If you like a bit of road riding (and are hiring a car) Ventoux is about 90 mins up the road. We stay nr Martigues often and I’ve done that a couple times; hired from Ventoux Bikes in Malaucene.
I’ve looked around before for mtb hire and not found much tbh; I have looked at: https://www.aixpritvelo.com/ in Aix en Provence who seem to do stuff over the ‘Montagne Sainte-Victoire’
Also bear in mind (around where we go anyway) most of the open rough municipal ground is out of bounds after 10 or 11am in mid-summer due to fire risk.

If you’re down there the weekend 25/26 of June be aware its the Ironman tri from Wimbleball – a good spectacle, but might not be the best for a pedal around the lake, some of the course uses the footpaths on the lakeside.

Got me thinking about That Quantocks Ride ages back

Somebody produced stickers – half of them had Tandemjeremy written on them, helpfully!

On the turbo I use an old 10sp wheel with 105 10sp cassette in an otherwise 11sp Uletgra set up. Without any twiddling it misses a couple of gears – but fine in the main for what I want on a turbo.

Had it with BB5’s that scared me quite a bit – downhill in traffic; being used to hydro’s where you don’t need to fiddle, but – soon learnt with cable on the cx you need to keep a feel on the lever travel and adjust frequently. Now with BB7’s that are better and easier to adjust, but it’s become a common check to do for me.

Are we in the nice van not works van then 🙂

Have a look at Westbury Wheelers, although predominately a road club they have a very keen/succesful vet racing the southern xc series among other mtb stuff. Sure he’d welcome you along! Also, a bit more local to Wiltshire – Offcamber series in Inside Park (no dates for this winter yet though) and there has also been a ‘fun’ hr long race around a track in Stourhead over the winter months on a Sunday morning organised by Gillingham Wheelers – will be on their web when dates sorted.
Also very local to Trow’ is this years (delayed) Erlestoke12 on Sept 19th, which I think I’ll be at.
(also from Trowbridge)

I’m sure the SPAM guys who are up early to clear up post race love that comment Edric. Having organised one E12 (luckily the one where we had riders with heat exhaustion) and helped at others, I can appreciate how disheartened they will have been by the conditions for the race. With that amount of rain yesterday am, the conditions were pretty inevitable. It would be great to promote the positives – it is an excellent venue – I take it you managed to load up on hard standing and drive unhindered from the car-park (not like the Devon County Show that had to be cancelled yesterday because of the parking conditions) It is a wonderful location, admittedly in the right weather, and it would be great if numbers could be such to give prizes. Entry fee is still excellent value, £30 cheaper than Bikefest for 12hr race – and difficult to compare cost to running a 10mile multi terrain race such as the Terminator.

Composite – well noticed! Erlestoke 12 Saturday 24th 🙂

Looks good – I’m in the office on the corner of Charles St/Monmouth St.
Will have to venture further than the Griffin (opposite!)

SPAM Erlestoke12 will be back again on Saturday May 25th.

How was it for all then? I thought it was a great event, bike course was pretty good; some testing singletack but plenty of field work – which was OK as nice and hard/dry. Loved the run course – if only my old PE teacher could hear me saying I loved cross country running 🙂

Have you watched the video of the course from last year? Doesn’t look too technical – longer this year though. Be up there Sat pm for a test lap as well.

Yup! I’ll be there in garish Hot Chilli Tri club colours. The description of the run….more toughmudder, than trail run….didn’t realise I was letting myself in for that!
Have a good one 🙂

Age groups, male/female, team/pair/solo, for the Fatbike cat?

Pretty fed up ref the timing problems, apologies. Last yr we used a different crew and had some issue – thought using Timelaps all would be good again……

Well done Gee! Glad you enjoyed the race!

Hi Jim, am i right in thinking you gave some good feedback last year? You’ll be pleased to know we’re using the favourite tried & tested MTB timing outfit ‘Timelaps’ this year; hopefully race info should be easier to look at this year.

