It’s a bit hard to say. In the past I’ve only ever used Endomorphs and Larrys on 65mm rims.

The Husker Du looks comfortable enough on the 100mm rim i.e. not overly stretched to fill the width. It’s been awesome in the dry, and I’d say an improvement on the Surly tyres I’ve had in the past.

Pretty sketchy in very wet/muddy conditions as it doesn’t dig in enough to find grip. But that’s been true of every fat tyres I’ve used.

Why are you going for 100s? I picked them for snow use. For normal trails, you might be better off with 80s. Less weight, but still pretty wide.

On the point of asian participants in cycling, I used to teach cycling in Harrow (36% white).

At the upper end of primary and the lower end of secondary school, most kids love messing around on bikes. Those that have parents who are into cycling and those that don’t. With any skin colour. With any quality of bike.

I also taught adults who had never ridden a bike before how to ride. Around half of those were asian women who had never learned when they were children and now wanted to go riding with their kids.

So, it seems that things are changing.

Rather than comparing the ethnic diversity in cycling against football, it would be fairer to compare it with hillwalking. Hillwalking (in fine weather) doesn’t require much expensive kit at all, but you used to only ever see white faces. It does seem to be changing, and cycling seems to be changing (just a bit more slowly).

PS I’ve used reasonably large bikepacking saddlebags on a road bike before and it felt a bit dodgy when stood up and honking on the pedals, but fine if I kept it to sitting and spinning.

I don’t imagine the load is that much different than a fat bloke riding the bike.

Bikepacking bags maybe? Frame bag or saddlebag/harness from the likes of Wildcat, Revelate or Alpkit?

Less weight and more centred load.

There’s Adventure Cross in Cornwall too:

http://www.adventurecross.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

Wireless electronic uppy/downy seatpost. I’ve never used an uppy/downy post, but people seem to complain about cable routing on them.

Oh, yeah and for carrying fat bikes, I have a towbar-mounted Thule rack. The fat tyres fit perfectly between the two slots for normal bikes, one of the clamps goes onto the frame, then bungies around the wheels.

Drain pipe on the roof rack is what I’ve seen a number of people use in Alaska, too.

In case more riding photos are required to get you to put your hand in your wallet, my first impressions of the Puffin:

http://www.aidanharding.com/2013/08/singular-puffin-first-impressions/%5B/url%5D

Since then, I’ve ridden it on Gower and in Brecon. The rocks in Brecon (as pictured on the STW article) were the biggest eye-opener for me. It absolutely storms that kind of stuff. Floats, manuals, and flies down them. Climbs up even the most stupid lines.

I think you’re probably more sensitive to drag in the drivetrain than you are to drag from the front hub. The difference when you clean a grimy chain is pretty noticeable, and the drag from a hub gear is pretty noticeable.

With an SP hub, I thought I could tell the difference between the Revo being plugged in and unplugged, but only on road while trying to sense a change. It was so slight that it could just be imagination.

For riding over multiple days, or to get away from having to recharge between night-rides, a Revo is a no-brainer for me.

coastkid – Member
Adian,

I’ve also ridden it on beaches a bit, which is novel,
but you can’t get away from the fact that a beach is a big wide flat area so not that much fun for its own sake.
Come up to East Lothians coast if you think it is all flat and boring, How hard a work out would you like

Ha… I used to live in Linlithgow and got my BMX stuck in the sand at Bo’ness when I was a kid.

Can’t see how you can make beach riding into actual fun, but maybe one day…

I used to have a Pugsley and it was great for snow races, but a bit cack on most trails. And truly terrible in mud because the only tyres available at the time were Endomorphs (essentially, semi-slicks).

I’ve had a prototype Singular Puffin for a couple of weeks and the place it has made most sense is rocky trails in the Brecons. On rocky downhills, I absolutely shot away from my mates who are usually reasonably handy. One of them was on a Spesh full-suspension bike, the other on a Singular rigid 29er.

The tyre footprint is so big that you can attempt some lines that you would never try on a normal bike. It pretty much never gets bossed around by little pointy stuff, and you only seem to need about 1/3 of the tyre to be on something half-decent for it to grip.

I’ve also ridden it on beaches a bit, which is novel, but you can’t get away from the fact that a beach is a big wide flat area so not that much fun for its own sake.

Only you can decide if it’s worth owning one for you. If you can, test ride a few. Like all other bike arguments, there a lot more to how it rides than just tyre size – you might hate one fatty, but love another.

scotroutes – Member
piha » Nice report and good looking Fatty you’ve got there. I had a ride around the Gorrick course at Minley last night on my 9zero7 and it was great fun on the Fatty.
I’m not sure 100 miles on a Fatty though!
My record is 80.

My record is 1000 :-)

http://www.alaskaultrasport.com/race_stats.html

(Search for singlespeed record)

Ride a segment of EWE?

Route here: http://www.aidanharding.com/ewe/route/%5B/url%5D

Most of it is awesome.

Only exceptions are: the bit from Machynlleth to the English border needs some revision, and Wenlock Edge to Cannock is dull due to lack of hills.

gee – Member
September 14th – Surrey Hills 100 mile Mtb ride.

