Relive my experience of the weekend here

It was tougher but also more fun than I expected what with everything being so wet, some great sketchy descents!

Used to have lovely thin unbranded one for tools and tube and food till it fell apart. Didn’t get on with Camelbak with reservoir, wouldn’t sit tight against back. Now just use pockets as much as possible, an acceptable compromise.

Weight on hips feels sooo much better in XC. Less sweaty.

Photos gradually appearing here: CAC

700-odd from day 1 so far

There’s a guy falling off who looks very like me but must be my long lost twin

I found that an oblong DT Swiss valve wasn’t wide enough to cover the hole left by a round Stan’s valve, so maybe the rubber on your valve is a bit deformed? A little rubber washer should do the trick

My conclusion is that unholed Sealskinz socks are great against the odd puddle and spray but cannot cope with serious MTB wetness, presumably this is because they’re breathable

The gloves work well though as they don’t get the same hammering from puddles

Have hugely enjoyed both the previous rounds. They’re small-scale events so no categories. Given recent weather, expect a little mud and the odd puddle. Fun, fast descents, nothing mental. A full range of abilities represented. Relaxed vibe.

I’ll give the organiser a nudge to send out some info, he’s probably been out dogging digging 🙂

Any specific questions, feel free to ask!

Underneath all the crap it’s an On One Whippet

Bought very second hand for £500 two years ago and has since done another 5,000km, half of them with rigid forks

Most recently broke the Trans Cambrian Way record

Amazing XC race bike cum all-purpose training bike for those wet Welsh winters

Thanks everyone for the tips. I’ve bought one from Beerbabe, it’s just the right size and it’s coped with the wet to date, looking good!

buy what you want

Thank you

Red Kite Events winter series in Llanwrtyd, mid Wales. Good muddy fun.
Marginally north of southern Northampton.

frame is here

The one at my local garage costs 20p

@Carlos: To avoid congestion, pedal faster! Worked well for me right up until the first puncture…

Great event again. Thanks all.

Thanks

Idiot frame bag question: If attached at rear, don’t you lose a bottle? If attached at front, don’t your knees catch on it?

PS re JanDD – Swedish site says out of stock anyway

Thanks guys, but those bags look very much like the cheap Lidl and Dunlop ones I’ve used to date, and some reviews on Wiggle suggest they too are prone to the stitching going.

Has anybody used one offroad several hours a week throughout a wet muddy Welsh winter? I wonder if I’m just asking too much…

Top-of-the-range Smörgåsbord blew up tubeless with just a gust of wind which was nice, nice sticky compound, seems quite tough, a bit heavy and feels a bit draggy on smooth stuff, but got me right across Wales pretty quickly without any problems

Ideal winter training tyre for natural stuff on the SS I think

Oh, sod it, I’m going to stand up and be counted:

****** I love trail centres – they’ve changed my life!!! *****

I love the way they are designed specifically to put a smile on your face, I love how the ups will always be rewarded with exhilarating downs, I love knowing that the trail design will probably rescue me when I get things wrong, and that I will probably not die of exposure if it doesn’t, I love being able to ride without being attacked by brambles and without having to stop constantly to open gates and check the map, I love the fact that almost all of them are entirely free to use (how lucky are we?), and how the latest pump-track style trails make my kids (and me) very happy, I could go on.

As it happens, I probably ride “natural” trails more, but then they’re cool too.

Oh, and while I’m at it:

***** I love Strava – it’s also changed my life!!! *****

Wow, I feel so much better already. And cheaper than a therapist.

Those things are annoying, it is true, but not half as bad as your average Welsh farm gate that is chained shut and held together with baling twine and barbed wire so you can’t open it or climb over it without losing key body parts

Trail centres don’t have any £$*&£$*** gates

In Wales, check out the Dyfi Winter Warm Up (late January), the Dyfi Enduro (May), Red Kite Events (one in early January), MTB Marathon (all summer)

Coed y Brenin Enduro is coming up in October but not much natural stuff, more trail centre based

Cross Mountain in November is non-tech XC I think

Clive Powell does various informal nav-based events

I’d particularly recommend the Warm Up

FAGE Greek yoghurt with 10% protein – 17g of it in a small pot, 50g in a big pot, available from your local supermarket

Much tastier and more natural than powdered shakes

What happened?

