Newcomer Connor O’Brien has been stopped for about 20 hours now, anyone know what might be going on with him as he was flying? Too fast a start perhaps? Sounds an odd thing to call 1100 miles a start.

Just checked up on track leaders to see how everyone is still getting along and there’s a chap called Connor O’Leary popped up. His stats say he’s aiming for 14 days and his average at just over 800 miles is 206.9 miles per day. This could be interesting to watch.

And he’s finished! Nice one Greg.

Ashley Benns finished overnight, inside his 21 day target. Another Brit home and another storming ride.

Jackie Bernardi looks like she’s about to become the first female finisher with about 30 miles to go. Her target was 22 days so she should beat that by about a day.

Does anyone know why Rob’s tracker says Off Route and doesn’t show all the usual details? It looks like he’s currently on the route.

The ETA at Antelope Wells on Mike’s tracker has just dropped the right side of 9am with only 35 miles to go.

A little under 5 hours to do a little over 50 miles and even if he doesn’t make that, he’s going to smash a huge chunk off the record.

KEEP PEDALLING MIKE!

Could depend on the wind, a headwind could make a massive difference.

70 miles to go. How far out can he start sprinting?

…and if you zoom in on him right now, it looks like he could well be having a poo at Beaverhead Ranger Station! Unless the small square building across the car park is of particular interest for some other reason. No such thing as privacy is there.

The tracker prediction has come down to just under 14 days and 4 hours. It’s going the right way but that’s still some big time to pull back. Still way ahead of record pace though.

Crikey, Mike is now in Abiquiu, 2135.5 miles done.

After a couple of hours break, Mike is once again on the move. Just awesome.

And once again, Mike still seems to be on the go, after 2.30am.

Terry Smith is on the go again too, about 50 miles behind Mike.

Looks like Mike Hall is on the move again at about quarter to four in the morning and has just ticked over the 1900 mile mark.

Fatigue I reckon. I snapped 2 tabs off and twisted a third along with ovalising the chainring on my 2 year old XT ones doing a bit of a thrutch move on a steep climb. Sometimes stuff just breaks.

I just took the cradles off mine and use a load of toe straps to hold the wheels to the rails. Never had any movement from it.

No idea as my computer died on the roof rack in the pouring rain on Friday night. I think it was probably something like 15 minutes from top to bottom, that’s a guess really but somewhere in that ball park.

Yup, I know it’s not the best route but I was short on time and figured it would at least be a clear ish run down. It didn’t disappoint me at all, despite having done the loop around the Ranger path and back to Llanberis before.

Nice work. That looks and sounds like a fantastic few days pedalling.

I left the tent about 6.45 and we were about 4 miles from Llanberis, up and down the Llanberis path and was back just after 9.

I’ve been into MTB’s for 30 years and only had one bike during my first couple of years of riding. Since then, I’ve had as many as ten and currently have 5 MTB’s and 2 road bikes. There are days when any of the bikes is the most suitable and I love riding them all.

About 4 years ago I started thinking I only needed one and built up a Surly Karate Monkey with a set of MTB wheels, a set of touring wheels and a rear single speed wheel to match the MTB front, rigid and suspension forks, drop bars, risers and a Jones bar for it and it was good at everything I asked of it from long road miles to local (mostly Dark Peak) mountain biking and even a few MTB events. The problem was that every time I wanted to just grab it and head out, it wasn’t in the set up I wanted for that ride on that day so it went the way of so many other bikes and got replaced.

One bike will work for people who like to do the same kind of riding for the majority of the time or are happy to compromise on some rides as the bike is perhaps not the ideal one for that day and that ride.

At the end of the day, it’s no bad thing to have choice. Unless you’re a serial ditherer.

Last time I tried that route (possibly 5 years ago), the bridge was scarily rotten with lots of timbers missing. We crossed it very carefully on foot but there was some clenching involved. Haven’t felt any desire to return.

