Just out of interest, why do you want a 14.8v battery for a bike light?
I assume that’s the reason you wanted 4s rather than 2s2p?

Kit – take every bit of bike and outdoor clothing you own.
Bike – everything that can wear out will wear out – not one for the a shiny new Eagle groupset.
Sleep – no, its a 24hr race – apply rule #5
Crew – Solo(1, ideally 2), Pair(1), Quad(0).

Time to start digging my nuclear bunker 😯

Garmin was hovering around 1°C for this evenings ride. Singlespeeding though, so was making my own heat – didn’t really notice the cold until I was forced to freewheel downhill for a bit

Strange one. The leg symptoms sound exactly like overtraining, but without any other symptoms i’d lean towards some sort of illness.

Still going to recommend rest though.

Not tried it, but breakout doesn’t look like it’ll clear mud very well.
But then Dampf doesn’t clear well either, and if you were happy with that, then maybe it’ll be fine for you.

So they’d need timing equipment on 2 extra stages? Don’t think Lite has anywhere near enough subscribers to make that work.

Yep, there’s some additional overhead for sure.
May be a bit chicken and egg in terms of subscribers.
I know I don’t want to ride a short course, and I know i’m not skilled enough and/or have a big enough pair to ride the hardest stuff. Would doubt i’m the only person in that situation.

I have however just ordered my first knee/elbow pads, so surely have just increased my gnar rating for next year 🙂

The fact that a ride that popped up in my Strava feed last week replaced the ‘Pi’ in Pitfichie with ‘Shi’ doesn’t bode too well for that location.

Slightly disappointed not to to see bigger changes to the lite/short course option. Would be nice to see a ‘mincer’ category that gives a full distance, but replaces the two most technical stages with easier ones.

rears last at least 1500km’s, for most people that’s probably 4 months 1 years riding at least!

FTFY

I think I’d only done less than 2500k

Most folk wouldn’t consider that low mileage for a MTB tyre.
By and large, the trade off for having a rubber compound soft enough to grip off road is that it wears out.

It’s getting boring now. When you come and do it let us know how awesome you were.

It’s not about me being awesome – i’m not really even particularly fit.
Loads of people get themselves into a flap about climbs like they are something special, and the reality is often its no different to riding into a moderate headwind.

I think a lot of people (certainly a lot I’ve ridden with) tend to try to attack every single climb they come across, and then of course they are hard, but the vast majority of the time there’s really no need, just sit and pedal.

There was nothing in there which I recall now as being too bad.

I personally find the typical dartmoor classic climbs much easier than the short steep climbs that can really take it out of my legs and it is an exercise in eating and drinking enough. As well as enough training rides to be comfortable on the bike for that length of time.

These guys seem to agree.

My venerable Civic Type-S 2.0 manages that apart from tax and age (and has been known to fit three people and three bikes inside the car)

It does fit the bill, and is a lovely car, and certainly a more comfortable/civilised car, BUT, as a warm hatch

Early Mkii Leon FRs are that sort of money now.

Beats it hands down.
The Leon is like a hyperactive puppy that wants to play all the time, but yet can still behave itself when taking grandma out for a Sunday roast.

Get on your turbo and pedal hard 🙂

As in?
https://www.strava.com/segments/1489902
https://www.strava.com/segments/11953804

If those are the steep ones its hardly worth fitting a low gear as it amounts to ~1mile of steepish incorporating ~0.2mi of proper steep.

I fitted some lower gears for La Marmotte but still found it quite tough. When I say “quite tough” I mean “hardest day I’ve ever had on the bike”. Obviously I need to MTFU.

Well clearly 5000m climbing is a lot by anyone’s standard, but those really are the definition of long steady climbs – if you’ve got the correct gearing to do so, there’s no reason you cant climb them at bottom of zone3, then it just becomes about having the endurance to sit and pedal for ~10hrs.
What makes it hard is pushing for a gold standard and/or adverse (both hot and cold) weather conditions.

Finally got around to watching this evening.
Next time work is crappy, i’ll remind myself it could be worse, i could be an iguana.

Good thread

Fizik tundra is about as flat as you are going to get in terms of mtb saddles i reckon.

unaccustomed exercise

cracking on

Poor combination

If it were me i’d go back to square 1.
If you have no pain on the MTB then take all the measurements from the MTB and set up the CX bike to have an identical position on the hoods. Same shoes, same shorts, same everything.

In some ways its an improvement here in fife. Only marginally colder, but the sky was actually blue instead of grey. There was even this strange yellow ball in the sky…..

Sell house and add to the £100k to buy a bigger place outright.

Or

Pay off mortgage, do some home improvements and ask for reduced hrs at work.

Recording set.
In glorious standard definition 🙁

I’m not at all into miniature wheels or hardcore hardtails, but that does indeed look awesome.

Rather him than me!

Large estate car should manage 3+3 with wheels off, might be a bit of a squeeze if taking significant amount of kit as well.

Oooh, vector for spd is attractive. I’d be willing to use XC shoes on road bikes in exchange for a meter i can use on all my bikes.

20%+ is always going to be hard without slapping on mtb gearing, however looking at the elevation profile of the course it looks to be mostly longer shallower climbs than repeated steep stuff.

I’d be happy with 34/32 to make 15% fairly comfortable.

I’d be steering clear of europe, seems to be trouble brewing in many places, rise of far right etc, even before taking potential economic meltdown into account.

Have to question US too given the two candidates they have chosen for president.

That leaves NZ,Aus,Can. Think NZ would be my choice.

Mine worked not too badly, until it fell off never to be seen again.
And given it’d been trying hard to escape all its life i decided not to bother replacing it.

Conti gp4seasons both ends

Why be wasting time swapping shock when you can pay the shop to do it while you enjoy riding another bike – or at least thats the plan if you can find a shop that actually likes getting paid.

Lol, not trolling, you just sit there and turn the pedals and get to the top. If you’ve got proper gearing its not even any harder than the flat, you just go slower.

Not really, hills are overrated.

Meh, a single day road century isn’t that hard, if you can train to ride 60mi you can get through the last 40mi on guts should you need to.

😯

Yes, whilst not being immune to bad weather, and certainly likely to be cold/cool early and late in the day, April is probably one of the better times of year.

How on earth are you guys wearing out road overshoes that fast?
Mine are 3 years old now and will certainly see me through this winter.
Pair before that lasted a similar amount of time.

I’m using a set of these:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/pro-tarmac-h20-road-overshoes-1/
But I don’t really think it matters, as long as they are fully windproof they’ll do the job combined with a good pair of merino socks

With the big swings in the polls over the last couple of days, i’m actually thinking he is going to win.

Anybody kinda want Trump to win, just for a laugh?

Almost, but a man like that running the worlds most powerful country isn’t really all that funny.

As others have said, not the best time of year to do it.
Cold, dark, miserable, and a good chance of snow gates being closed on bealach na ba.
I’ll be doing it in August – still expecting cold and miserable, just without the darkness and snow/ice to contend with 😀