Its easy to get caught up in the weight thing, unless your under 10% body fat, your looking in the wrong place..

If you’re under 10% body fat you should be spending your money on some speialist help.

I’ve just done the weight weenie spread sheet thing on my 29er. Here’s some ideas:

Stans 3.30s + Crest tubeless rims + rim tape = 1575g (but pricey)
ESI silicon grips 70g less than my Oury lock-ons ~ £15
Spesh Toupe gel saddle 205g ~£25 2nd hand from the ‘bay
Hope Mono Mini 180/160 250g lighter than my SLX 180/160 brakes ~£80 STW classifieds
Wellgo MG1 magnesium flats ~ 180g lighter than my DMR V8s £32 new
Took the bottle cage off!

I live in Blandford, am a DRR member and ride local trails.

I’d be interested in getting involved. My email’s in my profile if you want to get in touch with more info.

Got mine from here

http://www.uk-biking.net/ESI-Grips-Racers-Edge

6’2″, big hands (you know what that means) but the ESI Racers Edge ones have been excellent. Haven’t needed to try the Chunky ones.

Another vote for Michelin Krylion Carbons.

4 years of audaxing on 23mm and 25mm versions without complaint.

If you keep ’em peeled they can be had for £20 each.

Drop bars – because it’s winter training for roadies.

If you use flat bars beware no barends rule and possibly width limit (something like 520mm, certainly something like that for the 3peaks).

Here’s a slight tangent to the OPs question that I’ve wondered for a while (having destroyed one Garmin Etrex Legend and in the process of destroying another).

Which GPS will survive rattling along trails longest before some kind of shake-related death?

I’ve found my Etrex Legend Hcx to be fab for route finding but doesn’t like hooning down a rocky decscent or two. At best it’ll usually switch itself off. After a few months of this it tends to not be keen on working properly at all ever again. I’m not talking about surviving being dropped, just being attached to bars for cross-country riding.

I’ve been looking at the Garmin Dakota as a replacement, and I believe Aidan used one for the Tour Divide. Comments vs something like the Memory Map one?

Did you find somewhere in Blighty to get the Dillinger frame or order it over from the US?

It was on my list but couldn’t be bothered with importing it in myself. If I could get it in the UK I might be interested again.

Very nice bike by the way. I’m not usually a fan of white rims/seatposts/stems but yours proves there’s a time a place for everything.

Maybe we’re not all as **** ROCK as you eh Dyffers?

That is entirely possible. :wink:

Or maybe I’ve put enough miles in over the years to achieve an arse that’s like an old Brooks saddle.

Either way, my point was you don’t need to pay Assos prices – try some Conotrane, available from yer local Boots without having to show the doc your arse or anything.

Are you not allowed to use it when you ride an MTB then?

I’ve only ever used any kind of backside treatment on 200+ mile road rides.

MTB rides, even 100 mile days, involve much less sitting in the saddle for ours on end than churning out the road miles, so I’ve never had any issues.

I have an entry, and will have the fitness, but like some others above I have been told I shall be attending an Alternate Event for my missus’ birthday.

Seen as I’d already paid, I did manage to barter a pass out to SSUK 2 weeks later instead though. :D

Assos cream is good.

Conotrane is just as good, but £1.50 for a 100ml.

Can’t help thinking a MTB forum is the wrong place to talk about minty arselard…

Finally had some time to get my photos sorted out.

Pictures galore now here:

http://s292.photobucket.com/albums/mm30/Dyffers/WRT%202011/

(although for some reason photobucket has ordered them up backwards ??? )

Before the ride there was much discussion about putting the fast rolling tyres on.

I definitely had some moments in the wet conditions when I was glad of leaving my 2.25 Maxxis Advantage on the front!

How did you lot who changed to the mile-eating light tread get on? Saw someone on a pair of Furious Freds at the finish which must’ve been character-building on some of the muddy tracks & wet grass descents!

