I am doing this years Wild Wales Challenge and slowly building up the miles with as many hills as possible, I am running a 105 compact groupset 11/28 and 50/34 up front. Has anybody on here done the Wild Wales before as I’m thinking of going for the lowest gearing possible because of the hellish climbs on the route, not knowing much about gearing what can the STW massive suggest.

A group from our running club do it every year. From what they say I’d go for pretty low gearing.

There’s most certainly one climb that’ll be very unpleasant no matter what gearing you’ve got. I’m sure quite a few of the riders who did the WRT last weekend, would suggest 22 x 36 😉

Go with the present gearing but just prepare yourself to push and/or suffer on a couple of climbs.

I was wondering if I could change my front inner ring to a 30t and leave the rear as it is.

if you are fit I recon u can get up most of it, maybe slowly grindingly slow in that gearing.

Do they not have granny rings on road bikes then 😉

There are some stiff climbs on this route as ever, 34 x 28 should be okay, as some have already said you may end up pushing in some places, but so what, its not a race, myself will ride my tourer with triple chain ring, the last climb of the day is a long slog up the bwlch-y-groes, which steepens all the way up, last section is 1 in 4, with a roughish surface, but the whole ride is great, different to ‘sportives’– although in recent years more people seem to treat it as a sportive– they miss the point, some great characters turn up year in year out, including the 12 hour record holder andy wilkinson on his legendary dolan– just hope for ok weather

Did you guys do it in the end?

What a fantastic ride – great scenery, perfect weather, plentiful tea and cake, and a few wee hills along the way 🙂 Really enjoyed it, it was the hardest ride I’d tried to do so chuffed that I managed it. The climbs were hard, but manageable, but I was on a cyclocross bike with an 11:34 cassette on the rear – boy was I glad of that when it came to the Bwlch!

Many thanks to the organisers and all the volunteers, and great to see such a diversity of ages / abilities / bikes all riding the same challenge.

sue w – have had bad neck all week, gutted unable to go on sun, weather was kind, a great route, glad you enjoyed it, real mix of loons on that event, its an annual pilgrammage for me– usually !!

I did it! Was a great event, lovely roads, friendly people and lots of cake! Me and a friend decided to ride to the start from warrington but we miss timed it so ended up getting to bala fairly late and then after having breakfast set off at nearly 10am. This meant being quite close to the closing time of each control but we made it in the end with about 45 mins to spare I think. We set off to ride back home, but after slowing down a fair amount to due sleepyness and only having 1 gear on my bike (the gear cable snapped earlier on in the ride) we called it a day about 11.30pm and called for a lift home! Luckily my friend’s better half was still up! A good day out and a fair few miles…

damitamit – you rode there from Warrington, then did the WWC, then tried to ride home 😯 You are either seriously fit or seriously bonkers! or both 🙂 And yes, the cake was great … especially carrot cake at the end – yum.

bikebwoy – that’s a bummer. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it round as I had a really bad stomach most of the day, but apart from ‘running on empty’ it wasn’t too bad.

Looking forward to the next one now!

My legs still ache….but that could be from churning 38-25 up bwlch y groes 😳

We were aiming to make it into a 400k diy audax 🙂 Hopefully we’ll have better luck next year!

Photos are up here: http://georgeburgessphotography.thirdlight.com/viewdir.tlx?albumid=328403

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