I’ve used a nano-ceramic coating cloth to give the bike a super slick finish so less crap will hopefully stick to it

How did that work out for you? I’m not bothering with a pit bike this year (not enoguh time to clean and maintain 1 bike, let alone 2!) so anything to minimise cloggage has got to be worth a go!

More or less still in. I have been drinking the drop bear non alcoholic beers which are really nice – especially their stout. I had a small bottle of normal beer yesterday and was tempted to pack it in today but stuck to non-alcoholic.

Had the pleasure of making @IdleJon and @ferrals acquaintances over the years although I no longer bring a flask of chowder to races for apres threshold consumption (eh Jon 😉 )

@shedbrewed – Pretty sure @IdleJon mentioned chowder when I first met you so it obviously made an impression! Welsh league races starting to show up now. Looks like I can only make a couple but looking forward to dragging myself round a race-course for the first time in 18months.

I liked it, and thought they seemed a nice couple, but agree with the comments on size and flood risk. I half-loved the visual effect of different colored girders but the other part of me thoguht it looked a bit ‘Ikea’

edited as missed GL’s post

@csb – Personal persepective – its offputting to race when you are travelling 2hrs to possibly race against 10-15 others who you won’t see after the first couple of laps as the gaps get pretty big. I loved racing XC but I was really starting to loose interest compared to cyclocross.

I guess that if fields dwindle further the sport becomes unsustainable for organisors (both financially and motivationally), which means we loose the potential for younger gnerations to try and enjoy xc racing.

However, it seems like people have been moaning about the death of XC since I started riding/racing again in 2014, and many of those moaning (myself included) fondly remember xc racing in the mid-late 90s with large fields… but the sport has changed so much that maybe a return to something like that will never happen

Also as GL says XC is **** hard. I’m relitively fit but I was having beast myself training-wise to ensure a fun race even in sports category, but that is a lot of commitment and probably puts a lot of people off. Whereas I know,evne though I’ve recenlt been cycling an hour a week max, that I can turn up at a cx race and still have some close competition.

What’s the problem that’s being fixed here?

Grass roots xc racing number are (or were pre-covid, not raced since) low. Even national level events didnt have huge fields, 25-50 in sport cat last time I raced.

The number of events is very geographically varied but often pretty low.

I tried to organise a race a few years ago but even getting a venue was a nightmare, tried to use a range of local places but they were blocked by things including…insufficinet parking, concerns about increases of traffic on minor roads, NIMBY, risk of vandals requiring security firms, legitimate enivronmental concerns.. finally found a venue set a provisional date and then heard from NRW they were chopping down the forest!! I gave up at them point! So hats off to those that do organise

Looked lovely, the pond was cool, but…

1) why are these houses always so large? I appreciate the clue might be in the program title but surely it will be a nightmare to hear etc.

2) the second pond that the storm drainage goes into.. i hope that’s just the surface water drainage, but either way I can imagine at some point that drainage will get in their fancy pond!

Yes I am. Definitely drinking more than I used to so giving it a crack.
Not doing it for charity or anything (is that still a thing?), just the challenge

Aren’t most properties let on a 6month then rolling month?

I had this about a decade ago, viewed a property mid summer and it was fine, went to move in 6 weeks later after a month of heavy rain and it was soaking with salt crystals coming out the walls, mould starting to grow etc.

A friend who was a lawyer gave me some text referring to some housing acts which allowed me to break the contract. Sadly as it was a long time ago I don’t recall the details or have a copy, but I think refusing to be bullied and quoting legal acts might make the land lord decide to cut their losses?

There’s also that place in Rhossili on the cliff top

The Bay Bistro is nice for food and coffee, i am not a fan of the worms head pub though!

I’ve never actually raced BOTB but like IdleJon raced a bunch of other stuff there. I’m going for cx bike with filetreads.. purely because the way things are going it might be my only chance to race a cx bike this year, and also I can’t really be **** to switch my mtb tyres over from aggressive trial tyres to fast rolling tyres for one day.

The pembrey singletrack is dream cx bike territory imo anyway and the amount of torrential rain we’ve had the sand will be pretty comapacted.

Mine arrived today – somewhat scary sticker on it warning the product is going to give me cancer and birth defects due to the nickel and pthalates, but from what I can see its a way to cover themselves from californian lawyers. Will try and put it together tonight

Fill the Camelbak full of vodka?

I could never get rid of it either, but apart from the cucumber taste, never had an issue. Tend to use water bottles now though

Cheers, will probably order one then!

Not if you are double jabbed – or so my wife was told by the tester when she did a PCR test a while back – she isolated anyway because results were coming back same day at that time so it seemed stupid not to.
The tester may have got it wrong though

but if double jabbed those are the rules. While I agree I’d not do that, you can’t blame people for doing what they are told.

