There were very few parts of the Newcastleton course where you could just cruise along sat down to get a little respite. It didn’t help that there was a massive amount of climbing/decending which meant being out the saddle a lot. Being on the full suss would have allowed me to sit down on sections where usually I would have had to hover over the saddle due to the terrain.
Monkey, my Titus motolite set at 100mm and built with light wheel/tyres would have been my prefered bike now in hindsight! For shorter races its naturally a different story. If I had the budget though the Santa-cruz 29’er Tall-boy would be my wish-list bike for that course.
As for training, I mile munched through the winter mud and then worked back from the event with a 12 week schedule. I concentrated most of my training to slow burning, long rides of up to 8hrs.
Have fun, don’t get me wrong I still certainly enjoyed it on the Lynskey!