LOL Weeksy

If you mean the Brecon Beacons, your main problem will be 1,000 riders doing the Beast event…

Never ridden there but the place was dead in summer 20 years ago.
Shouldn’t be any snow there in September.
Remember everything in Sweden is bloody expensive.

FWIW my experience of the weldtite kit is that
(1) it’s near-impossible to use (threading that sticky strip through the eye of the needle is hard enough with tools in the workshop, I wouldn’t want to try it up a mountain in the rain)
(2) it only works if the hole isn’t very big
(3) if you are a tight bugger like me and only use half a strip they do eventually work their way out

🙂

(I probably wouldn’t have stopped on a hot lap before Strava either…)

I have the 2013 Cube Elite HPC, just had a frame replacement as the carbon dropouts disintegrated on the old one, but that was quick release. New frame is bolt-through so that shouldn’t happen. Took 3 months for Cube to sort it… Had its maiden run today. Felt good. Took 3 minutes off my previous best round the Raven in Brechfa so can’t complain! (Well I can, didn’t get the KOM!)
Mine is (well, was) full XTR. 30 gears are too many IMO. Very shiny though.
Nicest bike I’ve ever had, but then the next nicest was an On One Whippet with Deore, so make of that what you will! The Cube is fast, climbs well, descends well. I don’t find the big wheels cumbersome at all, they roll noticeably more smoothly on rougher stuff. I have previously ridden large frames, the Cube is a medium and fits well. The longer Whippet does climb better though.
Not massive clearance between wheel and seat tube. Crap goes straight into where the front shifter cable emerges from the frame (if you have a front shifter). We’ve bodged a rubber boot to keep some of it out. The internal cabling is neat but a bit of a pain when changing cables. The cable routing isn’t ideal, cables and outers need changing regularly. The DT hubs don’t have much protection against muddy water either. That said, I do an awful lot of miles in crappy conditions it being Wales.
Word is Nick Craig isn’t impressed with Cube’s carbon. Something about polishing a turd I seem to recall!!
Can’t think of anything else to say. I do love it but it ain’t perfect.

Gary – Strava is here – is that enough?
You might well have done most of it before – drop down to Strata Florida then the Tywi Track with all the fords. From there we went to the Doethie by road because my guidee was knackered, it was getting late and we had to hit 130km so he could claim his sponsorship money! The alternatives would be up the Devil’s Staircase and then south through the forest, with a couple of options to drop down to the road, or take the bridleway by the river past the youth hostel but I’ve never tried that so don’t know if it is rideable.
If you’re planning another ride down this way and want some company, get in touch!

Mudtrek in Brechfa Forest in Wales has an excellent reputation – good food, nice people, free guiding etc. Catering for grubby MTBers is what they do.

Gasyz either you were unlucky or we were lucky, but we never got a soaking, no thunder, but unlike you we headed south from the Teifi Pools down to the Doethie.

I imagine you had fun finding the path in the Hafod Forest where the forestry have been working. I was there a couple of weeks ago and it was like, here are five obvious tracks, don’t take any of them!

Well done!

Was it you we met by the Claerwen track late morning? You looked pretty fresh! The two of us were on our own 12-hour epic (only 84 miles though!).

I was hoping to have a crack at the TCW myself this summer but weather and light aren’t going to be on my side if I don’t get on with it!

Well done Clink! Any major navigational issues? I managed to get lost in the woods before Cwmystwyth preriding the middle section a couple of weeks ago but worked it out on the way back…

Hoping to have a crack at it some time in August.

Oh yeah, tell me, are there any good descents on that route? The middle part was all scenery and precious little fun. It’d be good motivationally to know there’s a cracker somewhere near the end!

Yes

Has anyone got a GPX of the whole route please? (I’m trying to merge the three chunks from IMBA and getting in a bit of a pickle)

Pedalhead – feeling inspired by this thread, have sent you a message to your gmail address about the TCW (just in case it gets binned by your spam filter)

Agree with everything said above

The really great thing is how it somehow caters for all abilities

I rather enjoyed quiche and potatoes at my last event, and I normally hate quiche

It won’t upload my data at all any more, says I need an ANT stick.
My Garmin predates them…