And ibuprofen!

Purely from the point of view of performance during and next day it needs to be carbohydrate before during and after.

Carb meal night before, carb meal 2hrs before, small carb snack 30mins before,90gr per hour during, recovery or full fat coke within 15m of finishing (window of max carb uptake for muscles) and large carb meal within 2hrs.

Not exactly a weight loss programme except fat should be minimised as it prevents uptake of carbs by lining stomach. Lean meat is fine

I’ve been looking for an MCR for 9 months. Have just given up and ordered a Curtis XC9. 😀

Get a Jones, a beard and change your outlook from speed and fun to diamond vs space frame vs truss vs blah blah blah.

I know I suffer from engineering pedantry but EBBs do tend to creak more and I witnessed a DNF recently from a sliding dropout bolt loss. I’m sure both are fine with correct maintenance but they’re compromises for single speeding, which if you never intend to do is unnecessary.

Feels like SSers get a bum deal on frame choice and thus pay through the nose – tons of really nice affordable hardtails of the vertical drop variety

And for those of us who will never single speed a lot of otherwise nice 29er frames are compromised with EBBs (Niner Sir 9, Singular etc) or drop outs that add weight, complication and potential unreliablility (Ritchey, Salsa etc).

Pass me my road bike I feel inspired! Brilliant story and documentary.

800 offroad miles on a CK bsa threaded bb fitted in the same SRAM adaptor also on a Whyte 29c. Very good solution. My wheels mfg bb30 (not pf30) on a different bike lasted one wet race so forgive me if I don’t like new style bbs

^^Sounds good

What happens if something appears on your ‘XC’ trail that should be jumped though?

Roll or walk is my motto :D. More skillz to go with my improved fitness for better XC placings is what I’m after. For Gorrick this means learning better descending on steep stuff, cornering, getting max pump benefit from features and possibly lifting the front wheel on bombholes? I’m 50 I don’t bounce and I really don’t want to start upping the ante by learning to jump on a 20lb race bike.

Is anyone planning on doing this in the near future?

Where a lot of people benefit is that Jedi gives you the confidence to do the jumps and drops at his premises, and those that couldn’t jump suddenly find themselves sailing over small gap jumps. This is great, but it’s done at a controlled speed, in a controlled environment. It’s a bit different on the trails, and I suspect many people that visit Jedi and do his array of smaller jumps struggle to covert that to natural stuff on a tricky trail.

This was me. I could do his 3 foot drops and get reasonable air on his tabletops with no problems, but still don’t have much confidence on the same ones on my real trails.

So is Jedi worth going to to improve XC skills ie cornering faster and pumping but are not remotely interested in jumping or air?

Little nipper traps and peanut butter as bait. Set BEFORE going to the pub.

Ensure no food left around

Poison = rotting mice = smell

Onset of winter often encourages the little blighters to move inside.

Such great engineering but too much bike for me and suspension too active for real mile munching (mincing)

Another vote for the IoM E2E. Tough enough route without being overly so and a fantastic turn-out by the locals makes it a really fun event.

The Manx 100 is even better in that it really does take training to get through. Circular so easier admin, much smaller field, fantastic atmosphere and hard as f*”k. 104miles and over 15,000feet of climbing, sections that are ‘too dangerous’ to be in E2E and some very rough terrain.

If you’ve changed nothing else you should go for a check up. The urge to defecate can be an indicator for cardiac issues (shared nerve pathway I think) in the elderly. Not heard of it in this sort of way but better safe than sorry.

Only other thing I can think off is you are subconsciously searching foe reasons to stop the pain!

I spent a week googling, talked to Loco, Mojo, looked at lower swaps, csu swaps, seeing if I could get G2 forks from Trek etc. In the end I couldn’t take it any longer and bought from the US.

If you are happy with Reba or SID 9mm then Bike24 has them.

Now I’ve just got to find a set of 2x cranks and work out what to do with the BB….

We must be close.

I have a large frame, it’s not built and not likely to be for a while.

2 things to note:-

1. The alloy frame will not be available frame only in 2015 so don’t wait too long

2. Race orientated 51mm offset forks are a bitch to find in Europe. Either 15mm maxle Rebas or 9mm QR SID RCT3 from bike discount/Bike24. I’ve ordered Foxs from US ebay and will have to pay import duty 🙁

^ have you got the link for that?

