Not full of amazing stunts, sure, but it’s good to see something different. Hell, I might even try out a fat bike!

Bet every bearing on that bike is **** now.

About halfway through I was thinking “He’s going to have to give that bike a good wash” 8)

Ta creamegg, most if not all the blurb about tubeless is upgrading to or fitting new tyres rather than working with the system on an on-going basis. Good to know that it isn’t much of an issue. Like any system you need to know the finer details to get the best out of it.

Thanks. That’s what I was getting at – swapping tyres for conditions seems to be more of a faff.

So what do you do with the sealant in the tyre you take off?

Folk are confusing cost with worth 😀 I was pointing out the cost not whether it was worth it – which of course it is!

There are certainly sports with higher entry level costs: hang-gliding would be pretty difficult with only half a wing.

Well looking back at the money I’ve spent (I don’t replace my bike every year), would I do it again? Hell yes! I’ve got a decent amount of disposable income and would rather spend it on my hobbies/pastimes/sports than wandering sheep-like round shopping centres buying “stuff” I don’t need.

But I have 🙄 The bank manager will be sending the boys around!

It’s not the ones that are obviously wrong, it’s those that continually give you that niggling thought/doubt that something’s not right and no matter what fettling you do like change saddle, handlebars, stem you never feel comfortable. On a more positive note when you get on a bike that is right for you, it’s pretty obvious and the personalised tweeking only makes it better.

Mountain biking is expensive enough without buying the wrong bike which is why I think hiring your desired steed for a day (or better a weekend) is money well spent.

The first bridleway (through the farm) is probably the easiest. The legal line of the BW goes straight up the slope for the first 200m or so but it’s better to follow the wall to the left and then cut back right on the obvious track. It’s then a steady if long grind to the col between Winder and Arant Haw.

The second bridleway heads up a rough track from the high point of the road before breaking out on to the fell. The initial track getting to the fell gate is the hardest part as it’s slightly loose and what isn’t loose is large stones sticking out of the ground. The track is then technically easy but has some steep bits that if it’s at all damp will have you spinning, I think I walked about 50 metres in total. The line on the map cuts to the west of Winder but on the ground the track goes to the summit. You’ve then a grassy blast down to the col.

The other two are better as descents.

The last bit of the climb up to Calders (as shown in the shots above) is the only bit I need to walk. It’s a bit loose for my skill level when climbing.

Which descent ?

The old mine works descent.

To the OP: what was your running event and how far was it? Terrain, etc.

What about one of the challenges here – http://www.selfsupporteduk.net/ ?

There’s a photo in this month’s MBR of that descent.

Cruzcampo: from experience it’s not usually the LEDs and control circuitry in the light units but the connectors that fail. But even then it’s also a possibility with the more expensive units.

Then there’s the built in obsolescence of subtly changing the connectors so that you have to find the battery for “last year’s” model.

So in summary:

> The Lumens wars have ended, long live the Lumen!
> The current (sorry :lol:) battlefield is in battery life and size.
> Check the beam pattern is suitable.
> Best setup is one strong light on the bars and one helmet mounted that doesn’t need to be as bright.
> Either go cheap (< £40) and be prepared to replace yearly or spend a sizeable chunk of cash (> £150) and be reasonably certain that the unit will last.

any wet weather route suggestions as well?

Everything is so dry that it will take a deluge to turn things in to a bog. What you will get is the top couple of centimetres being soft and potentially very slippy.

Many (most?) of the Lakes trails have a good stone base so tend to be all-weather but you might want to stay low level if the weather is grim just for comfort’s sake: waiting for your mate at the top of Walna Scar in a hoolie wouldn’t be my idea of fun.

IME Smart phones seem to be more prone to random figures and the Garmin type devices less so

With the Garmin devices I’ve found that if you switch them on a few minutes before you start moving then they give slightly more consistent values particularly for elevation which is usually the weak point with cheaper chipsets (and all consumer GPS chipsets are cheap)

How do you get 90Km for that loop? It’s around 40Km at most for the bits that aren’t the Marin Trail. I’m not saying it’s not a good loop, just that your estimation of distance is way out.

