I’ll be there in the Singular team. Should be fun… will probably hurt.

I had an Endura Stealth. It was nice but it started to wet through within a season. Fine if you’re riding and still making heat, not so fine if you have a mechanical, a slow group, or an injury.

I went back to hard-shell Goretex jackets after that. No such problems.

Gore Bike Wear stuff has seen me right. I use a Paclite jacket and then layers underneath. Flexible, waterproof, small to pack down.

I’m sure Mr Murdoch has created the campaign of using existing routes and information, rather than really providing anything new, giving out tabards emblazoned with Sky branding, and used his media companies to promote the events purely through philanthropic altruism.

You are wrong.

I have given cycling safety training to numerous people who are new to cycling and (re)started riding their bikes through Sky Rides. They are inclusive, safe, and well organised. They give people the confidence to go out and ride on the roads in a controlled environment, then spread their wings to make more journeys by bike after the event.

The routes of the Sky Rides are chosen to so that all the road users can get along.

The contrast between that and CM is huge.

If you must ride around central London, why not do it at 10pm when the streets are quieter and you can enjoy it more?

I’ve guided a charity ride on a 100km loop around London that started at 11pm, it was like riding in an alternative fantasy London with no cars. It was fun. It was more like a celebration of cycling than being shouted at by people who just want to get home from work.

Bibs and waterproof baggies.

Bibshorts alone for comfort during most riding.

Baggies for in-town modesty.

Baggies are also waterproof for grit-free arse in wet weather riding.

And when you reach a tea room in foul weather, you can strip off all the goretex and sit down without spreading mud all over their doilies.

USE have some prototype carbon rims that look nice (well, round and shiny at least).

No idea when they’ll be out or if they’ll be at Eurobike…

No-one ever seems to agree with me (except fuzzhead this time) but I use SRAM 9 speed chains. Whichever one is cheapest at the time.

Cross-compatibility with other riders and easily available spares if required. Never had a problem with them.

Pre-race coaching sounds like a good idea and I know some events do it, but what is possible really depends on where you’re starting from.

Someone who has been riding for a long time and needs incremental improvements needs quite individual attention. Typically, it’s about breaking bad habits and making subtle refinements. So a coach needs to watch them closely to give good feedback. And that means a small ratio of coach : riders.

Getting the very basics for someone who has done hardly any mountain biking is much less subtle and can usually be done with more riders per coach. It only gets more complicated where confidence issues come in.

That’s why the coaching sessions at races are usually aimed at kids/beginners.

(I do work as a coach sometimes, but not generally in the summer as I need to race/train at the weekends)

Well thats all well and good but Big Dog is packed full of comparatively mediocre riders like myself. We, I guess should ride through the foliage well off the racing line to let the race snakes through.

Sounds reasonable – do we get a discount?

Not sure if that’s in response to me but…

I wouldn’t want anyone to significantly hamper their ride to let me past (which is pretty much what Gee was saying, too). The onus is on the faster rider to find a way to make it work, or the pair of you to negotiate something that works for both of you.

If you have to stop/dismount, though, then the first thing you should do is check behind and give way to people who are still riding. If someone’s been following you for a while when that happens, you really ought to give way. It’s just basic riding etiquette.

I do feel bad about being unfriendly to the chap afterwards, though. Ultimately, we’re not racing for life-changing positions and there are lots of uncontrollable variables so it’s not a big deal.

Let’s not sour what was an awesome ride. It was well organised, had a great soundtrack, and was fun to ride.

What a great event… I haven’t really been enjoying riding in the past few weeks and BBD turned that around. Great atmosphere and a fun course.

Don’t know if he’s on here, but I do owe one of the slower riders (red jersey, riding a Cotic) an apology :oops:

In my defence, we were 2nd in the team event and only a few minutes off first…

Slow rider held me up for a while on the 2nd-last descent and I just stayed behind because there was nowhere to pass. Then he stopped dead on a root across the trail. I managed to avoid crashing into the back of him, but he didn’t let me past. I asked if I could get by when he had the chance, and he finally did move out on a wider corner, stopping to let me through. But then his rear wheel swung back out into my path as I rode through, knocking my bars out-of-line. I passed, carried on a bit, stopped to straighten them, then passed him a bit later.

Wasn’t very polite to him after the lap when he suggested I tighten my bars :(

TBH, I was still a bit fired up from the lap.

Generally, people were really good out there, and I either ask nicely or just tell them where I’m going if I’m heading off-line to get past.

Give yourself a bit of time to adjust. After a couple of years riding rigid, I’m finding it hard to pop over stuff with a suspension fork – just a different technique.

It also takes a while for your tendons to get used to riding rigid.

And my rigid Surly 1×1 and Karate Monkey were just awful for me. Restricted my riding to the point that I didn’t enjoy it as much. Rigid Singular Swift has been excellent and only really held back on very rocky trails where it gets so rough that I can’t actually see the trail for all the shaking.

