The Torq drink is much less sweet than things like SIS. It’s got electrolytes in so it has a slightly salty taste that makes it far more tolerable for longer I find…

+1 on Rhubarb and Custard Gels.

I managed Torq Gels and Drink for most of a 36 hour ride last weekend. That’s got to be pretty good going!

how did you find the route finding, and any bits to watch out for?

I struggled mainly with the bit coming into Brecon. Lots of farm land, and either bridleways with no visible trail on the ground or massively overgrown. I was bloody tired by that point. Most of my navigation probs were probably wilderness riding inexperience and tiredness tbh.

I never actually got lost, whenever I had issues it was mostly pushing across a field or bog trying to find the exit on the otherside. In the grand scheme of things it was a tiny percentage of the route. But by god can you lose a lot of time on those bits!

Strata Florida to Llanwyrtd Wells was pretty fast going and very easy to navigate but it’s a lot of forest road and climbing, that felt long and was grateful for company as it was night.

Best segment is Machynlleth to Nanty, has the worst climb but feels the most wild.

Easiest segment ignoring the start and end ones which are cycle paths, was Brecon to Merthyr Tydfil. Easy to navigate, reasonable climbs, pretty straight forward.

Just did Dave’s route non-stop and supported last weekend. Weather was a bit poop and I was out there for 36 hours. Ask away 🙂

Oh it was for charity too 😀 http://justgiving.com/garyrideswc2c

Very nearly this weekend on my Wales Coast to Coast. Was just outside Llanwrtyd Wells and was planning/contemplating it. Mercifully I found the public toilet there. The loo was a bit too ‘Trainspotting’ for my liking so perhaps I should have sampled a wild poo…

Cheeky bump, before I head home, anyone?

I dunno if i’m convinced by the whole 29er FS concept.

Likewise but it turns out some of my favorite bikes are now 29er FS. Superfly 100 and Tallboy are superb and the new Whyte M-109 showed a LOT of promise too.

Bontrager 29-1 Team Issue 2.2, very light, very fast, way grippier than it has any right to be, a touch fragile but not nearly as much as the weight would suggest. (550g)

Tube webs are non-native, quite common in areas near major ports. Common as muck around Portishead/Avonmouth area. Apparently can be quite aggressive and the bite is supposed to be on Bee sting levels of pain and irritation.

You’ll live…

Most Twin Six stuff…

Oh and I tried to hang on with 2.1 High Rollers, eventually bought some MUDx and went 15mins a lap quicker!

I did 2010 solo, and while it was mighty muddy, I rode an E-120 and didn’t clean it or ever have to stop and pull mud out of it.

Very fun natural course in the dry, holds up surprisingly well in the wet I thought.

And rained in the second half?? It started raining around 6pm if IRC!!!

So yeah, looks pretty bad but that was soloing, no washing, and the bike cleaned up pretty nicely afterwards!

Like any normal person, check my ‘pay packet’ properly each month… Better to worry about making savings once you know you’re actually being paid properly.

We spend more on benefits than we do on health, education and defence COMBINED.

And tax avoidance (legal or otherwise) is valued at a third of what the benefits bill is. Why is there not a war on that? And I don’t mean simply telling on Jimmy Carr to his mum.

It’s like he’s actively trying to outdo Maggie as if it’s a competition…

She’s probably feeling a bit shitty about the bump and you asking, quite frankly, dumb questions like this will not help.

This. She probably felt like a tit. You just pointed out the obvious.

Sounds like you need to focus on the real problems and not worry about a bumped car.

Oh no, just had this horrible feeling when I saw the thread had been bumped…

Really sorry for yours and your family’s loss 😥

Nope 5’8″ here on a Superfly, and my saddle looks ‘right’ relative to the bars and I’m not even close to toe overlap either. Trek Superfly 100 in a 17.5″ btw

No crashes, I hope feel it’s Wiggins’ to lose.

To be honest, until you’ve owned a Macbook or an iMac and done a full life cycle on one, it is hard to understand the ‘value’ of them – I couldn’t see it but I wanted one anyway and after we made the switch to Apple at work I figured ‘why not’. Haven’t looked back. I’ve got colleagues doing high end video work on 5+ year old Macbook Pros and they just keep going on. Some have been planning to upgrade for a couple of years now ‘once it dies’, but they don’t.

Running a 2009 Macbook Pro and iMac here doing graphics and video work, stuck some new RAM in both this year (which was ridiculously easy to do, less faff than a PC even), that’ll do for another 3 years…

I’m having a go at the Wales Coast to Coast (offroad) in August

Gripe water is alcohol

No it’s not. Alcohol free these days. Although it is apparently not being produced anymore.

I’m 5’8″, mine was a 54cm, you’re deffo a 56cm I’d say…

I wouldn’t judge 29ers off the back of riding a 69er…

Get a demo if you’re not sure. Superfly FS and HT, and the SC Tallboy are the best I’ve personally ridden. Honestly felt like every other rider was on a Spesh Epic 29er at Bike Fest this weekend.

I’ve done 24/12 before and did Bike Fest this weekend, 17th, same laps as you I think! Two punctures and having a lot of time spare but not enough for an extra lap is my excuse!

Anyway, SITS will be less physical I believe. In terms of body fatigue, I was probably more wrecked after Bike Fest than I was 24/12. I’d say properly chill out from the start, more than you need to, and build into the race more.

Make a list of niggles now while you remember. Even the slightest little rub of a shoe or a glove after 12hrs will be potentially race ending in a 24.

