grievoustim – I have been putting tubes in during the ride, but it’s a pretty messy process when there’s Stans liquid sloshing about. Obviously, it’s not the end of the world but so far I’ve had more of this kind of trouble than I used to get normal punctures with tubes.

Maybe I’ll try some tubeless specific tyres when I have the cash and the current ones are worn out.

you tried snooker ?

🙄

From bitter experience, I’d say valleydaddy is going to have to watch out for drybag/front-tyre incidents. Especially with a suspension fork.

If that’s OK, though, you’ve got a nice setup there!

Any reason not to go with Shimano? They’re very cheap, work well, last well, and I had no trouble adapting to them from being a long-term Time user.

£20 is difficult to argue with for dipping your toe into clipless, IMO.

Paul hit the nail on the head. Marketing is the enemy of that kind of racing unless you have a gigantic pile of cash to spend on logistics, permits, and insurance.

No, you don’t understand it, molgrips. The GDMBR is not way-marked, it is mapped. It changes every year as they try to improve the quality of the riding, switching road for off-road and boring off-road for singletrack.

Given that I’ve ridden the race, know most of the original racers, and I’m in regular contact with the organiser of the Tour Divide, I think I do know what it’s about.

molgrips – Member

I was kind of thinking of marketing it to foreigners – would be a cool way to see the various parts of the UK from a different perspective.

Marketing? You really don’t understand the Divide.

I think something more like the Colorado Trail Race would better suit the UK. More technical, less distance covered per day. It’s something that I would like to work on next year when I won’t be racing so much.

Thanks – I found some who lives in the Chilterns and can give one to me.

Who ever said Twitter was useless?

No, he’s down on the south coast… Would have been a good call a few days ago, and I ordered a cog from him just before I realised that I needed a half link as well 🙁

Arch to Arc London to Paris triathlon
Cook Strait Swim[/url] Swim from north to south island in NZ (my girlfriend has done this and the Channel)
Kepler Challenge[/url] 60 km off-road run

And I’ve done both Tour Divide and Iditarod Trail Invitational.

To follow up on flatfish’s help for Bigface, you can also get drybags with bikepacking friendly loops in them made by Sea To Summit.

I’ve never tried them, but given Alpkit’s stock, I might have to.

Nice one, Kevin. You’re several steps ahead of some TD riders who will be putting on bags for the first time in Banff!

I’m hoping to have my super-light gear well before the Welsh Ride Thing.

Don’t worry about your speed. If you can ride all day, you’ll do great. I felt pretty unfit on the start-line last year and picked up speed along the way.

I’d say the opposite to Duffer. Make sure that the areas of the tyre that are already fitted are loose and haven’t moved up to the wall of the rim.

Once the bead has got up to the edge (like when it’s inflated) it is a much tighter fit. You might need to go around the fitted bit a few times to make sure all of it is loose. I got Bonty Mud Xs onto Stans without tools, but it was tighter than Maxxis had been.

I never really appreciated how important that technique was until I started having to fit Pugsley tyres.

I always line them up, but worse than that I just changed my front tyre and now have some nagging anxiety…

Maxxis only print the tyre model on one side of the tyre. I have a bi-directional tyre on the rear, and a uni-directional tyre on the front. By chance, the logos for the tyre models have come out on opposite sides.

If they weren’t tubeless, I’d turn that rear one around! 😳

It’s very light as it’s not very built. I’m working on it now!

9 Bars! I should have some freebies to give away at the WRT (as long as Stuart doesn’t mind).

Terra Nova Laser is a great tent.

Obviously, tents are for wimps, but if you insist on using one, the Laser is a good choice. I’ve used mine all over the world with and without the bike. I even did a few multi-day walks in NZ with my girlfriend in the tent as well. It was cosy, but easy to carry.

I’m amazed at the people who think fat bikes are good for normal trails. I’ve done a fair bit of snow riding on my Pug and there is no doubt that it keeps me riding while normal bikes were reduced to pushing. Further, my 65 mm Large Marges had me pushing while riders on 80s and 100s got away.

But the Pug for normal trails? In my experience, far inferior to a normal MTB. Yes, i rode the dyfi on it because my main bike was broken but it held me back a lot. The pleasant surprise was that it wasn’t as terrible as expected but that’s not the same as good.

Riding beaches is fine but doesn’t tie into what most people I know want from mtb. You can go on an old school wilderness adventure but you won’t be getting the buzz of singletrack.

I know what I’d like to see in a UK fat bike but it would be low volume and I’ll have words in appropriate ears before blabbing it all on here.

I finished 14th in McGrath which is a long way from the rear. And I’m going to Nome which is 3 times as far as the 350 race that Shaggy was doing. It will take over 20 days and that’s why I was sleeping properly every day and not even trying to run with the top racers in the 350.

I’ve had 24 hours of rest here in McGrath and I’ll be back onto the trail today.

If you can, try before you buy. I know some people like them, but I hated mine for off-road and there are loads of other 29ers around if wheel size is the niche you’re trying to fill.

If you’re thinking of getting an Oregon GPS, go in a shop and compare it with the Dakota. The Dakota is smaller and cheaper – I’ve found it great for on the bike use.

My Thomson post is my oldest piece of bike kit. I kind of like the idea of something lighter, but if I don’t want to ride a long way standing up with the remains of my seatpost in my bag (I’m looking at you, failed FSA carbon post), then Thomson is the way to go!