Me and Chris n (one of Stu’s photos at the start).

We went anticlockwise just to be perverse as most on here were talking Tarrenhendre on day 1.

It was slower going than we expected on our ‘as offroad as possible’ plan on Saturday so after A10 – A6 – A5 – A1 we dropped onto the road near Pandy and abandoned plans to go up for B4 and A3, instead going for bangers and mash and a pint at the pub at Mallwyd. Rode another 90 mins after the pub for A11 and bivvied just after A4 at about 9pm on Saturday night.

8am start monday morning for a push up to A2. Missed out A7 as planned (just didn’t seem to flow with our route) and both had a sense of humour failure in the bog-hike from A8 over to B3.

Dropped into Dolgellau along with the two Scots boys Jim and Craig and had a nice lunch in a cafe with Andrew on the SantaCRuz 29er, during which the rain stopped. The afternoon ride between B2 and Abergynolwyn was the highlight of our ride; ridable both up and down. Two pints in the Railway to celebrate at 3pm.

We crested Tarrenhendre just after 6pm then had a poor route choice which meant an hour pushing through gorse and a forest – about 0.8 miles in a hour. :cry: Once we found the fireroad down to Mach it was like riding down a river. Found a good bivvy spot just above Mach and pitched two sides of the tarp down before the rain started.

Rained all night but we were toasty and dry (I won the Rab down jacket in the raffle by the way – brill!), dropped into Mach about 9am then took the route out of Aberhosun up to the memorial and on to A9, where we saw the Scots boys again.

Took a final offroad detour south on the way to Dylife then rode the ridgeline down to Cefn and finished at 12.30pm on Monday for an hour chat and Chris had won another T-shirt to go with his raffle prize M-kettle!

Brill weekend. :D

I thought I was going belt and braces kit-wise, but total not including water comes out as 6.5 kg / 14.4lb without water. Happy with that.

Sadly my 28lb Inbred means all up it’s over 42lb.

Had a test run with most of the kit (frame bag not quite fully packed, but saddlebag and bar drybag ready for the weekend). A bit disppointed to find my Ortlieb saddlebag full of clothes (1.2kg) unclipped it self 3 times on small drops (~6″). It’s now compression strapped for extra support.

Driving up tomorrow, meeting the rest of my ‘team’ at Rhayader at 10am then should be at the start for a solid hour of essential faffing.

Garmin Etrex with track + laminated printouts of OS maps (from MemoryMap) ziptied to bars.

When you get to the pub at the end of day 1 you chuck the used maps away rather than carrying them around dead weight for the next 36 hours.

(Of course, a couple of pints of guinness somewhat offsets the ~50g weight saving from throwing your maps away)

Getting back early = going home early to the visiting inlaws. 8O

I climb hills for fun

A clean bike is a wasted bike

Real singletrack has nettles

I flinch for brambles

Rabbit holes are god’s way of testing your reactions

If I wasn’t riding this footpath I’d have more time to annoy ramblers

If this is cheeky then I’m a mountainbiker…oh

Food weighs nothing. The pubs are holding onto it for me until I get there.

Superb. I’m a Blandford resident and a DRR member, so of course I was riding in Wales getting a soaking this weekend. :( Hope to make it out on one of these rides soon.

Was out audaxing in Wales this weekend.

I can now tell you that there’s not much at grid ref A8, and the pub at Mallwyd looks nicer than the one at Cemmaes. :D

Tiger, think of it like a magic eye puzzle.

Plot the refs on one page/screen, unfocus your eyes and see what patterns emerge.

Then reroute a bit to maximise climbing and pub-proximity.

Finally, bin all that and just go for a ride round Wales.

————–

OT, but on a different forum far far away there’s a long discussion about the roadworks on the climb up Cadair Idris from Mac. The ‘joke’ seems to be to reroute via Staylittle if you want a HTFU proper ride. :D

anyone who has had both

I think you’d be waiting a long time for that person to reply even on a roadie forum.