If you were able to fuel yourself and ride to 15th on what I gather is your first 12hr, on that course, SITS should be a piece of piss!

Well done!

It’s now all like the new section from last year 🙂

It’s 90% stone singletrack and doubletrack, and it dries out bloody quickly. The start finish straight might be an issue but otherwise don’t run mud tyres of any sort. Something like Ralphs will be ideal, I promise.

I’m running Bonty 29-1s, I’m a local and I ran these all winter too.

Really? In a 12 hour race? Because you lost a few seconds!?

Yup, in the 12 hour, not getting clear on the first lap is worth a lot of time due to the bottle necks. In Oktoberfest I finished 10th in the solo, 14th to 7th was separated by something like 15 minutes at the end I recall, I was nursing a twisted ankle so jogged the run and didn’t cut the corner, easily cost me the 7 minutes to 7th place for sure.

On the awful wet 2009 bogfest, I was stood waiting to cross the bridge on the first lap when the fastest teams were coming round on lap 2 and pushing through.

Cheers Pawsy, plenty to consider there!

Pawsey: as well as the link to Dave Buchanan’s site that Ant posted, here’s my own blog on it http://www.garyrides.co.uk (plug)

12-hour solo – not sure why, it’s my local trail and I’ve been doing all of my Wales Coast 2 Coast training around there – I’m expecting a loooong day 🙂

Edit: and I’m expecting to be terminally slow so a nice slap on the back and a cheer would be much appreciated 🙂

Serious post. I woulnt touch anything apple. Maybe it happens but I dont hear about company workers commiting suicide at other companies but it does happen at apples affiliate manufacturer.

1,000,000 workers, 17 suicides according to wired: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1 Wikipedia is more conservative at 230k–450k employees.

Drastically lower suicide rate than the national average of most countries including China itself. Am I missing something or are Foxconn employees some of the least suicidal in China?

Ignorance or a poor troll, I take it you’ve never touched anything made by:
Acer Inc. (Taiwan)[37]
Amazon.com (United States)[7]
Apple Inc. (United States)[38]
Cisco (United States)[39]
Dell (United States)[40]
Hewlett-Packard (United States)[41]
Intel (United States)[42]
Microsoft (United States)[9]
Motorola Mobility (United States)[40]
Nintendo (Japan)[43]
Nokia (Finland)[38]
Samsung Electronics (South Korea)[44]
Sony (Japan)[8]
Toshiba (Japan) [45]
Vizio (United States)[46]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers

I’d much rather singlespeed Whites Level climb over Cwmcarn’s climb personally. Having done both on singlespeed, Whites was hard work but I at least cleaned it. I dabbed a few times on Cwmcarn…

I’ve got one, RE: the noise thing, it’s not something you notice while riding it. But believe me, when you ride something else and your mate is on a Five, that’s when you notice it.

Si @ Loco +1 – totally transformed some very bad from new Float RLs and I’ve had a few friends use him with no complaints either. If it matters, he’s a bloody stand-up guy too!

Good times, and yes, you guys deserve a medal and total respect for being so calm! I know we’d be hopeless in that situation! 🙁

What’s the purpose of their survey and publicising those figures?
I’ve never seen it as the IAM’s aim to discredit cyclists in the past.

https://www.iam.org.uk/cyclist

Which makes this all the more baffling?! I for one look forward to cycling being more enjoyable and safer after this inflammatory piece of shonky research hit the press 🙁

Ouch, we had a lucky escape I think with our nipper (18mths) currently regrowing a new finger nail. And that was traumatic enough for my liking!

Healing vibes!

Don’t expect him to have learnt anything from this mind, mine’s still putting his fingers where he shouldn’t 🙄

Cheers guys, some good stuff to look into there!

Are the wooden balance bikes too much like toys than real bikes and that’s why they are rejecting them?

I’ve got an 18m/old wandering around the house on a Toddle bike, he doesn’t really ride it, just straddles it and literally walks it about the house. But getting on and off of it alone has done wonders for his balance and coordination, he knows it as his ‘bike’ and enjoys playing with it, pretends to fix it with toy spanners even.

I’m kind of just putting it there for him but doing a surprisingly good job of not being pushy with it, I thought I’d be terrible! Will be getting a Rothan for his 2nd birthday in the Autumn and again just going to leave it about.

Six feet tall FAIL
Muscly, toned and athletic I’m a cyclist so FAIL (scrawny and athletic)
Brown eyes FAIL
Short dark hair PASS
Smart dress sense FAIL
A beer / lager drinker FAIL
Non smoker PASS
Wears smart jeans, shirt and a V-neck jumper FAIL
Gets ready in 17 minutes FAIL (a dump and a magazine will put me over that)
Stylish FAIL
Wants a family FAIL already got one
Earns £48,000 a year FAIL
Loves shopping FAIL
Eats meat PASS
Clean shaven FAIL
Smooth chest FAIL
Watches soaps EPIC FAIL
Enjoys watching football EPIC FAIL
Drives an Audi EPIC FAIL
Educated to degree level PASS
Earns more than you PASS
Jokes around and has a laugh PASS
Sensitive when you are upset FAIL (my wife would argue at times)
Tells you he loves you only when he means it PASS
Admits it when he looks at other women FAIL
Holds a driving licence PASS
Can swim PASS (just)
Can ride a bike EPIC PASS
Can change a tyre EPIC PASS
Rings mum regularly FAIL

11/30 – what a catch!