There are 2 short bridleways on Eccles Pike, neither really worthy of note and I haven’t investigated anything cheeky there. The Goyt valley on the other hand has a couple of nice bridleway bits and some footpaths that I can only imagine would make fantastic mountain bike trails. The imprints of a Hans Dampf/Nobby Nic combo that appeared last night on several of them are nowt to do with me. Honest Guv’nor.

Loads of great riding around there, local to the village, head north onto Chinley Churn via a steep road climb, found by going over the railway bridge and left and the T junction, crest the hill and descend to a bridleway climb on your right. Once on the flatter part, near the top, there are tracks in all directions; left takes you down a nicely rutted moorland trail and a very stream bed like trail towards the top of Laneside Road in New Mills, straight on leads to another junction, right to drop down to Peep-O-Day above Hayfield, left and then right further down leads closer to Hayfield, both nice descents.

There certainly isn’t a wonderful but totally cheeky footpath descent heading off Cracken Edge and back towards Chinley. No, absolutely not there and begging to be ridden.

Macclesfield station to the forest is less than half an hour by easy road or you could head up the cat and fiddle road to drop in to the forest via charity lane or teggs nose. Plenty of scope from there to head further into the peak district.
There’s loads of great riding from any of the Buxton Lin stations, Middlewood to the roman lakes is an option but Disley, then down greenhalgh lane and past the paper mill is better. New Mills gives easy access to the Hayfield valley and beyond, some good stuff from Furness Vale up on Chinley churn and lots of options from Whaley Bridge. Chapel is my least favourite place as there’s very little from the town. Dove holes can be useful for getting over towards Peak Forest and Castleton while Buxton gives good access to the white peak.
Goyt valley has plenty to go at, especially week day cheeky trails.

Sunglasses for your mouth.

Anyone know what’s going on this morning? The tracker says paused 1 hr 40 something minutes ago somewhere between Inverness and Wick, plus Lee’s Facebook page says he was throwing up last night.

Just ticked over 600 miles and seems to be going pretty well on course.

Not quite, I just googled the current UK 24 record to see how close he was, as I had no idea what the record was – 541.17 MILES!

Yup. 2 hours riding this morning with poorly chosen thin gloves on so I was struggling to shift gears at the end. Other kit choices were far more appropriate thankfully. Getting undressed, dried and changed without flooding the work toilet with the contents of my waterbomb waterproof socks was quite unpleasant. Dry and coffee filled now though so all is good.

Bump.

I’ve had so many MTB’s over my 3 decades of mountain biking that it’s ridiculous, HT and full sus but I only ride hardtails now and can’t see me changing my mind for the foreseeable future.

Adders, there’ll be a couple of blogged write ups to follow it up and I’ve offered to write it up for the magazine too. Should be a great, if somewhat tiring weekend.

Jools, he’s certainly not afraid of big miles on his fat bike. I’ve already spent a weekend hauling bivi kit from the lakes, through Yorkshire and back to sunny Stockport to catch stages 1 & 2 of the Tour de France with him rumbling along on 4″ tyres. Mind you, he’d pumped them up to 10 psi so it was practically a road bike really.

We’re working around the ban times by riding up after tea time on the Saturday.

IHN, I know Poynton isn’t really in Stockport but if I’d put Poynton, some folks might not know where it is. Huge thanks for your donation.

bland – Member

That was minging! 90 miles soaked to the skin! Some grim faces on the Cheshire Cat sportive too, not a nice day at all!

How come only 90 miles? Did you call it a day somewhere? I finished but it was a pretty unpleasant experience on the whole. 9 hours 42 I think for me, but only 8 hours and a minute riding time. Guess I spent rather too long in the cafes!

I’m doing my first one on Sunday, a flat 200km. Unfortunately, the weather forecast looks bobbins with a strong headwind on the way out and heavy rain most of the day. Hey ho, no such thing as the wrong weather etc etc etc.