LEL was the first Audax I entered, but will be the 20th ridden.

(I got a place in the early entry last year. Also managed to grab a BCM place and to be honest I’m more worried about that one.)

I use two rear lights and carry a third (a 27g Petzl E-lite which can show red or white).

Being out on country roads in sudden freezing fog with no rear light would really suck.

Looks like they have just been renamed to “g one speed” but nothing else has changed.

whitecitadel – haven’t tried G-Ones but have been running One Pros and S-Ones on my Tripster.

Both are nice and fast, and I have put about a thousand miles on the S-Ones with little wear apart from one puncture (fixed with a tubeless repair kit and good for 200 miles so far).

I was tempted by some G-ones for summer exploring but honestly i think I’ll just stick to the S-ones as they are great off road when it’s dry.

The anchovie held up fine for 200km of mixed road and bridleway today – thanks! £40 saved.

By “racing” I think they mean stuff like the Transcontinental Race rather than urban fixed gear crits, no?

Can’t race a TT bike in every competition either even though no one would quibble that they are race bikes.

Following Google cycling directions I was sent up Pitchfont Lane on a wet day on a road bike. So that gets my vote.

Oh, and my personal favourite: riding 1m behind me whilst I’m gingerly trying to get past the snake of riders in both directions, with other traffic and parked cars, leaving me with the choice of either letting him smash into the back of me or for me to drive into others for his benefit.

Why were you trying to overtake cyclists in an area that sounds massively unsuitable for overtaking? :-/

It is a national forest not a motorway. Going slowly and being patient so that others can enjoy their day out is just part of the deal if you chose to drive through it.

At 100rpm 50×11 is about 36mph vs 33mph for 50×12.

So you might need the gear depending on your natural cadence.

Might swap out the 30c S-One’s (33mm wide on my Grails!) for something faster now. Hearing bad reliability reports for the Pro-One’s – can anyone here comment?

I’ve got 30c S-Ones on my winter/exploring wheels and 25c Pro-Ones on my summer wheels. I’ve put a bit more than 1500 miles on both sets with no issues.

They both ride well and are both far better than the Sector 28s I tried before. Very easy to set up as well.

you could go XT with drop bar RS785 shifters (hydraulic a must for me).

This is probably how my Tripster will end up when I wear out my Di2 road FD/RD. I have RS785 brakes at the moment and they are fantastic.

Depends what your riding I suppose, and how long its uphill, I can climb the big hill on local MTB route I ride on 24/22 (1.09), and 30/32 gives 0.983 – but that’s not “repeated hills” as you suggest.

I like riding this kind of thing[/url] as well as 200-400km/day touring :-)

(I also got my numbers wrong – the front is a normal Ultegra compact which is 50/34 giving an effective ratio of 1.06.)

Of course if you went di2 with MTB shifters you could run a triple!

What I really want is to gain 100W on my FTP and lose 5-10kg…

whitecitadel: di2 on a tripster is also great because you can add shifters too the ends of your aerobars. Great for long-distance bike packing.

I’d fit MTB gears if starting from scratch. 30/32 is too high for repeated 20% hills and a fully loaded bike unless you are *very* fit.

I’m taking the Portsmouth -> St Malo, Caen -> Portsmouth ferry route one weekend in September.

Cabins seem fairly cheap – I’m sure I’ll find there’s a reason for that! It works out at about £100-150/pp including bikes.

But it does makes it possible to save a couple of holiday days and/or cram 32 hours of pedaling into one weekend.

The tentative plan is to head up to tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula then make my way down to Caen via the D-Day beaches.

Worth checking if the Ultegra groupsets are still on sale at Merlin for c.£650. Then you could splash out on two sets of Hunt wheels – one with cheaper tyres for abuse, and one with S-Ones for winter training.

Thanks matts!

I set my Tripster up for the forthcoming wet weather with Ultegra Di2, 30mm S-Ones and mudguards. Then the heatwave hit :lol:

I’ve used the XTR Di2 battery holder which is fairly neat and avoided the need to drill out any parts of the frame (the lower junction is incorporated into the battery holder). Clearance for mudguards is much better than before because the FD no longer interferes.