I was thinking about this – I reckon a gravel bed and soak always, so much mud and shit to clear out I think a drain would block fast

I’d not advise resting surfboards on dashboard, i used to do that to get my 9’4 log in a vectra estate when going on short journeys. Slowly pootling the 5 minutes home from a very pleasant surf, a lamb ran across the road, I braked and the log just slid through the windscreen!

That’s a phenomenal stat!

Yeah up until the 19/20 season I was a pretty avid cross racer but obvisouyl last year didnt happen at all. Local is welsh league but not much on the calendar.

Also in the 19/20 season, i pretty much raced every welsh race and then traveled when no local race so had a super full season from Sept to Feb, whihc on reflection sacrifed too much family time, so I’d kind of decided I wouldnt race every race and try to stick to an hours drive radius unless could make a family weekend of it. Sure I’ll find th oppurtunity to get between the tapes at some point!

I’d like to race a couple but hard to put in any training at the moment, especially being unsure if there will be any races relatively local.

@lovewookie – It says you can go right up against so long as eaves are no more than 3m – which is why I think it might have to be a flat roof

Thanks Sharkbait. – yes that would be the hope

No real experiance but as a suggestion, I’d aim to do a complete series so he can develop friendships and rivalries with the other racers in his cat. The yoof in my local CX league seem to have a great time pre- and post- race

Based on the other thread on books recently I’m reading Cider with Rosie, however I’m also re-reading MP the Michael Peterson biography which is a great read about an iconic surfer from the 70s and his struggle with schizophrenia. The latter is getting more of my attention.

Think I am going to order longitude and Danubia, both sound good!

Feel so gutted for the other three (assuming they are clean).

It was re-tested due to a biological passport anomaly.

This I guess is the key issue as there was enough of a suspicion to re-test. It wasn’t a random thing.

Will be interesting to see what Mark Legg says later (ref. post ^), but if they’ve spent some time trying to prove innocence already and failed I guess nothing with substance (pun unintentional!).

Its a real shame, she’s been such an icon of women’s ‘cross, whatever happens now her career has a question next to it.

sewage network that hasn’t been upgraded to keep up with population growth.

This is it, and also we are/will be seeing more and more short sharp weather events (both drought and floods) due to climate change.

@singletrackmind – funnily enough it was at East Wittering that I did pick something up nasty which took a couple of months of intermittent vomiting to clear, that was mid-late nineties and given the recent news about southern water probably not surprising!

@Owen-P that’s the one.

I actually think it is pretty swift, e.g this morning we had torrential rain and the alert late morning. As it’s been dry for a while I’m assuming it was related to the morning rain.

The other issue is it only (I think) does coastal stuff so you never know about all the crap washing down the rivers

They have an eTransporter too as well as the ID-buzz – https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/electric-vans/abt-etransporter-6-1.html

quite neat work with the battery to ensure no loss of space.

I thoguht the Japan course looked awsome, seemed a bit more natural looking than rio despite being man made and designed/built by the same team (I tihnk I heard?). Guess maybe thats the year to bed in a bit maybe.

Really good that the wider mtb community is waking up to how technical xc has become. UK courses are mirroring this too a fair bit I think, though I’m not raced since pre-covid.

I’d forgotton about MGMT – great pop!

I’m a massive fan of the Run Run EP from Those Dancing Days, especially for road trips, apple music tells me its ‘Alternative’ but its firmly in the uplifting pop bracket for me!

@n0b0dy0ftheg0at – I had exactly the same thought. Combined with a sense of ‘does it really matter now’ since all restrictions are gone and so many are vaccinated

In more Olympic tittle-tattle, I note that Nino Schurter (4th) congratulated Fluckinger (2nd) and Pidcock on social media but not Valero (3rd). Oversight or a bit of an issue between those two? I had to go as soon as pidcock crossed the line so didn’t see them come in.

@theotherjonv – that was my thought too, MVDP did arrive late in Japan apparently so maybe not quite as well prepped as the others.

It did look like he wasnt expecting that drop in the live coverage for sure, I believe him.

Hope the organisers did advertise it wouldn’t be there clearly and it was jsut an oversight from MVDP. If they didnt make it obvious it would be removed, its a massive error on their side.

He has been vocal about loving mtb. I really hope that this will make a few more grass-roots level cyclists think that giving xc racing ago sounds fun, similar to the road boom previously. Hopefully the Uk news covers this well.

Boom!

I just hope there is a ‘pidcock effect’ and xc racing in the uk gets a boost!

Hell of a course!

Chit chat about diving and boxing on the red button currently ☹️ And I set my alarm

Edit – on the red button now 😀