Dare you to do it on that.

GB

Conveniently for me, I’m supporting Emily at a 10k river swim that weekend. So sorry :-)

Will figure something out off STW, though

Weight is fairly hefty at the moment. The revisions for the production version will mostly be about reducing weight.

Unfortunately, I don’t really know about costs either. This is a fairly high-end build since the parts are what I will race in Alaska. Sam was talking about sourcing some far-east hubs to be able to offer a cheaper package than using Hope. That’s not confirmed by any means, though.

gee – certainly! Maybe sometime in September?

taz – this is one of the first batch of protos, so it has had some treatments to get the crank clearance. It turns out that Tessa the beagle is not scared of angle grinders. That’s clearly another change for the production version :D

Could be a wheel out of true. If that is the cause, you’d probably be able to notice it at lower speeds, but it just might not get so out of hand until your 60kph.

I’ve certainly had that problem on mtb.

Nice one… that just saved me a few £!

Never paid in biscuits and it wasn’t local to me, but when I was on a multi-day trip and my brake started leaking fluid, I called ahead to Bike Scene in Guisborough who said they would fit me into their workshop queue so that I didn’t have to stall my trip.

It only seemed right to:

Wash all the crap off my bike before arrival
Buy them some chocolates
Pay whatever they asked (which was very reasonable)

The mechanic who did the work was really friendly, quick, and thorough. Couldn’t ask for more, so I was glad I went armed with something extra for them.

All of this obviously pales into insignificance next to the lack of veggie liquorice allsorts and marshmallows. It really is a travesty that we can more or less find the Higgs Boson, but not give veggies the finest of all sweeties!

Easily available veggie marshmallow? Tunnocks Tea Cakes. Not quite the same as marshmallows by themselves, but they don’t have gelatine and they’re easy to find.

I’ve got a Singular Swift and a Singular Kite… If I could only have one it would be the Swift.

Totally different bikes, though.

In the winter, I’ve taken to riding the Kite more because I can ride 15/20 miles to the off-road on it, only ride the trails that aren’t excessively boggy, ride home and have a good time. In the crap weather, that’s better than driving over and splashing around on the mtb for a few hours. But I wouldn’t be without the mtb because that’s the riding that actually brings the fun for me.

Since you already have a bunch of bikes, maybe a CX is the most different from what you have and therefore the best addition?

I end up trying other people’s road bike (mostly Shimano) regularly and have Campag Athena 11-speed on my own bike. Can’t argue with the performance of either Shimano or Campag but I prefer the Campag feel.

The one disadvantage is tools.

If you have some Shimano tools from MTB, you can probably use them for your Shimano road parts. Campag tools though? All kinds of wackyness. Ultra-torque cranks take a gigantic hex bolt, 11-spd chain requires a special chain tool to peen the joining pin, lock rings take a different spline to the one you might have for MTB, and so on. It seems like you can get these tools from other people (Lezyne, Park, Lifeline) cheaper than original Campag now, but it’s still a bit frustrating when you’re starting up.

Slightly different acronym here. DRSABCD

S is send for help. Doing compressions for 3 minutes, alone, is extremely tiring! D is for attach defib.

I think the most important part of a first aid kit is a phone with charge and credit – assuming you’re in a signal area.

Broken lid after a big stack sounds awful. I’m sure you did the best you could at the time. Good on ya.

Not what I was taught. If you’re going to phone an ambulance, it’s better to know the state of their breathing/circulation first. That will help the ambulance dispatcher to figure out how to prioritise you.

Try one of these shops:

http://www.singularcycles.com/dealers/%5B/url%5D

Should be able to sort you out!

Singular Osprey is a lovely bike (but I am a bit biased). Not the greatest photo, but you get the idea:

Yed is free, multi-platform, and quite handy…

http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html

Great news!

b r – Member
Based on walking/riding in Scotland, the only downside is that when the OS removes the footpaths/bridleway notation of its maps and just leave dotted lines – you’ll have no idea whether the route actually exists…

I did loads of hike-a-bike on Tuesday evening, on non-existing routes that were on the map

Plenty of BWs in Wales aren’t actual tracks on the ground for example:

I’ve had better results with “worm” style tubeless repair kits than with patches. Plus, you can put a worm in on the trailside, whereas you need to get the inside of the tyre clean before you can put a patch on.

Ones like this:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=7971

XC bike, I’d say.

There are not a lot of hills, so you need to pedal plenty to get up speed and make the most out of it.

BTW, I’m not saying MTFU. Psychological factors are just as real as physical ones.

As far as I know, frostbite has long term implications, but I’ve never heard of hypothermia doing the same.

With frostbite, you can kill the capillaries in your extremities. Afterwards, you have less blood-flow in those areas so they’ll be more likely to frostbite in the future.

A large part of how you deal with cold is psychological, so that might be a factor for you.

I’ve had frostbite myself and read a bunch of books about polar history and the medical effects of cold and never come across hypothermia as causing a long-term problem.

On the topic of suspension, I think you’d be mad to ride the Divide with suspension. Extra weight, extra point of failure, very little trail that needs it. The washboard is brutal, but I don’t think suspension will help you very much with that.