Depends on what you’re used to riding for that length of time. It is a good hardtail course – that’s what I’d use (especially if damp)

Thanks for all the positive comments! Last year was just superb, if not too a bit too hot! The overnight format was great, but numbers low hence having to change – we did 2 Set2Rise and this is now the 4th Erlestoke12; it’s great that Set2Rise is still fondly remembered. We did discuss an 18hr format; with a bit more planning we might get that off the ground for next year.
Charge Bikes are still the major sponsor, so expect plenty of prizes again!

Erlestoke12[/url]

You’re all welcome to come and do our event! The only race where the medics had to treat riders for sun-stroke last year 😀

Love it, tag line sorted! will pass the royalties back to you if we go that way 🙂

18hr could be a good target time for those looking for 24hrs later in the yr, Mountain Mayhem in mid June now or Bonty

Should have said would run options for timing, all 18hrs, noon start for 12hrs, 6pm start for 12hrs, and 6hr options as last year……just to really confuse the timing guys 🙂
Have spoken with BCC/MB Sw’ in the past regarding reduced/free entry if they help out.
Totally agree with the cap’n; I liked the ‘experience’ of the sun going/coming back. Been on the other side of the fence, organising, last couple of yrs so haven’t entered as such, just got a few laps in.

SPAM Winter Challenge Results

Results from today can be found on the link.

Cheers all

Cheers guys! Thanks for coming and supporting us, working on results…..not that they are important on an event like this 😉

Split is after about 20Km (just past Imber village) and there will be water (for drinking!) at this point.

Thanks for the above comments.
Edric64 – thanks for your constructive criticism; think you covered your thoughts in your first post – we’re not forcing you to come and ride around the plain 🙂
Rain stopped here at the moment, and quite pleasant out! Route’s are marked out, so see you tomorrow (but not Edric I guess)

Hi all – they’re out marking the course at the moment; so we should have a good idea of what it is like in a while….if they make it back. 🙂
The route does use a lot of hard-track and the army road through Imber and we don’t use the singletrack through the woods; it just would not sustain 500 riders in these conditions. SPAM have had a lot of issues with the MoD/Landmarc over use of the woods for our events and we don’t want to jeopardise the Erlestoke12 event by trashing the singletrack and upsetting the powers that be. We’ll leave that to the MX riders…..
Just see it as something daft to do with your mates at a time of year where you might need cajoling out onto the bike, with all proceeds going to charity – so you’re doing some ‘good’ as well.
Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. I’ll be the one shouting into a megaphone stating the bleeding obvious about partaking in a mtb event that nobody will be able to hear anyway 🙂

Dave…..repeat the following 100 times.
“I am having a baby soon; I must stop spending money”

😆 😆 😆

Or for another long distance CX / mtb ride….SPAM Blast around Salisbury Plain[/url]

So, who’s still going? At least the rain this year may be torrential enough to wash the mud off!!

….after 4hrs last year….

It’s not a ‘race’ – on open tracks!

Wanted to get up and do this event; but other commitments (but managed a local sprint tri instead)
The results seemed to give some very quick average speeds for the bike leg when I looked, I worked them out based on the expected 30Km – makes more sense now! How off-road was the run? Your trainers still look nice and clean njee!

….nobody has mentioned Tiverton yet…..

Hey raceface – get yourself a cx bike and come and do the next SPAM event. 100Km around the Plain; we’re billing this a CX /MTB ride – 30th September. SPAM BLAST[/url] Web site needs completing, but most details are there

We managed to hold steady on numbers at the SPAM/Charge Erlestoke12 – the hottest, sunniest race of the year so far 8)
Another 100 or so would have been good, especially more 12hr riders. It was noticeable that there was a large increase in the 6hr cats’.

Blackdown hills thread

Have a look at this thread, might be useful. I was at my parents last week nr there and thought of trying to do some local exploring as opposed to going up to the Q’s…..As it worked out, I did neither!

My 2010 version – now has its Reba’s back on and 1×10 set-up. First and only 29″, so nothing to compare against, but I like it a lot. Picked up the frame, fork(s), drivetrain and bits from the STW classifieds – so didn’t break the bank

….it’s the official line, yes; MoD land, so out of bounds. We were lucky with a change of opinion for this years event. After the 2011 event they told us no more and only changed their minds in Feb’ time. Not sure why they relented, we didn’t ask too many questions after they gave us the go ahead! But, at the end of the day there is some good local riding to be had over there…..