Alan Sheldon won the race on a bike in 2009. Impressive doesn’t do him justice.

It is, but I’m not going to tell you where 😀

The Singular Swift worked out pretty well for me. Obviously, no braze-ons for racks but that won’t matter if you’re going to go with frame-bag/bar-bag/saddle-bag.

Or you could enquire about getting a custom Pegasus with fittings for a rack.

Edited for photo-inspiration:

There was a diversion due to landslip in the boring riverside section between the Afan centre and The Wall when I was there at the weekend. Obviously, you’re not missing much through.

And the diversions on the latter part of Skyline seem to send you down a dead-end which isn’t great. If you take the first short-cut, though, you won’t see the rubbish diversion.

The trails were running really well, though and there is plenty to go at.

Anyone know that system they used at the Kona Mash Up? Free Lap (link) has always seemed like a good idea to me. It shouldn’t really be rocket science to make the timing work.

It definitely sounds like a fun things to do. Plenty of care to be taken in getting it to work as an event, though.

It’s a bit childish (and copied from David Schneide’s twitter) but this video shows how Top Gear can check whether or not they’re being racist by simple substitution

Here (finally!) are my post-WHW thoughts:

http://www.aidanharding.com/2011/02/whw-postmortem/%5B/url%5D

I didn’t make a grand announcement as we don’t have entries or the fancy website sorted yet but thanks for posting it up Blackhound. It’s definitely in September!

Somehow, I think the northerners will cope with the beer. They’re all poor and like free beer, right? 😉

Try dropping the nose of your saddle a bit.

Like the others say, being on a static bike accentuates any problems that might not even show up when you’re riding in real life. I’ve had my saddle “wrong” for rides of over ten hours that involved lots of moving around, then realised on the same duration but moderate trails that the nose was too high and causing me pain. A slight adjustment and things were fine.

Oh, go on then:

What do you mean by how did I build it? Sam sent the frame, and I used allen keys… that was about it.

Nice looking bike Terry!

Going back a bit, I used Hope Pro 2s where I had cleaned all of the grease from the freehub for Iditarod. Worked fine for me but it didn’t get as cold as it could that year.

Thanks, guys.

I’m not planning on doing it again. I didn’t really enjoy it as a ride. I don’t mind pushing my bike a bit, but Loch Lomond was plain silly.

TBH, I wouldn’t recommend the ride at all. I know some people will try to make it (like I did) just because it hasn’t been done. But, for me, I’ve seen it and would rather do other things instead of going back to the WHW.

I’ll be writing up the sorry saga fully some time soon, but here’s the short story:

The first bit was fast. Conic Hill had some sheet ice over the rocks so it was picky to push up and required some pushing down. Loch Lomond wasn’t unduly affected by weather, but was hard work with a loaded fat bike. After Tyndrum was OK for a bit, but foggy. Visibility of 4-5m and solid ice on the trail in places made me walk bits that I would otherwise ride, but most of it was do-able.

After Orchy things got a bit scary. Visibility of about 2m and frozen fog on everything. A good-looking surface (gravel with small stones embedded) had me spun through 90 degrees and going sideways down the trail. I couldn’t even push the bike on the trail at that point – couldn’t stand up anywhere but on the heather. That was where I thought things were getting silly.

There was nothing to do but keep edging around the heather, though. I got out of the fog heading across to the Glencoe ski centre in good conditions. But, I had decided by then that the double was going to be physically beyond me. The question was, how much risk to take and feel like I’d had a good innings?

I bailed at Glencoe. If the Devil’s Staircase had been as bad as some earlier trail conditions, I’d have been in a really hazardous situation. One that I couldn’t justify to mountain rescue if they had to risk themselves to save me.

Looking back, I feel like I gave up too easily, but it’s easy to think that from the warm. I think I could have got to Ft William some time before daylight, but at least I haven’t broken anything before Iditarod.

A couple of notes regarding risks: I did break a spoke on the front wheel hopping around rocks on the edge of Loch Lomond. I also skidded nearly the entire length of a bridge when I saw how it dropped away at the far side; couldn’t lose enough speed so I had to commit and flat-landed a 3 ft drop unseen.

There are some photos here:

http://www.aidanharding.com/gallery/?album=1&gallery=5

Hi folks, thanks for the good wishes.

Yes, I’m doing the whole thing, including carrying. The bike itself is not as heavy as you might think – the equipment will make it heavier, but not impossible.

I have no real idea of how long it will take in winter. I’ll have about 48 hours of food and over 24 hours of lighting with me so we’ll see what’s possible.

trail_rat – I was going to go last weekend but I spent the first week of January quite ill and I couldn’t eat for about a week. It put everything back a bit, but I’m OK now!

Ace, can you keep a seat warm for me? I might be a bit busy at the end of February.

oldgit – I don’t know if you remember but I think we rode together once at Woburn when I was temporarily living in Bedfordshire.

Anyhow, it’s difficult to say how you could change your footing without seeing you riding. Everything is connected and some people will swear blind that they’re doing the right thing until they see photo/video evidence that they’re not!

Having itchy feet as you approach something that’s psyching you out is pretty normal and might have nothing to do with your feet at all. It could be as simple as running your tyres too hard.

Oops.. double post

I’ve seen a fat tandem in “action”. The action was mostly walking. Twice the weight on the same contact patch doesn’t work particularly well if you’re going to use it in snow.

If you like fat tyres for normal conditions, though, it could be fun.