Decide priorities and change accordingly. Priority fun, taking part and testing yourself and how you improve = change nothing. Priority improving in relation to the field = change lots.

There will be fast 75kg riders pumping out huge wattage that are happy with flexy SIDs, stems and wheels.

Oh and in my opinion 12hr 1×10 32T and 11-36 is not a happy mix

You have to have a foul weather bike for churning through non technical winter mud. I got my Soul for this and it’s so good I ride it more than anything else. I also commute on it on rough lanes on nearly bald mtb tires and it’s brilliant for that too.

Just make it a bit more XC and enjoy!

Can’t eat much as I still feel sick rather like having a hangover. First 12hr solo. Raced throughout as opposed to just getting round and managed 14 laps for 8th in the Vets.

NJee which outfit were you riding for?

Wow – what an event! Great course, amazing atmosphere, the friendliest riders all of whom offered encouragement to soloists after dark which was a tremendous boost. If I ride a bike again I’ll return!

Is that middle one Warburgs?

And is all non rotating weight equal. Leaving aside old chestnuts such as no fluid/taking a dump I could starve a kilo off (and it would be starve) – does that have the same effect on climbing as 1kg of non wheel weight on the bike?

Thanks for the warning. I’m happy to donate but not if they really don’t want people there this evening

Oily fish (mackeral, herring etc) has been proved to help the aged in muscle repair following training. What works for them might work for you plus you might get brainier 😀

It is worth mentioning that you can finish before the 12 hours is up. If you get to 11:30 and have had enough you can stop and your result still counts. There is no point lurking, in fact it might even loose you a place or two…

I thought that laps counted more than time in the Gorrick results so giving up at 11.30hrs loses out to doing an extra lap started at 1159 even if it takes until 1am to finish?

BTW I’d like to ride the course tomorrow afternoon if it’s marked a) is this ‘allowed’ and b) where best to park?

NJee – I take your point but at 72kg I need the stiffer rim to go lighter on spokes if the wheel isn’t to get too flexy.

6lb short travel 29er alloy frame (eg spearfish) will take considerable work and money (XX1 or XTR 1×10 and LB wheels plus light finishing kit and lighter tyres) to get to a true 24lb with pedals. The more travel the harder (money) it gets especialy if you are going to match strength. There’s not much point in having a 140mm frame and forks and putting race Golds on it.

The half pound from 24 to 24.5lb takes quite a lot off effort and cash.

Bought a spearfish frame last Sunday. Contacted them via e mail on Tuesday to ask status, recieved an immediate reply telling me it would be with me on Thursday which it was. Well packaged and cheapest on line. Didn’t have all the automated mails some have but I was happy.

,,,,,, googles Curtis and reaches for phone 😀

its bloody hard there on a hardtail, only course I’ve felt beaten up on. im out this year

just lots of roots

Looks like light, small wheeled FS then 😀 knew I had it for some reason!

Yep! Mine are abismal even in the lightest shower. I think it is because the material is so thin that you don’t feel insulated from the rain so still get cold and miserable (well I do ) which defeats the purpose of something supposed to be waterproof or water resistant.

Conversely I find mine toasty and absolutely brilliant. At the manx 100 when the rain came down on the mountains I went from a miserable wreck to feeling good by donning my 2 year old, patched to hell, Nanos. Love them

I have some SID RCT3 where the threshold gets much less effective once the bike is ridden, anyone else have this?

Couldn’t get one to fit me at 6′ and thin. The XL was too big and the L was tight apart from a loose neck. Love Nanoflex arm warmers though.

Yes – a good winter bike is essential if you want to keep going. Also a good winter HT MTB if you can!

If you do hill reps correctly then you won’t want to be doing them more than once a week

So true. Hill reps = want to give up and go home half way through first rep, want to die on 3rd rep, can’t drink for fear of throwing up on final rep. How does my body forget such pain in only a week…..

Does anyone of these properly address the gap so created? The XT cog (can’t remember the teeth number 15 or 16) helps but it’s still very noticeable and irritating.