Doh! Was going from memory and thought that the north ridge was the one heading to Llanberis 😳

The north ridge heading towards Bwlch y Groes quarry is the easy one, the one heading NE towards Llanberis is the difficult (or unknown) one. The west “ridge” isn’t worth attempting – I think it ends up in farmland and gardens!

Also what about skipping Telegraph altogether (Its a bit dull really) and going Foel Goch – Foel Gron – Moel Eilio – Llanberis. Im sure Iv walked this once but cant remember what its like?

It’s a steep push to get up from the Telegraph col to get on to the first part of Foel Goch then generally undulating until you get to Moel Eilio – I think there’s a choice of paths some of which might not be rideable. Moel Eilio will be a push. From the top you can either head down the west ridge (easy) then turn right and follow the track down in to llanberis or take the north ridge which is mostly easy but has some steep steps and ends in a very steep bracken and rock covered slope. You may be able to drop off the ridge a bit earlier than this.

Road biking is (mainly) about how efficiently you can apply power to the pedals for long periods of time. Typically you will only be in one or two positions relative to the bike so it makes sense to optimise those. A couple of millimetres change to the saddle position for instance can make a big difference to relieving knee or back pains.

Mountain biking on the other hand has the bike moving all around you so really you need to work on that “dynamic” aspect as opposed to the “static” road position.

Grum: That sounds fair enough to me, no point in deliberately increasing tension. Looking at the map of the area, there’s a lot of tracks, footpaths and bridleways and if you don’t know the area *well* then you are going to get very confused. I suspect that there are also paths on the ground that technically aren’t public rights of way but get used by riders and/or walkers. With HB being seen as a “go to” location I don’t think I’d be wanting to tell all and sundry (which includes me) where the cheeky trails are.

The farmer on the Ennerdale side of the Floutern Tarn used to be anti *anyone* walker or cyclist heading along that bridleway. Don’t know if he’s still in residence.

You say you don’t want “hike a bike” your second route would be that and only that!

The descent in to Warnscale Bottom is technical but you could do that and head back over Honister. There was a thread on here about a descent via Loft Beck in to the head of Ennerdale.

I’m a member of BC and have not been asked about the types of biking I do or the proportion of each so I suspect that they might not have those figures.

Strava does have the ability for you to set up different bikes that you can assign to a category and log rides against each but I’ve no idea whether they aggregate that data. While not everyone uses Strava (I suspect it’s much more road orientated) it’s a large enough sample to be able to extrapolate.

In addition to seconding all the previous replies I’d set up some workouts to download to your GPS. I can only do about 20 minutes steady riding but with a workout to follow an hour is easy (well, you don’t get bored).

You have to set up the workout using Garmin Connect and it’s not exactly the most intuitive program so give yourself a few goes at getting it right. What I found hardest was adding loops and putting efforts in to those loops, it’s really not very easy. Once you’ve created a workout or two then just sync the device and they’ll be downloaded. It’s also worth setting a specific activity for the turbo so that it doesn’t keep trying to locate satellites 🙂

Definitely worth having some music going as well.

What’s your budget?

The Hope road wheels deal with my 90Kg no problem. About £300 or so (not checked – could be a bit more), but you need to get on with the freewheel noise. Cheap enough for a winter wheel.

Light think you must young Tomaso 😀

Yep, that awkward time of year where you get all four seasons in a day. You need to be flexible with what you wear, roadies have had this sussed for years. I go with short sleeved tops + thermal vest + arm warmers for the mornings but just the short sleeved top on the way back. Leg warmers if it is particularly nippy but I can stand a bit more cold on my legs. Overshoes if it’s damp/cold.

Gloves I find are the most awkward: if I use full fingered gloves for the morning they are too warm in the afternoon; similarly fingerless gloves are a bit cold in the mornings.

On the three peaks fell race the organisers will take a carrier bag with bottled water or whatever you want to Ribblehead for you. You just have to mark it with your number. I’ve no idea if the CX organisers do the same.

Oops! duplicate posting following network error!

There’s a loop heading from Devil’s Bridge up towards Bull Pot Farm (road to begin with but you cut left on a bridleway about halfway up the hill), descend in to Barbondale, cross river, BW down to village, back up road, turn R then after a mile or so there’s a BW on the left. This keeps to the foot of the hills you’ve headed out on and leads back to the initial road.