Don’t worry though, on STW there’s no requirement to know anything about a subject to make a judgement on it!

Me, if it was my dream project I’d wait for the 953.

Another ‘fit slicks’ suggestion. I would also fit bar ends (if you already have some in your parts box) for a bit more comfortable position.

invited me on a jolly

This is the most important question, as people say above. Are your mates out for a nice day out or a 100 mile training ride?

The former, with a couple of pub stops, you’ll live. The latter, even with you on a road bike if you’re not used to the road miles and they are, you’ll have a good approximation of dying.

Eat loads of Marmite the week before

Does that actually work? I’ve heard it before but not seen any hard evidence.

If it does I shan’t need the net; I’ve got 20 years of Marmite addiction behind me already.

Yep, I’ll be at the WRT.

A go on a L Pegasus, even just round the car park, would be like winning the prize draw! :D Might take you up on that.

You’re probably still ok for the first two…what’s training?

I shall just have my lifeventure head net. The bonus being if it’s bad during the day I can put it on under my helmet and ride in it. (I’ve never tried this, although May last year on the west coast of Scotland I was anticipating needing to but the midgies never appeared.)

If you’re ever up London-way, I’m sure we could sort you a test ride. Or ask Sam, he’ll have a good idea of where the Pegasus owners are.

Again, that’d be great/very kind Aidan. I’ll be watching with interest how you get on on the Peg on the Tour Divide, especially as you’ll be able to comment compared with a Swift.

I take it yours is SS. What sort of weight reduction did you get between the two (did you reuse some of the components?)? Or is it all about the ride?

D’ya reckon the slightly lower front end on the TD1 would be a massive nono for multiday rides?

Whereabouts are you based – if you wanted a decent test ride on one and were somewhere north-westy I’m sure we could sort something out

That would be great (thanks for the offer), but I’m in Dorset.

Haha, no. I’m thinning down my 9 bikes to fund the Ti 29er. Only 26er MTB at the mo though.

Last night, out riding with a mate, I was almost convinced that I wanted a Peg but couldn’t afford it, so I was going to buy a Swift (same Geometry, right?).

This morning I woke up with the same mantra as before “no more steel bikes!”.

Should I get a Swift and do a carbon fork lightweight build so I’ve got something to ride for the summer? Then I’ve got some time to sell everything I own for a Pegasus at the end of the year and swap the parts across, or maybe the Swift will convince me the racey TD1 option was best all along.

toe overlap

Is that on a smaller size frame? I’m 6’2″ so looking at the 20″ TD1 or XL Pegasus.

Fork creak = what fork? Carbon Exotic perhaps?

Ye gods remove that picture!

I’ve just sold my Roadrat to partly fund this, because I just couldn’t do what I wanted with cross tyres.

The Brooks/Carradice combi stays on the road bike. And tri bars????

This threads gone more niche than I thought already. :wink:

I knew about the forks difference. I’m happy with the arse-up idea, but the never-put-a-sus-fork thing does play on my mind.

Whilst I’m not scraping the pennies together for my next meal, I can’t find a way to say £400 extra without it sounding like a lot of money.

If the Peg had been £1200 I’d have pressed the buy button by now. I need more time yet to convince myself it’s that much better than a TD1.

Are there no other options circa £1200?!

I was thinking about brake disc rub. Not a problem with the sliders/disc mount attached?

Trailrat, what’s that weigh? Even with the half kilo of Brooks? :D

The sliders don’t put me off, I just think an EBB looks like a better option from an engineering POV (ie less chance for user error meaning the wheel not precisely aligned straight).

As mentioned, Pegasus probably top of list, but TD1 has always been the dream.

With a heavy heart I 1×9’d my slot-dropout Inbred the other night, in anticipation of some loaded welsh climbs.

28lb without luggage. :cry: