18 months of total domination of the sport and 3 missed tests in a year – don’t really like the smell of that much. Shame, cos I was a big lizzie fan.

she was tested again the next day and was clean.

Which is plenty of time to have cleared some substances out of the system

@bossworld – developed an almost identical issue on my hardtail recently, couldn’t sort it myself, put it in lbs and they spent 2 weeks on it – tried torching existing rotor + pads, new rotor, new pads, checking hub etc. Eventually issue was strangely resolved by greasing caliper mounting bolts – you could give that a try.

Got the 0 (singlespeed) as an experiment to see how i liked both singlespeed and + tyres. Loving it so far, trailblazers soak up all the small stuff, roll fast and grip like crazy on buff forest singletrack.

@Gary, hilton looks good, road network looks a bit lacking though – will try and plot a few routes.

@highlandman, looks a pretty good shout, will check out what accommodation is available. Again, slightly fewer roads than i had in mind, but enough for a 3 day camp

12hrs on a unicycle? No vibration reaching shoulder that way :)

What do you like/dislike about the xr3’s?
Hard to recommend something when we don’t know what you like

+1 for MTB Batteries or bikelightsuk. I went with a beema and fluxient 1x in the end from the latter, but both were very helpful responding to my queries. Delighted with both lights, even got a 2nd fluxient as an xmas present for my dad.

Didnt do it on purpose, but have mine the same as @davewalsh

Yes, but not every country had/has a state sponsored doping program.

I know it’s not budget friendly*, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Castelli make awesome cycling kit and they seem to make something for every kind of weather.

*Their stuff is quite often on offer somewhere.

Agreed.
New Perfetto looks awesome, but lacks both sleeves and cheapness requested by OP

Of course the answer is to speak to my GP

You already gave yourself all the advise you need.

Dunno, but from what i’ve seen of her there’s something about her that just seems wrong. Somehow get the feeling it would be like voting for the Devil :evil:

Have the feeling we are headed for an extremely screwed up next 5 years with Trump on one side of the atlantic and rise of the far right on the other.

Loch Leven? Pretty close (wee jaunt up the M90) and it an easy cycle round. Can also get a boat the the island in the middle.

Edit – here’s a map of the trail: Map

+1 for that, and you can get ice cream at the end

Loch Katrine – you could cycle to the end of the loch and get the boat back. The road is (mostly) free of cars. Plenty of places to stop on the shore for a picnic.

Waaaay too hilly for small kids in my opinion – more one for 10-teens

Doesn’t really do it for me.
Also don’t understand why a guy that can probably get his hands on a team issue Pinarello for peanuts would spend £10k on something else.

Long sleeve or short sleeve with arm warmers?

Well, the OP was asking about breakfast before a big challenging ride, it seems reasonable to think he was talking about a substantial calorie source. As I said, a full english works for me. I would however also advise eating well the night before.

Its reasonable to think he was talking about fuelling his ride. Equating this to a substantial calorie source and recommending a pile of hard to digest protein and fat is likely to make his challenging ride substantially more difficult.

……but long bike rides are usually a rather lower intensity (for a rather longer time).

100ml of rolled oats is around 150 cal, equivalent to maybe 10 mins of riding (ballpark).

Now there’s some spectacularly faulty logic.
For a long lower intensity ride you are going to be burning a 75/25 fat/carb ratio, but lets be generous and say you meant a moderate intensity ride with a 50/50 ratio.

So to burn 150kcal of carbs in 10 mins you need to be burning 300kcal total per 10mins. Which in turn gives a total of 1800kcal/hr.
Total calorie burn can be very well approximated by power output x4.
So your moderate intensity ride is producing 450W – why are you posting on here and not smashing the hour record or TDF.

Porridge fans, next time you make it weigh your measure of oats and do the maths. Swells up hugely on cooking. A standard measure of oats is about the same calorie-wise as a couple of slices of bread. Bare. Not much of a hearty breakfast for a long ride. A good breakfast on a cold morning when you don’t want to eat too much but don’t want to feel hungry before going out.

Of course you can stuff your porridge full of sugar and fat in various ways to get in more calories. But a bowl of granola is probably a better starting point for that, and neither of them would hold a candle to a cooked breakfast.

The porridge isn’t eaten to be a massive calorie source, if you know you are going on a long ride you should have topped off glycogen stores the day before.
What the porridge does do is provide a slow steady release of energy between breakfast and the start of your event. You just need to eat enough to replace what you lost overnight and cover energy expenditure between breakfast and ride starting. Once you are on the move its irrelevant how much you ate for breakfast as your body will only absorb ~300kcal/hr and you’ll be taking that on from your preferred source of bars/gels/energy drink etc.

