The 2011 Welsh Ride Thing is GO!

1oz = 12.5 mins burn time
700ml takes 10.5 mins to get full boil.

1st day = evening meal, pudding, coffee x2 = 2oz
2nd day = breakfast, tea, evening meal, pudding, coffee x2 = 3oz
3rd day = breakfast, coffee x2 = 2oz

Taking 8oz

Maps & routefinding. What’s everyone doing about that then? I’m on chunky paper maps and can’t be arsed to carry a map case so will probably photograph relevant bits of the map on my waterproof Pentax as I go along and use that to navigate with.

As for fuel, I’m taking 13 Gelert solid fuel tablets @ 92g (3oz). Each tablet boils around 400ml of water in my MYOG multifuel stove/Snowpeak Ti cup set up 🙂

Got my GPS ready to use with personalized WRT map just like trio had last year as back up.

Got them printed off and all on PDF on the iPhone

Happy to share the PDFs if anybody wants them

GPS and printed from Quo on waterproof paper

Garmin Etrex with track + laminated printouts of OS maps (from MemoryMap) ziptied to bars.

When you get to the pub at the end of day 1 you chuck the used maps away rather than carrying them around dead weight for the next 36 hours.

(Of course, a couple of pints of guinness somewhat offsets the ~50g weight saving from throwing your maps away)

DNF – yes, 255g is for a dual compartment production bag. That weight may change though, as I have another bag being made at the moment.

Anthony – hot drinks included in the evening meal/breakfast pack:
Porridge, cuppa soup, 2 tea bags, 2 mini pepperami’s, 50g chocolate, 100g cous cous.

Here’s my setup:

32lbs all-in (no food yet). And all pending inevitable faffing/changes.

Now that does look well Aidan … very minimal. Is that everything, no backpack required?

There is a small backpack packed into it, just in case. But I can carry a couple of day’s worth of food in the existing space on the bike.

Happily, it rides pretty much like a bike. The Pugsley with 2 people’s gear on it that I rode last time I was at WRT rode like a donkey carrying a submarine on its back.

Aiden that looks mighty sleek. You know the rules, kit of such loveliness requires a full break down for us to critique 😀 The more photos of bike set ups I see, the more mine looks like steptoe’s cart.

Food seems to be my biggest downfall, it would seem I’m greedy compared to most.

Don’t worry Anthony i’ll be taking a hamper bursting with food. 😯

Printing route onto waterproof paper, 114k for the main loop, 79k extra bit to get everything. GPS loaded, no more work for a few days, bags packed, head to Snowdonia on Friday, before drifting south on Saturday morning 🙂

WRT SIR9Finally…….WRT bike done! Weighed it in as shown, not including the wooden post, complete with 2.5 litres of water and 2 evening meals, puddings,and breakfasts and it came in at 39.75lbs. Add to that my 1.3lb backpack that I will hopefully not need after the 1st day and I think I have managed to shave a good few pounds off last years weight. 🙂

Shook it down this evening and it felt good, the only problem I have is with Bottom bracket creak. It has an eccentric BB and I have so far tried building it dry – fail, using PTFE tape – fail and lastly I even tried the carbon / carbon high friction compound – fail. I am now about to try a number of tape options but for all our sakes (If you here me coming it will drive you mad in seconds) if anyone has any successful solutions to this problem I would love to hear them!

alfachippy – looks really good. Appears much more minimalist than the weight suggests.

EBB – your solution I think it a good coating of the inside of the shell and EBB insert with copper grease, and really tighten up those bolts!

Out of interest – what gear ratio have you gone for?

wow you all have been busy bees tonight 😉

I’m hoping to have the 29er built tomorrow so I can give it a quick shake down in the evening.

All I need off the Inbred is the seat post so if I fail in the build I will revert to that no problem 😉

Just hoping the frame bag will fit 😯

Yes, copper grease (copper-slip) always works for me on ebb’s. Worth putting some on the bolts too.

I had pencil cases when I was at school that were bigger than your frame bag Aidan! 😯

Did you write my name on it?

All your stuff might be light weight, but just think of it’s weight when it’s wet with all this rain and the rain forecasted.

Enjoy

Some folk are plenty tough enough to endure the ‘light rain’ showers that are forecast … others are better suited to trail centres and motorhomes 😉

Maps sorted just in case I forget my route: 12 double-sided A6 sheets at 1:50k scale – 23g

Right, final routes plotted and measured. What sort of mileage / total accent have people previously done in years gone by?

Currently standing at about 13000ft total ascent. 120k in Distance missing two grid refs out. Tempting to build them back in…..

Day 1 40k
Day 2 70k
Day 3 10k

Like how you’ve mixed your units up there Tiger 😆

I’ve got 161km, 5400m climbing, all the checkpoints.
Note sure on distances each day, but camping on Saturday somewhere between B1 and B2. Sunday somewhere between A3 and B4.
Back from B4 on Monday AM.

Weather seems to have picked up too – might even swap the tent out for the tarp again…

camping on Saturday somewhere between B1 and B2

Well, we’ll see you in the Railway for a pint then 🙂

That ali turned up and looks good, in fact looks spot on.

Like how you’ve mixed your units up there Tiger

It’s part of “the rules” distance is always in KM, elevation is always in Feet

See we’ve put B4 & A3 on the ‘maybe’ list. but if we are doing okay may yomp up from A5 (our last one) up to A3..

We’ll see how we get on.

It’s more than 0.076mm thick then?

Seems it

Tiger – I sent you a mail re. your offer of map pdfs. It may have gone straight to junk, if so mine’s in my profile. Ta muchly.

Sent

And gratefully received. See you there on Saturday!

Not much kit planning, but route sorted at 130k

Camping Sat night around B1, either before or after dependant on weather/light/beer in Machynlleth

Sun night around A1 after a pub stop in Cemmaes.

Mapboard and pad change tonight to keep me busy.

I’m currently doing some lastish minute route verification and scribing trails, cafes & public houses onto my OS maps.

The climb/s up to the start of the ridge trail (Tarren Ridge) and checkpoint B1 (sh684040)from Machynlleth/Panperthog with all those fire roads, paths and stuff looks a hard one for a non-local, non-GPS carrying rider.

Anyone got any clues or routes they’d care to pass onto me 🙂

Hmmmm, giving the game away a bit

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?lnk=http://beta2.fantasticthinking.com/routes/stage4.gpx

Will be about 1k of very steep pushing 🙂

Pretty much as long as your legs are hurting and you’re coughing up lungs, you’ll be heading in the right direction 😀

giving the game away a bit

Looks tough to me 😯
You sure you’ll make last orders at the Railway?

My route is via Penrhyn Dyfi, Maesywerngoch and then follow fireroad up to the NW corner of the wood and a small track to gain the ridge. A good few pages back Stu posted a link to another guy’s blog about that route, though they went into the forest by Gellygen.

The last part onto the ridge is the real test / killer!

Hmmmm, giving the game away a bit

You certainly have! I’ve now worked out where you’ll be kipping down, having breakfast and taking your morning dump from that link 😉

Anyway, thanks for that, certainly much easier to navigate than the routes I was trying to workout from the Tarren Ridge[/url] link route picture.

If I end up in the Railway Inn on Saturday evening I’ll buy you a pint 🙂

Well Pennal is basically sea level (Had my wedding reception in Pennal BTW)

So my route goes from 20m to 633m in 4.7km. 😐

We’ll be fine

Route planning? plot points and draw straight lines between them 😕 Just raided gear shops, more stuff ditched 😯