Who’s looking forward to next weekend then ?

🙂

Can’t wait – should be a good’un

jwr

Team or solo ?

Racing as a pair. First event in about 10 years – so should be interesting! How about you?

Solos .
Third time for 3 of us and one newbie ( but he is as fit as 🙄 )
This event has taken the place of 10UTB for us ,great fun .
We have also managed to get a mancave Wigwam ,which means we should be (hopefully) right on the course 🙂

First event in about 10 years

,good effort.
Just pace it out and enjoy 🙂

Not making it this year. My partner has pulled out due to absolutely zero training 🙁

Great event last time, tough tough course, but great atmosphere and well marshalled/organised.

We’re aspiring to be average. Seven laps between us would be great, eight would be fantastic. We’ll see how things pan out.

Yup, in. First time doing it so looking forward to it.

Aye, doing it as a three.

New batch of homebrew will be ready for it, so might be beers between laps!

Yep, going to try and defend last year’s win of the super-niche mixed senior pairs category. Fairly unlikely but you never know…

Doing it solo for te first time. Making a long weekend of it. Any idea on course length/climbing etc For those that’s done it before is it particularly tough on tyres, ridden other seven stanes but never Glentress. Presuming there all similar. I’m guessing not the kind of place for thin tlr tyres?

Its a pretty short lap with quite a bit of climbing, I’m not fast and think a lap for me was about 50 mins last year, I’m sure the racing snakes were quite a bit faster. Last year’s course included fire road, rooty ‘natural’ singletrack ie footpath, trail centre surface, and a field. Climbs are mostly fire road and descent mostly singletrack, which makes passing on the downs pretty frustrating, but a fun blast of a descent if you get a clear run. I’m sure the xc folks run silly light tyres but I just run my usual ‘summer’ tyres.

For reasons not completely clear to me I’m soloing. Obviously the ideal preparation is to do no training, then sell your cross country bike 2 weeks before.

@jonny m, I don’t know this year’s course but traditionally it doesn’t use that much of the trailcentre, which isn’t hard on tyres really anyway- not the rockiest hill. Full on XC tyres should be fine though there does tend to be some natural sections that punish anything too slippery if it’s wet (I crashed 3 times in about 100 yards one year, I’m dead good at racing)

Doing it on my usual 150mm bike with big tyres, though I might pump them up a bit. Not expecting any records to be broken in fairness.

I test rode the GT7 course last night, it’s looking great. Good luck and have fun, everyone.

If anyone has had their partner drop out and needs a sub, PM me. 🙂

Did it last year as a sub, and live nearby.

In a 3. I guess it’s time to start training…

ojom plenty of time yet….remember gravity is your co-pilot 🙂

Zero training – I’ll be collapsing round again. Rode the course last Sunday – looking forward to it 🙂

Br – it’s about time you paid for an entry 😉

Doing it as a pair.

I have two exams next week, one of which is on the 23rd. And haven’t ridden a MTB in 2 months. I imagine I will spend most of the climbs pushing up and bitching about them 😛

Bit more worried about dying on the descents. Had some pretty big crashes towards the end of the race last time. Should be fun though.

(Also if anyone is going from Edinburgh with a space in a car lmk)

I’ll be volunteering at it, see you all there.

Yey, I’m doing it! Have had a stupid ‘go to bed and don’t move for three days’ cold so that’s put paid to any last minute training. Last ride was the Dyfi Enduro 😳

7 hours? Hmm, hopefully someone will chat to me every now and then as that’s quite a while…

How do some of you know what the course is?

local knowledge I guess! Some EWS course rumours going around now too.

is it the same as last years course? the descent is a walkers path so not too sure a bunch of people blatting down that this weekend would be a great idea.

hi yourguitarhero,

the organiser needed a time/distance for the course, based on an average, unskilled unfit rider, oh that’ll be me then 🙂

hi yourguitarhero,

the organiser needed a time/distance for the course, based on an average, unskilled unfit rider, oh that’ll be me then 🙂

Coz we iz special 😀

I just want to know one thing… After 15 minutes in each lap, will we suddenly realise we’ve climbed up about 10 feet? That was such a mean trick last time…

Hi Northwind, we’ve put a tunnel under the ponds so that we can increase the amount of mean trickery……. 😉

Hi D, see you soon. C

Solo. First time I have ridden the event. Quite worried about the amount of climbing that a few of you have mentioned!

Solo. First time I have ridden the event. Quite worried about the amount of climbing that a few of you have mentioned!

Last year was a great course for me, basically you climbed to above Buzzard’s and then descended – felt right for my head 🙂

It’s not the climbing that you should be worried about 😯

Hi Vinny, Seriously though. The climbing doesn’t appear to be as brutal as in previous years. I rode the course again tonight. Very nice. Hope to see you on race day.

Rode Mayhem last year at Gatcombe Park and to be honest the hills were to brutal for me. However can’t wait for Saturday, first event of the year. Also first time I have ridden in the area. Do you know if the course will be open on Friday to have a spin round?

BR – My partner dropped out, but then I hadn’t actually entered! But if you can enter on the day I might be interested…i’m not the quickest however!

It is a natural law- week before an XC race? Northwind crashes and ****s himself up 😳 Fingers crossed now!

Damn thought I had another week to find some fitness.

Bike ..Check
Body ..Check
Fuel ..Check
Mind ..Processing..processing..processing..processing

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XNWA_yZvWo&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

Got back on a bike this morning. Ow. 50/50 whether riding or marshalling I reckon!

solo for me, 3rd time.
Bit of local knowledge and guesswork me-thinks the course is a bit shorter this year with a new descent that will cause lots punctures and maybe crashes for the XC whippets.