Personally given the choice I like a continental breakfast of a couple of small crusty rolls, one with cheese/ham, the other with honey. If that’s not available a small bowl of porridge and a slice of toast. If its more than 2hrs from breakfast to the start then a small breakfast bar type thing 30mins before the start too.

Depends on the tyre really. Quite like Xking front and rear on hardtail, although have thought about a race king or thunder burt on the rear for even more speed. Quite like having a little extra traction in mud or loose climbs though.

@Kryton, see my earlier post, with the exception of maybe the top10 riders its not possible to ride the climbs at low intensity. Theres >400m climbing packed into an 11km loop. Two of the 3 major climbs see several ‘larger’ riders pushing from lap1 as they cant ride it even going full gas on fresh legs. The course is as the name suggests; Relentless

The two worst offending sections below, you come into the bottom of the first having already done a steep climb out of car park, then you’ve got about 2mins of flat to flush out the lactic acid before the 2nd segment begins

https://www.strava.com/segments/1469757
https://www.strava.com/segments/11208569

No, your garmin won’t last.
I used a velcro torch mount to put a battery pack on the bars.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fenix-Velcro-Light-Mount-Bracket/dp/B001CJXB5E

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poweradd-Ultra-Slim-Flashlight-Smart-phones-Blue/dp/B00E87C7A2

@surfer, depends on your diet, but most likely a protein supplement of some sort will improve your recovery.

Protein/carb blend directly after exercise.
Slow release protein overnight
Protein only shake with breakfast or mid morning.

Basically you want to drip feed your muscles with protein as close to 24/7 as possible. If you can get it from food then do so, but shakes can help cover the gap

+1 for Glenlivet – the red is basically a blue grade trail with some small unavoidable drops and well signposted avoidable black options.
Agree with Northwind though, its not worth the drive from the borders unless you have other plans in the area.

Definite lack of decent quality blue grade trails, they tend to be too short and too low % singletrack. GT is by far the best.

With a combined bike and rider weight of 95kg even a slight ascent is a Hill. Trust me I know A bit of extra weight makes a big difference to effort required to climb up anything, and this hits the average speed. Lighter people don’t necessarily appreciate this, I consider myself to have some perspective in this area as I’ve got some experience as both a lightweight and heavyweight rider.

I’ll start feeling sorry for fatties wheezing up climbs when they stop using their monster legs to smash the flatlands :D
As a definite lightweight (<60kg) i can confirm that a steady 6% incline may as well be flat and a 10mph headwind is a far more terrifying prospect.

I did my first solo 24 attempt at relentless last year.
Was sitting something like 30th/105 when my wrists packed in (couldn’t squeeze brakes any more :( ) at 15.5hrs and called a halt to my riding. Ended up approx 60th/105

Bike: 29er (or B+) hardtail – the lighter the better – there be climbing!
Training: Ride your bike a lot – I’d finished roughly top 1/3rd of GT7 and 10utb and completed a Raid Alpine, so had got a decent number of miles in – it wasn’t enough.
Pacing/Strategy: Most of what you read online will tell you to go slow, keep the wheels turning and avoid stops – ignore it – the course is hard (too hard in my opinion). Last year there were 3 steep climbs, unless you are either fit enough for a top10, or get off and push there’s no way you are keeping your HR down. By 10pm there were riders standing at the side of the trail hunched over their bikes looking utterly destroyed. Plan for a short break every 2 laps or so.
Parking/Pit Last year the course did a lap of the car park. Lots of trackside spaces. Worst case scenario car certainly won’t be more than 50m from the course.

Have a load of spare bike bits and kit in sealabless boxes in your pit area, just in case

Excellent advice – basically take all your kit

MK2 2.4 rolls like a hog compared to the 2.2 XKing.

This thread seems to be getting confused between protein shakes and recovery drinks. If you use a recovery drink as a substitute for a protein shake you’ll be expanding your waistline as fast as your muscles.

I’m working my way through the last of my out of date Torq Recovery at the moment. Looking at the price of it I realised it comes in at £3 for a 500ml portion. It’s based around a 3:1 carbohydrate/Protein ration.