Not all rigid bikes/forks are equal. If you wanted to start riding rigid, it would pay to try a few. If you’re just waiting to get your forks fixed, it’s just going to suck for a while.

suitably resourced campaign to back it up

This is important. Current funding in a London Borough that I worked in covered about 1/3 of the school children there for quiet roads. Virtually no funding for the advanced course on busy roads e.g. specifically covering not passing vehicles on the inside. Since it causes so many casualties, it’s something I always try to mention, but it’s not on the syllabus so if you are short of time or have badly behaved kids, it might not make it in there.

And the award of council contracts is a race-to-the-bottom on funding, driving anyone who has any sense to get out of being an instructor and do something where you can make a living.

Personally, I think it would be great to put all children on the course in Primary, and then again (for the advanced stuff) in Secondary.

Even with the modest resources we had, though, many parents didn’t want their children to take part. Either because they didn’t want them out of lessons, or they didn’t want to make the bike roadworthy (even though we would fix them), or maybe they just thought the whole thing was pointless.

How about going touring? Riding an ambitious mileage every day can really kick your fitness up and your weight down.

At 15mph, you could easily do 100 miles a day when you’ve got all day to do nothing but ride. 5 days, you could get a nice 500 mile route in with B&Bs every night to keep it comfortable.

Once you’ve got that fitness, it makes “training” easier because you already feel strong and that helps with the mental side.

For a couple of hours? The same as if it’s not raining but with a waterproof jacket in case of trouble.

For an all-day ride? Waterproof jacket + waterproof shorts + moderating my effort a bit to avoid overheating.

That BikeFit was ok but they left her with a Thomson Post, Deda stem and an Enve bar.

Have they not read the rules?

It was all matching Enve stuff when she went in. Working like that, you could do the fitting for free and make all your profit on eBay!

3000 miles on tubeless Maxxis Ikons for me so far this year (rigid Singular Swift 29er)… Great in everything but claggy mud.

EXO version, tubeless. Great stuff.

I didn’t really get on with Ardents or Small Block 8s. Ardents were a bit unpredictable for me; SB8s fragile.

hopefully UK will be THE cycling nation in a couple of years!!

An American was asking what the riding will be like and it made me realise what we’ve got over – incredibly diverse riding in quite a small area. Which is fantastic!

You got 3 riders.. You’re no Pat Adams are you?

I think I had 10 riders at one point :-)

At least no-one’s going to accuse me of having expensive entry fees!

Hi Chris,

Thanks!

Regarding the elitist nature of it, this kind of thing would probably be impossible if you had to see permission from every land owner who thinks they deserve to be notified. We can kind of dodge the issue by keeping the numbers (and therefore, the impact) small. So, when there is a “mass” start, it is good to prevent that from becoming a big crowd.

Nothing to stop people from riding it by themselves (ITT) or in a small group on any other date if they want to go at a slower pace.

I just spoke to them on the phone and they said that you need to change your browser settings to accept cookies from their site.

I’ve checked that but still no joy.

It’s definitely happening. Down to a small riding group of myself, Rob Dean, and Steve Heading.

I don’t think it puts 3x South Downs into being tame. It’s a different game when you’re going to be out there for days on end. There isn’t the scope to run yourself as hard as the 3x South Downs guy did, or as 24hr solo guys do.

It just different.

But it will be hard.

And, from the looks of things, pretty wet.

I’m just in the process of sorting out the details of the tracking with Trackleaders[/url]

It would be cool to say hi if you see us out on the trail, but riding with support (even the emotional support of someone accompanying you for a bit) isn’t really in the spirit of the ride.

I will try to keep an eye on this thread if anyone has any questions.

£1300 for the weekend for a field to park in, plus access to woods enough for a 7 mile course was what I paid last year.

A couple of alternatives were a little less, but £1000 or so seemed to be the general area.

Here’s a photo to help you out, but I’m not in the Midlands…

Great bike!

I have a Paclite Path and used to have an Alp X.

The Path folds up a lot smaller but I do miss the drop-tail and the nicer collar. If I could have either right now, I’d pick the Path because it is easier to pack away. If I didn’t care so much about packing size, I’d have the Alp X.

The “windproof that dries fast” is a fine technique if you never have to walk out in the pouring rain. In my experience, soft shells, windproofs, and other highly breathable fabrics are great until you have a mechanical and/or injury. Then you can get really cold really fast. In their place, they’re great. In remote places, I’d always take a Goretex/eVent 100% waterproof shell, event if I do risk sweating in it.

Interestingly I don’t think there were ANY 29ers being raced at the Downhill World Cup in Fort William the same weekend.

I didn’t see any DH bikes at the BMX park the other week… Your point?

I once suggested to a magazine that they should do a “secret rider” column in the same way as The Guardian have a secret footballer.

Said magazine didn’t seem interested, but I think it would be good.

MidlandTrailquestsGraham – Member

…the fact all the top end riders are getting pushed the 29r sponsored bikes at the moment…

Not everyone on the podium gets a free bike from their sponsor.

I think I had the cheapest bike on the SS podium. (Not that I’m complaining)

Quite a bit of misguided information here, IMO (and I’ve ridden the Divide twice).

The Divide has superb resources (maps, blogs, experienced riders) for planning things. Even on a daily basis, you can look ahead and figure out your resupply options. That makes a gigantic difference compared to some of the less well-known routes.