The bit up to the deer gate is probably the most unpleasant part of the whole round, it’s only a short section though.

Dawning? DAWNING!!!?

It’s a dull sunset over my level of mediocrity 😳

Whooah there mr_ride_beyond_limits and hope someone else will pull me out of it…
It intrigues me reading stories like this, and then hearing statements like yours. An interesting approach to risk and self reliance.

Ride beyond my limits? Not me – too scared!

I think either I didn’t write what I meant or you misread it. Rescues take a long time: I was at one a few years ago, it was maybe 400 metres from the end of the road, a clear day and in open country. Emergency services were called within 10 minutes. The air ambulance was called straight away as there were no vehicles available. It still took nearly two hours from accident to evacuation. Add in time to get to somewhere with a phone signal or even to somewhere with a phone and you can add several hours – a friend had a climbing accident and it was twelve hours until he was rescued, not pleasant hanging in a harness with a broken femur for that length of time.

Sorry for the slight digression …

deciding where im going on the fly, turn by turn.

I think you need the confidence of knowing you can get out of any/most situation to be able to do that and not everyone does nor wishes to gain that level of experience. There’s also the knowledge that if you stack it at a trail centre and need help then someone’s going to be along in a couple of minutes (unless you are there midweek at 9pm!) whereas away from TCs you could be there for days before someone comes along so again you have to have the confidence to be self-reliant.

Northwind: I think trail centres are improving in how they build and layout their trails. A lot used to be: bumble along then come across an isolated technical problem; more bumbling; technical section; repeat. The newer layouts have better flow. It’s still early days really, Coed y Brenin is just over twenty years old for example, bikes have changed and the centres are having to change to reflect that but it’s not simply a case of heading out on a Friday evening with a pick and shovel and fixing things.

By default all routes you upload to Strava are public you can reduce this in several ways from global options down to individual rides.

For others to log times against your ride you have to use it to create a segment otherwise it’s just a ride that happens to link a set of other segments. I.e. you have to explicitly create a segment either from part or all of your ride.

When you upload a ride from your GPS to Strava, all the times are worked out and displayed. So you’ll see the ride as whatever name you give it plus there’ll be text like “Maxb rode this at 8:50am” and beneath it a list of your times over any segments that you happened to ride.

Unless you are really quick and get in the top ten you don’t get any cups the first time you ride a segment but the second time you will either get a PB or a 2nd best time.

grum – define light. I’ve seen some of the carbon Whyte hardtails which are definitely light, almost road bike light, but they cost over £3000, something like a Solaris modestly specced is between 12.5kg and 13Kg and about a grand cheaper.

+1 to what roverpig has written.

Confidence in the bike can be a funny thing: what tracks fine for one person might not be right for another. Some bikes you just don’t get on with. One person might have a long torso and short legs so suits a particular bike but for someone with a short torso and long legs that bike doesn’t work. Manufacturers will create a frame based on statistical averages (this is the same for pretty much anything you wear) which is fine if you are a close fit to that statistical curve but if you aren’t then it all becomes a bit of a minefield.

Unless you’ve loads of cash to be able to keep changing your bike, I think demo bikes/days are the way to go (I’ve no connection with any such scheme BTW) especially now that there are so many options: wheel sizes; suspension linkages; etc. If you buy from the same retailer then usually you get the demo fee knocked off so it hasn’t cost you much if anything. I demoed a couple of bikes that on paper were virtually identical: top tubes and chainstays within 5mm of each other; head angles the same. Set up the contact points identically. One bike (that gets good reviews and even positive comments on here) was good but the other was brilliant.

Crucially I’ve masses of confidence in it, any failures to clean a bit of trail are down to me not the bike.

I view trail centres as a bit like climbing walls: places to practice technique rather than an end in themselves. Just like climbing walls some people like them for what they are and have no desire to head out in to the wilds, not my viewpoint but it’s no less valid.

I think we’d have a lot more access problems if trail centres didn’t exist and all those riders were out on “natural” trails and the “cheeky” alternatives.