The Waitrose Essential chocolate milk I picked up from the garage after riding on Sunday was £1.29 for a litre. Per 100ml the choco milk is 3.5g of protein and 11g of carb. which is very close to 3:1 carb:protein unless I’m missing something. I’m assuming if I make it out of Nesquik and whole milk at home it’s even cheaper.

Just saying.

Yes Torq is expensive
Chocolate milk is a very viable alternative, but has a much higher fat content and absorbs slower than a dedicated recovery drink
High5 recovery is on a pretty much permanent 50% discount at wiggle – £0.88/serving.

Another vote for My Protein.
Golden Syrup flavour to mix into porridge, or something chocolatey to drink.

bought a 5kg bag, sure it doesnt mix as well as the smaller pouches ive bought previously

That’s a common theme in the reviews if you read through them a bit.

Interested in this myself – like the xking a lot – insanely fast, and grippier than you might expect from looking at them. But the 2.2 is a little lacking in volume for sure. The problem with replacing it is there’s not a whole lot out there that can even come close to an xking in terms of rolling speed. A Rocket Ron in 2.25 (snakeskin obviously) will be a little larger. An xking 2.4 maybe depending on how wide your rims are?

@Yak – barzo looks an interesting shout, although not seen any data on how vittoria mtb tyres roll

Following thread with interest.

@mattyfez definitely hoping it messes with the profile and squares it up. Not expecting trailblazers on my cooker to be up to much in winter. Have a set of 2.4 Conti MK2’s that should fare much better, and if they get squared up the side knobs will be much more useful than half way down the sidewall like on a regular sized rim.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/schwalbe-s-one-evo-microskin-tl-easy-folding-road-tyre/

If your wheels are tubeless compatible you could go with these. 30c isnt quite fully fat, but light, fast and comfortable with tubeless fluid providing puncture protection.

Or for a slightly larger/heavier version the g-one
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/schwalbe-g-one-evo-microskin-tl-easy-folding-road-tyre/

reasonably light, puncture proof, fat slick

This is one of those pick 2 of 3 situations.

Given that its for commuting i’d go with puncture proof being no1 priority:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/schwalbe-marathon-original-greenguard-rigid-road-city-tyre/

The biggest partying expense @ StAndrews Uni will be transport out of StAndrews at start of evening and home again after.

Here we can see Kulhavy spiking 900+W on a pretty regular basis at the Rio test event – our plucky ebike contender would have to be capable of producing regular 650-850W bursts unassisted (more when taking into account extra 10kg of bike) for the full 90 minute race duration.

On a side note – looking forward to watching the Rio XC race. Could be carnage at the back of the field as unknown riders from countries without a big XC racing culture hit some of those technical features.

Should be able to pick up a hefty discount on these in the next 4-6 weeks as the 2017 model has just been announced:
https://www.evanscycles.com/scott-scale-700-sl-2016-mountain-bike-EV253327

Not ticking all of your boxes, but the Manx 2 Day Enduro certainly combines endurance and technical riding. 10 stages, 40+ miles and 7,000ft of climbing over two days.

40mi and 7000ft over 2 days isn’t endurance riding. It would barely count as endurance riding if it were 1 day rather than 2.

Endurance race and trail bike are somewhat incompatible.
Tour de Ben is a good shout although its not really a race.
A trail bike is overkill for GT7, although would be much more fun on descent than a hardtail.
10 under is a definite hardtail course.

You probably want to be looking for enduro events on mellow courses.

I believe there’s a somewhat unscientific video on GMBN that came to the conclusion that the extra weight and clumsyness of the ebike made it no faster than an XC race bike round an XC circuit.

Lets take a somewhat simplified example.
According to coggans power chart, an untrained (classified as a non racing cyclist) rider will have a the following P/W ratios:
2.5W/kg @ FT
3.0W/kg @ 5min
Lets assume a recreational cyclist is a little under the national average weight @ 78kg, giving FT and 5min powers of 195W and 234W respectively.
Adding 250W assist from the bike gives 445W and 484W.

Next we add 10kg weight penalty for the bike, and calculate using some pro level power outputs to find out what you would need to produce to keep up on the climbs.
6.0W/kg @ FT = 528W
7.2W/kg @ 5min = 633W

So the answer is no, not even close to keeping up. 83W short on FT power and 149W short on 5min power.

Didn’t find it as gripping as i used to, will give it another chance next week. Carbide was quite impressive – not entirely convinced the lawnmower blade is more effective than a flywheel though.

Do you like more grip and less rolling resistance?
If so, buy an Airshot, if not spend the cash on some therapy.

Rule #5