I still need to re-run and tidy up a bit of the cabling and tweak the length of the rear mudguard stays.

Any ideas on how to shorten the front hydraulic break hose? This might be a job for a good LBS.

dmc I’ve decided to build it up using the Di2 internal battery, mounted in an external SM-BTC1 battery mount.

https://www.evanscycles.com/shimano-sm-btc1-external-battery-case-for-sm-btr2-EV222009

It looks a lot neater than the old external options (because the lower junction is built into the battery holder) and involves no frame drilling!

Will post photos when complete.

Looks like you had your Di2 fitted internally – got any more pictures of the set up?

It would also be interesting to know which frame bag and bottle cages you were using for LeJog!

A few versions of the London-Edinburgh-London Audax route are available on-line and would make a pretty good starting point.

The Strava routing tool works fairly well but it likes major A roads in London, because lots of commuters use them and it seeks out hills so you need to check it’s road selection using something like http://www.brianfolts.com/driver/

A lot of the London Audaxes get hundreds of riders and would get more if the organizers were willing to deal with the hassle.

E.g. 400 for Great Escape in May, 360 started the Ditchling Devil in June and all 1,500 places will sell out for London-Edinburgh-London in 2017.

If you are going to start your event from somewhere that isn’t London you would naturally expect to attract fewer people because you don’t have an audience of millions close by. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try!

Has anyone tried Schwalbe S-One tires on Kinesis CX rims?

I’m thinking about making a few tweaks for long-distance Autumn/Winter riding:

– External Ultegra Di2
– S-Ones
– PDW guards
– 46cm wide bars (currently 42cm) to help fight cross-winds and give more space for aerobars

If anyone has done similar would love to know.

Any suggestions for the best 700c tyre for fast touring in September/October?

My navigation due diligence isn’t wonderful so I frequently find myself bombing down steep, wet hills and then turning off onto muddy tracks for the climb back out of the valley.

Recommendations for equipment that can cope with this kind of idiocy would be very welcome.

My frame will take 40c under mudguards, and I’d prefer tubeless – currently running 700x35c Schwalbe CX Comp tyres with tubes and actually they aren’t too bad except in deep mud.

For those that asked – I now have 25mm Schwalbe Pro Ones fitted to my Hunt Wheels and love them.

Very low rolling resistance and high levels of confidence on pothole strewn gravel roads. Lovely.

For mudguard fitting I used a M5 bolt from a spring toggle – only one I could find that was long enough!

I got the spring toggle from Screwfix, some rubber washers from a plumbing store to protect the carbon fork, and I had an assortment of compatible nuts and washers lying around.

I’m using them with such different tires that I can’t fairly compare them to my old CX wheels.

No problems yet though and they do look good. Hunt customer service is lovely.

I have now done more than 2,000 miles on my Tripster.

I’ve also done enough miles on Sector 28s to be sure that I’m going to swap them for Conti 4 Seasons the second they wear out.

@MTB Rob @matts I have an Apidura saddle bag for clothes, and I found a Altura Transit Lite Bar Bag which has more of an aero shape for stuff I need to hand (like batteries and food).

Unfortunately it takes up a lot of bar space and I’m not sure it’ll work with aerobars, so I will probably switch to a top tube bag (like a fuel tank) or something else for multi-day stuff.

That 105 groupset is a pretty good deal – nearly £200 cheaper than the Merlin Ultegra group. ( https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-ultegra-6800-disc-brake-groupset-83417.html )

Are you going to use a flat-mount adapter? And if so, which one?

Running 11×32 on a 36 x52 chainset no problems long cage mech, for the last 12 months never missed a beat !!! Drilled the frame to suit again no problems dc

What did you have to drill? Mounting points for the battery holder? Or the hanger?

Have been offered a really good deal on the last set of R785 Di2 road shifters in a LBS.

