that on almost every single one of my 12 laps, someone almost had me off. I’m only too happy to let a faster rider through, but at least have the decency to let me know you want to overtake and/or wait until it is actually possible to do so.

Was happy with my 9 laps for my first solo event. But agree with everyone who has mentioned the blatent disregard for other riders from some idiots.

At one point a young lad had fallen off and a quick rider who hadn’t seen the lad laying in the track tried to overtake 3 of us while we slowed down to avoid hitting the fallen rider on the quary section. The faster rider then had the nerve to shout some very foul language at the fallen lad to which we all gave him a barrel of abuse back and he wasn’t happy about that. Thankfully the lad that fell was OK and continued.

If you are that person and you are reading this you should be ashamed of yourself and you are lucky someone didn’t respond even more aggresively as the two guys infront of me were going to rip you a new one!!!!!

Course was ace, 99% of the people were fantastic, but think the number of entrants should be limited as there must have been 75% more than last year

Great course, good atmosphere.

However to echo many of the others I did get taken out by a speedy boy overtaking in an inappropriate place. I was also pretty appalled to be riding behind a bloke who was being cautious on a rocky section (as Is his right ) only for a speedy boy to buzz up behind us and exclaim ‘oh come on guy’s with no small measure of frustration.

Some advice for others: do as I do, treat ‘on your left’ as a question not an instruction. On several occasions I responded ‘no, you can pass on the right on the next straight’. For the record when I overtook I did pose it as a polite question and said please!

In defence of some of the quicker riders I can only say it must get pretty frustrating being stuck behind slower folk, however it’s never an excuse to forget your manners. You are after all an ambassador for your team & it’s sponsors.

I personally didn’t see any ag apart from one incident, which funnily enough was between two sponsored team riders! Proper handbags it was too..

No need girls, no need!

Anyone know where the rapha condor guys came?

Pro road riders to trade Tarmac for trails at Ritchey Oktoberfest

Don’t see them listed on the results

I was just spectating on the Saturday and seemed most people gladly pulled over and let faster people through, there was one guy who seemed to have a train of 20 people on his wheel coming out of upper NBW but to be fair it’s hard to let people past there without stopping completely yourself. I don’t think the issue is with the slower/social riders or the very fast people, it’s more the middle crowd who are taking it seriously but don’t necessarily have the speed or skills to pass quickly/appropriately.
Seemed quite a lot of non-competitors on the track on Sunday (inc. a horse and a few families…) but I guess given the weather you couldn’t expect them to stay off the trails the whole weekend. Glad I was riding Sunday instead though as on the whole it was much less crowded

trickydisco – Member
Anyone know where the rapha condor guys came?

They were racing as Barrow Gurney CC, so came second to the torq boys.

Some of the “slower” riders wern’t just slow as at least 60 of them were doing 8 hours solo 😉

and some of them were still doing consistent 28 to 31 min laps too 😯

I dipped into that range a few times 🙂

Thanks to Tom from MB Swindon for the picture, here I am midway through burning 8600Kcal in 8 hours.

I was one of the few riders who went up the track and round the marker at the start.
I got to the bottleneck at the start of the single track with no patience to sit in a queue behind a load of cheaters, so dragged my bike through the brambles to get back past them.
That’s one thing that needs sorting out, either make it clear that it’s a straight line across the field to the first right hander, or enforce the rule that it’s up the track to the first left hander.

Apart from that, everything went well.
The course suited me, fast and not too steep.
Muddypuddle was riding in, and won, the women’s pairs class and mixed up my drinks between her laps, so I always had a full bottle to come back to.

15 laps, 2nd single speed.
Out of a total of 98 solo riders (SS, vets and open), 89 got beaten by a chubby old bloke in a Vegan Cyclists jersey riding a single speed 29er.

c_klein87, I was told I was 2nd during the race, but I didn’t know how close.
I rode the big hill on my first three laps, then walked it after that.
That must have cost me at least 30 seconds a lap. There’s the six minutes.
I’ve got to train on hills more.

Training seems to have gone well since Bikefest MTG, you were visably alot quicker, Go VEGAN 😀

Graham, I saw you walking the big hill a few times. I didn’t walk it once yet you still managed to lap me the one time, so fair bloody play! You must have been hoofing around the rest of the course. I assume you are going to do the SDW double at some point with form like that?

You don’t look all that chubby either!

Ah so it’s YOU the commentator was shouting “eat meat you’ll go quicker” love it!!! 😉

Well done Graham, you were storming around! I followed you through the brambles, I lost a good 10 minutes on my first lap – I went around the marker too, as I remembered Paul stating that if you rode along the grass you’d be disqualified – that cost us at least one place, disappointing and I’m sure it affected lots of people, not just me.

I’d recommend some taping off of the grass next year to make it a fully fair race.

But still hats off the you Graham, we all commented on how much stonger you look on the bike.

Graham you must have smashed the rest of the course then i rode the big hill every lap! training on hills helps, so does being 71kg 😉 thats a hell of alot of calories as well i did 3000 according to garmin!

If that 87 in your user name means what I think it means, you’re 25 years younger than me too. 😛

ha yes it might mean that, even more respect then 🙂

Over taking should be done safely and respectfully, Ashton court is always going to be a struggle to over take due to its obviously huge amount of single track.