The Divide is mostly made up of very easy trails. The climbs are mostly moderate gradients and there is hardly any technical riding.

For me, two things make it interesting:

The broad expanses of North American country – big skies and mountains on an epic scale.

Racing it as fast as damn possible.

But people fret too much. I rode the Divide the first time in June 2010 and my training started in March 2010. I’d spent Jan + Feb in New Zealand getting hardly any exercise.

If you really intend to do it, set yourself an aggressive goal: Go next year. Otherwise it’ll just be in the long grass forever.

Have to agree about the chaos at the start. Someone even moved my bike further up the hill so it took me a while to find and then it was a tricky job working through the crowd of riders/runners/flappers.

Still, that was only a couple of minutes in an otherwise fun 12 hours.

Did you go to the marquee to ask about your prizes? It wasn’t very obvious, but they had a big stack of stuff there.

I ended up with a Muc-Off kit and a 5 Nm torque wrench. Not the best prize ever, but better than nothing.

Thanks monkeyboyjc – Do you mind if I post a couple of your photos on my blog?

Despite some doom-sayers before the event, I found people very courteous on the course (on both sides of the overtaking).

Esther will take some beating in ladies section.

My money would be on Tracey Petervary – very tough lady.

Non-biking: Seeing that one of the big names in my field carried on the work I started with my PhD.

Biking: Fist singlespeed finish in the Iditarod 1000 mile race (2nd place overall).

Good luck to him, it’s going to be tough.

To those who are grumbling about a 3-way (ha!), the only reason to ever care what other people think about your challenges is if you are sponsored up to the eyeballs and/or a career adventurer.

Guys like this get more respect from me, they do it because they want to.

MTB Morph here, too. The only mini pump that can cope with snow bike tyres :-)

Lezyne road mini-pumps are great, but the screw-on hose has a nasty habit of taking the valve core out of tubeless MTB tyres.

Rule 1: Don’t be a dick

I’m sure I’ve heard that one somewhere before[/url] :-)

And jameso is in danger of making me blush.

A couple of contributions

Shock pressures are not to be adjusted on a group ride.

Listen. To nature, to the other riders, to your bike. No-one wants to hear your mouth flapping all day

Maxxis EXOs are my tyre of choice for tubeless.

The last set I did was Ikon EXOs on Crest 29ers: fitted and sealed without even needing washing up liquid. Added some sealant in case of punctures: rode!

Having an SD card slot and therefore proper maps makes navigation much easier.

e.g. you can see that the trail you’re looking for is the one just after the end of the woods, or it doesn’t cross the river yet, or (on road) it’s the second turning not this one here.

Magic line with no background works, but (for me) involves more backtracking. And doesn’t allow you to improvise as well.

I thought the 20 also has an electronic compass in it which helps to solve the usual GPS problem where the device doesn’t know which direction it’s facing until you move forward a bit.

I wouldn’t say the cycling specific ones are better at cycling, but they do have training features if you like that sort of thing.

Oh, and if you do get one, consider Open Steetmaps as a money-saving alternative to OS. Works well for me most places.

I thought the conventional wisdom was to do the opposite?

Start on just water for the first hour (to encourage the body into burning fat), then move onto solid foods + water, then onto energy drinks once your body get’s to the point it can’t deal with solids anymore?

FWIW I reckoned Jelly Babies were the worst ‘energy’ thing for cramp, at least chcolate gives you something to chew on/taste and let’s you feel full for a while even if it’s not efficient way of taking on energy. Next on my list of things to try are jam sandwiches, but I’ve not figured out how people store them without making a sticky mess!

Straying off the original topic, but…

The key word in that statement was unsupported. If you want to stop and muck around putting powder into your bottles during an unsupported endurance event, you’re welcome to do that but you will get passed.

I’m going to be carrying water anyway, and if I’m carrying 24 hours or more of food then I might as well have some energy in my first 2 bottles at almost zero cost. Plus, if you can pull out a lead in the first few hours (by not having to faff), you can mess with the heads of the other racers.

Later on, you’re more likely to have difficulty with your stomach. Your body isn’t generally used to taking on calories in energy drinks so your normal mechanisms (like feeling full) can go a bit wrong. Next thing you know, you’re puking up on the side of the trail.

Energy products are great if: You’re already lean; you’re used to using them; you can afford them; and you’re racing hard enough to win.

They are absolutely not necessary and I wouldn’t be surprised if their improper use leads to more problems than they solve.

PS don’t get overly worried about sports products. Unless you expect to win the race, mars bars etc. are fine.

On the whole, you should be having energy drink OR solid food.

Both together is a bad cocktail. To echo GregMay’s comment, the recommended mix for energy drinks is usually at the limit of what your stomach can absorb. If you put solid food in as well, you’re overloading yourself.

For long unsupported events, I start with 2 bottles of energy drink and then switch to water. For events where I have easy access to energy drink, I do 3/4 hours on energy drink, then an hour of water + real food, then see how I feel. If I feel hungry from there, more solid food + water. If not, more energy drink.