You can use any Di2 shifters with any mech, but you can’t mix and match the front and rear mech – they both have to be road or both XTR.

Has anyone tried a Tripster frame using a XTR Di2 front mech with a road compact double?

Or, has anyone tried using a Di2 road rear mech with a 11-32 cassette on a Tripster? Apparently max cassette size depends in part on the dropouts and length of the mech hanger so it is frame specific.

Tripster is just about to have a facelift with internal cables and flat mount disc brakes- but it is going up by a few hundred pounds.

Might make the current (externally routed) frame even more of a good deal then if some offers pop up.

Merlin has a compatible full-hydro Ultegra groupset for £620

https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-ultegra-6800-disc-brake-groupset-83417.html

I have mine Tripster built up with this and it is fantastic.

bluesmartie: I have the first every pair of Mason X Hunt 4 seasons wheels on my Tripster ATR you won’t be disappointed.

I took them out for a test run yesterday, fitted with tubeless Sector 28s, and they are lovely.

The new set up is much more comfortable and seems to be more efficient (not least because of the removal of 1/2kg of rotating weight) – new PRs all over the place, including up Swain’s Lane.

ATRthanks – re tyres, off-road I use 42mm Continental Crossrides, which I’m really pleased with.

Cheers! I will take a look at fitting them to my old Kinesis wheelset for off-road use. Have you managed to squeeze them under mudguards?

There’s plenty of us with them

No kidding, there were three Tripsters (out of about 10 bikes) on my Audax last weekend.

Most of the rest were Genesis of some description :D

My Hunt 4Seasons Disc wheels and tubeless tyres are due for delivery on Monday! Hoping to shave almost half a kilo of weight compared to the current set up.

Any thoughts on how much difference a good set of tires makes?

At the moment I’m running some (very) cheap 35mm Schwalbe tires, with heavy sealant-filled inner tubes and I’m not terribly comfortable off-road. Other contributing factors might be narrow bars, clip-less pedals, and my relative lack of off-road experience.

Would I notice a lot of difference by swapping to 36mm tubeless Clement X’Plors? It’s a fairly pricey change but I’d be happy to do it if it is worthwhile.

I think someone here has tried 40mm tires under PDW guards.

Mine are 35mm and as you can see there’s quite a lot of space left – this is the back, but clearance under the fork is similar:

Ohh, this looks good:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/sram-red-etap-aero-groupset/

Means I could keep my Shimano hydraulic brakes, and remove all of the gear cabling. (No internal cable routing for DI2 on my frame.)

Wonder if it’ll work with a Shimano cassette & compact crank.

I have a USE SX Seat Post Shim 31.6 – fits fine so maybe they’ve changed something this year.

Here’s my Tripster with 5800 mech, 42mm SKS guards fitted over 32mm tyres. Loads of clearance

Here is what 6800 looks like with 45mm PDW guards fitted over 25mm tyres.

Required an extra spacer at the chainstay bridge to stop it interfering but as you can see it fits fine now.

cloudnine: thank you! Unfortunately the PDW guards have gone up from £40/set to £75/set as presumably everyone is now thinking about mudguards! At that price I’ll suffer a wet behind and wait and see if they go back down a bit.

velosam: the tripster frame weight 1.5kg – how much dos your Burls frame weigh?

There is a 700g difference between 105 and Ultegra. Muguards weigh up to half a kilo. Dyno hubs are at least 300g heavier than standard hubs. Cheap SPD pedals are 250g heavier than XTR ones. Doesn’t take much to add on a few kg.

I’m down 20kg since I started cycling so the difference between 9kg and 14kg is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. I go up Box Hill without using the bottom three gears now – when I started last year I had to walk up anything bigger than an anthill :-D

My new way to feel like a beginner is to take my Tripster off-road. Last weekend I slid gently into a wall thanks to some muddy cobbles. I have SPD’s fitted and I start to panic when I hit mud because I know I’m going to fall off while clipped in. Any tips on how to deal with that?