The race can be won and lost on the first lap as the top riders are only minutes apart at the finish even over 8-12hr plus races.
Starting before the 10 sec countdown was CHEATING, cutting the corner up the hill was CHEATING and seemed to put a huge amount of average riders quite far into the course in front of faster more competitive riders and therefore may of encouraged more aggressive passing moves? I think you could write a book on peoples complaints of bad passing moves at Ashton court and I’m sure we have all been a victim of one and i’m sure will have done them ourselves but after all it is a race and not a fun ride. JUST GET USED TO IT

Well done Team Emptybeers, I lost out our final lap dual by 2″. Arses

Thank you! Yes my team mate put his fastest lap of the day in as the last one. His rather tall SS gearing just about paid off for the run in the finish.

Ref overtaking I found everyone very polite. the only issue I had was with a youngster who was pretty quick but just shouted ‘rider’ when he got near to people and then nearly pushed me into another rider when he overtook on the bit next to the park entrance.

Overall I agree with Lee Roy though 8)

I’m very new to not only racing (this was my first race) but also to bike riding in general(started riding xc this year).Going in to this race I was very aware of being a much slower and less technical rider. I made every effort to get out of peoples way and when I was aware of any riders not asking to get past I would shout back asking if they were wanting to get by.
Over all I found riders to be good at picking safe lines to pass and calling out before passing. I found this very helpful In making the race safer for me and In turn for them,who want’s to scare the crap out of the rider in front and possible making both rider crash.
There will always be riders who don’t callout and take a line in there eyes to be safe and that’s part of racing I guess. over all I never found it as bad as I thought going into this race and can’t wait to do it again next year!
As to that young rider who tried to pass me and 3 others through the last bit of single track/rock garden. Shouting rider when clearly having no room to get past was the only **** I encountered and I just put that down to his pre-pubescent hormones getting the better of him!

I fell on my first lap and found it good to have several riders shouting out if I was o.k.
Over all I loved this race so keep it up!

Oh I did have to give some sod a telling off after mowing down some 12 year old kid out on course. Shouting “watch out” while doing over 20mph in downhill singletrack is likely to make them panic and stop in the trail, not make them actually move. It was very poor form!

Well at best, maybe next year people will be more aware about the tight overtaking and maybe think a little more about their approach.

As I recall in the early days of bikefest there was lots of argy bargy about overtaking I remember one team sponsored by a very popular energy supplement company even had to be pulled to one side about their behaviour on the course, things improved over the years as people became more familiar with the course, hopefully the same will happen with the new layout.

MTG I struggled to get passed you on the big climb, this was on my second lap, when I put in a 29min lap. You were out of the saddle cranking it with 7 hours still to go – Massive Respect!

I’ve done endurance races before where the soloists get an “S” to hang under their saddle, so everyone knows instantly why they’re going so slow and (hopefully) affords them a bit more respect instead of just forcing them off the track.

I think a lot of the aggro on the day was caused by people just not calling it when they overtook, or wanted to overtake. If you’re quite new to XC racing (as a lot of Oktoberfest participants are) you probably don;t realise how important it is.

I’ve done endurance races before where the soloists get an “S” to hang under their saddle, so everyone knows instantly why they’re going so slow and (hopefully) affords them a bit more respect instead of just forcing them off the track.

Me too 🙂

I’ve done endurance races before where the soloists get an “S” to hang under their saddle,

This should be the norm in all endurance races IMO.

‘ve done endurance races before where the soloists get an “S” to hang under their saddle, so everyone knows instantly why they’re going so slow and (hopefully) affords them a bit more respect instead of just forcing them off the track.

This is great at mountain mayhem. I always made sure I gave words of encouragement solo riders when passing

Talking of the start and the bottle necks. I’ve often wondered whether doing the run in the same place as the afternoon starters might help? It’ll stop the corner cutting and going straight into a climb should think the pack out a bit. Hell, why not go down to the deer park and make everyone haul it up the road and round? Can still go straight into the event village and start a lap proper – someone then tapes the course off again before the first team riders get a chance to come round…

I’d like an ‘R’ to hang behind my saddle all the time. For Rubbish.

+1 Gary

A good climb would thin the pack out, I much prefer rolling starts for that, as it does settle people out better than a run.

I totally understand for Paul though, trying to get 1000 people off the line and into speed order is not going to be the easist thing to sort out.

Thing is the run is too short, despite most people (including me) absolutely hating the run, in SitS in 2003 the run was nearer 800metres. It strung the pack out hugely and works way better, it’s now too short a start.

A longer run for sure – way too short…

But are the strong riders necessarily going to be strong runners?

Yes for the top athletes, but it could still leave a lot of fast bike riders with a load of fast runners but slow riders to get past?

Since this is a bike race I’d have thought a long uphill ride would be better to string out the fast from the slow. Perhaps starting right down by the exit from the first singletrack* and possibly even taking a long way round the field with a couple of hills?

*Is this where the 4hr pm race started from?

Yup I suppose a longer uphill could be the way Roger! the less running the better when I get spammed with it 😉 But remember we did cheat according to some on here.

All this talk of aggressive overtaking saddens me. These are my local trails and I ride them week in, week out, and I’d love to enter either Bikefest or Oktoberfest, but seriously – I worry so much about holding someone up that I just don’t bother taking part.

Wallop – Don’t not enter because some people are inconsiderate because of inexperience. Bikefest is a race, but it’s also great fun – for all levels of the sport.

A 12 hour solo at Bikefest can be a real achievement, and you don’t need to be jostling for first place for that to be the case.

Give it a go next year, 99% of riders are courteous, if they’re any good they be able to get past you without you having to move anywhere, just a little word to say what they’re doing and they’ll be gone 🙂

wallop: tbh it’s largely not that bad. I soloed and was subjected to only one really dire overtake. I also had a few that were ok just a little surprising – I shouted ‘call it better next time’ and got a pretty sincere sorry from each.