You might think it will be fine because you’ve done more than 2800 miles without it failure, but have you done that distance with no servicing? With riding in whatever the weather throws up because you’re compelled to keep moving along in the race? Think how busted people get their bikes at Mayhem…. There is clay mud on the Divide which will also clog your wheels to the point where they won’t go round, even when you’re pushing. That’s going to make a hell of a mess of a suspension bike.

When I asked another rider on year on the Divide whether he found his suspension fork useful, he said it had been locked out for almost the entire distance and he wished he had gone with rigid.

STATO – Member
Since we are well off track from talking about bags…

If you lie on your back, then you will get fabric in your face, but I sleep on my front in a bivi. If it’s raining, I zip it nearly the whole way up and turn my head to the hole.
Do you lie on your front face into the hood of the sleeping bag. I ask as my 2 bivvy bags are both drawstring types, so your ‘hole’ is at your mouth assuming your lying on your back. The one time i lay on my side (with breather hole still pointing up) the bag was full of condensation in the morning.

Yeah, apologies for taking it off the original topic, but the OP is still with us so maybe it’s OK.

The zip on my bivi goes up the side anyway, so the breathing hole is naturally on the side. If I’m going to roll over during the night, I roll the bivi and the sleeping bag with me to keep the breathing space where I need it. Having the bivi bag upside down or sideways doesn’t really make any difference (at least with my one) since it’s waterproof all-round anyway.

I guess there might be an issue depending on how you use your sleeping mat. But, unless it’s winter, I use MTFU instead of a sleeping mat anyway.

Mine is a Terra Nova Discovery Light. I think they’re quite expensive normally, but I picked it up from a bargain bin in a high street outdoor shop.

If you lie on your back, then you will get fabric in your face, but I sleep on my front in a bivi. If it’s raining, I zip it nearly the whole way up and turn my head to the hole. If it’s cold + wet, you’ll probably be done up like a mummy in your sleeping bag, so the bivi isn’t a lot more claustrophobic. I wouldn’t say it’s a 5* sleeping experience in those conditions, but it’s not the end of the world.

Using the bike as a pole for a tarp is a good point. I did try that a couple of times but, since I mostly use the bivi for racing, I’m usually too tired to want to faff around with any sort of tarp pitching anyway. It could be nice for more of a touring trip, but I wouldn’t kid myself that I was saving much weight over a tent.

I’m baffled by those hooped bivis. Worst of both worlds, if you asked me.

I’ve used my 300g bivi for well over 100 nights in England, Scotland, Wales, America, Germany, and Canada; I find the weight and volume savings very worthwhile by making the riding more enjoyable. If the weather is uncooperative, I keep riding until I can find somewhere with a little shelter to sleep.

If I were going to be relaxing more in the evenings and thinking about cooking food etc., then I’d take a lightweight tent. The only one I’ve tried is the Laser and it’s served me well.

Tarps and hooped bivis just seem to be less useful than either extreme. If you’re thinking of the Divide in particular, there will be lots of places where there are no trees to attach a tarp to. So you might want to take poles, in which case you might as well just take a tent.

What everyone else said, plus…

If you’re going to use rear panniers alone, then the bike will be horribly unbalanced. If you are going to use front panniers with a suspension fork then you’re limited to wacky solutions that look ungainly and fragile to me. In STW style, I haven’t actually tried suspension fork mounted racks, so I’m putting them down without actual experience, but that’s OK :-)

Tried that Saguaro/Crest combo once, and ended up taking the tyres back to the shop.

Not very helpful, but I feel your pain.

Pigface – Member
Cable operated discs? Why?
The areas where they get the most use snow/sand, beach, salt water not good for hydraulic discs.

And also hydraulic brakes don’t like very cold temperatures.

Definitely wouldn’t be a bike for me, but it’s good to see Salsa taking fat bikes somewhere new.

Sounds like you want a Singular Gryphon. Great ride, not too expensive. The old ones didn’t have rack mounts, but the new ones do.

Dropped-bar mtb is going to be much better than something CX-ish. The mtb will have more comfort and durability.

I finally managed to squeeze some of that experience into words…

http://www.aidanharding.com/2013/06/highland-trail-race-intro/%5B/url%5D

When you say “bivi”, if you mean in a bivi bag and you haven’t done that before, you might not get much sleep. It takes a while to get used to sleeping without even a tent around you. Don’t get me wrong, I love biving and spend more time in a bivi than a tent, but it takes some getting used to.

If I were you, I’d take a tent and get my hot meal during the day. You’re bound to pass somewhere where you can get decent food somewhere along the route. Go for that nice hot meal the first chance you get. Then carry the other food you need on the bike. Psychologically, one hot meal a day is nice, whether that turns out to be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. By not having cooking kit, you’ll save a load of weight, bulk, and faff.

From a practical point-of-view, if you’re taking a bivi bag and a tarp to guard against the weather, you’re into the same sort of weight as a tent anyway but the tent will be easier to pitch than the tarp.

I always figure that you spend most of your time riding, so having a light bike is worth skipping a few home comforts. But I am normally at the fairly ascetic end of these things.