Kimbers – Mark ‘Dick’ Barton.

Completely legit auctions. Honest guv! 🙂

I know and ride with the chap for our local shop. He’s a serial bike hoarder. Wifey has told him to shift them and it seems he’s begrudgingly doing so on eBay.

He’s rather short on words in his auctions, so probably best to call on the number he’s posted in the description.

All the bikes were purchased from Revel Outdoors – Give them a call on 01284 761954 and they’ll give him a good reference.

Entered for the 7 lap. Just need to make sure I wake up early enough to start.

If I hear even the slightest patter of raindrops, I’ll be hitting the snooze button.

Great bikes and rare as hens teeth on the trails it seems by the attention they get when out and about. The Lefty Max is amazing and very stiff… Once you’ve overcome the absurd looks of the thing.

A couple of people in our shop race team have them, alloy and carbon models, and ride them everywhere from Thetford to N. Wales. Nothing seems to slow them down whether it be climbs, downs or general flat trail.

In typical 29er fashion, it does prefer to bulldoze through trails rather than take flight. So might not appeal to jumpy monkey sorts.

Full Gas.

That really gets on my tits.

Now that’s a transformation and one happy (and lucky) dog!

Thanks for sharing 🙂

Belt drive you say? You’ll be wanting a Skookum in that case

Pipedream Skookum [/url]

As much as I love my Cannondale SS, the EBB has proved to be the work of Satan.

Dusk ’til Dawn is a tricky one for me as it’s a ‘home race’ seeing as it’s just down the road.

Parts of the course have usually been used in other local race series or during a weekend slog round Thetford, so the feeling of monotony has usually sunk in before I’ve reached the start line.

Its true that any endurance race consisting of repeat laps is going to have that sense of repetition when you’ve been going round and round in circles for hours on end, but that’s part of the challenge; to switch off and zone out 😉

Some courses have certain parts that never get boring though and give you something to look forward to no matter how many times you’ve slogged round. It all depends if the organiser is doing it as they have a passion for the event or are just in it to make a quick buck.

Slowjo,

Events like Mayhem are just getting too expensive to draw the crowds I think.
£80 for a solo entry? Take a hike.

Bonty 24/12 had a far more exciting course and a great atmosphere and was only £55.

24hr events seem to be reducing in numbers (another recession victim maybe?) but there are still a good number of 12hr events still attracting the crowds such as Erlestoke, Torq, Dusk ‘ Dawn and the Thetford Summer Enduro (alright, that last one is only 10 hours!).

I think the organisers of the Exposure 24 are involved in that XCaliber stage race nonsense this year, which at £1800 doesn’t appeal to me or many others I expect.

Slowjo, I’ve first hand experience of your DIY skills. I think you should arm yourself with a packet of biscuits and pop down to the local bike shop 😀

Talking to the organiser before Chrimbo he said it’s likely to be on the Brandon Country Park side again this year.

There’s a lot of forestry ops going on in Thetford which along with the nesting bird restrictions, doesn’t leave a lot of options 🙁

Admittedly it’s on my doorstep so will probably go again this year.

Last year was good fun. Typically swoopy Thetford singletrack, lots of happy faces and a great atmosphere.
Dragged myself round to finish 5th in the 10h solo and didn’t get bored. Which says a lot for the course design.

I find my Renault Trafic a lovely place to be. Ok, friends think I look like a pikey in it but it’s a great on long journeys, pleasant to drive and I can still chuck bikes and a bed in the back.

Before the Trafic I had a Fiat Doblo, and although it was a great bike hauler, there wasn’t enough room to sleep in the back.

Went last year and have done a couple at Eastnor, found atmosphere lacking and courses disappointing.
Gatcombe did nothing for me and the cost compared to similar events is far too steep. I won’t be going back in a hurry.

After the demise of Sleepless I decided to give Bontrager 24/12 a shot and found the whole set up was a lot better.
It’s a long way to drive for a race but as mentioned by others it is worth making a holiday of it and exploring Devon.

Another vote for Kask Mojito here

Hardware is good.
The website and software are terrible, support non existent.

I’ve had an issue where the time is out by an hour due to daylight saving. The fix is to manually alter the time string in the gpx file which is very tedious. Support insist that it’s my computer. All 3 of them!

There’s some hoo haa about Strava too. Bryton claim Strava have blocked their devices from their website whereas Steava claim they need to update the API used for data upload. About a year later and it’s still not resolved.

Funnily enough, I’ve gone to Garmin too 😉

What they said.
So much better than Mayhem. Course, atmosphere, you name it. And cheaper too!

Newnham Park is a great course in the dry. Not much fun once it gets wet though.

Snatched from the organisers Facebook page:

“Enduro 6 & Sleepless in the Saddle will not be staged in 2014 as we have been unable to secure sponsorship for these events.We do hope to revive them in the future”

🙁

Revel Outdoors in Bury St Edmunds.

They’ve got lots of stuff I don’t need, but so desperately want.

Bugger 🙁

Rider numbers always seemed quite high, so is it just costs to run such an event that is causing so many to cancel this year?

Mayhem solo entry is £75! That’s taking the proverbial when Bontrager 24/12 puts on a far more exciting, atmospheric event and for less money. And they have hot showers too.

/rant

At £1800, I think Nick Craig is going to be the only participant. 😆

Erlestoke 12, Bontrager 24/12 are both very good events.
Not enjoyed Mountain Mayhem in recent years, but miss its sister event Sleepless in the Saddle dearly.

There’s the Bedgebury Insomnia which is hopefully on again this year.

Thetford Forest Dusk til Dawn in the autumn. They also do a 10 hour race in June.

As Gee mentioned, Tyn Y Groes is just down the road.
Has a bike lockup and you can just cross the road and ride up a fireroad to the visitor centre.

I wouldn’t think the brake mount would cause any harm.
Lefty brake mounts are open and I haven’t had any issues with my front brake dropping off.

Had one for four years and have no horror stories to report.
The diesel is much better than the petrol (which I had), has a little more grunt and much better fuel economy.

It’s not permanent 4×4, but uses some viscous drive thingy (technical term that) which engages the rear wheels when the front start to slip. Worked great on the farm and was surprisingly capable in the snow.

I can only speak for the petrol, but I found the gearing was very different to the standard Panda. 70mph and the engine sounded like it was crying out for another gear. But for bumbling about the country lanes and into town, it was perfect.

Unless you really need the 4×4 ability, the Panda 100 I once got as a courtesy car would be a much better overall car. More refined, better ride and much more sensible gearing.

Have had a few Lezyne ones and they all suffered from the zips failing.
Got new ones after moaning to the distributor, only for them to fail the same way.

Five year old Topeak still going strong. And those Fizik bags are nice if you have a compatible saddle as they don’t rub against your seatpost.

Cannondale have started using ZTR Rapid (like a beefed up Crest) rims on some of their 2014 models. Certain Flash and Scalpel variants have them.

As said above, 925 is a big slab of phone. Slippery blighters too, so a case is a must IMHO.

My Lumia experience hasn’t been too good so far. It shuts down randomly and takes several reboots before it actually starts working again. Replacement from Vodafone was fairing better until today 😥

I had a pair of Lakes and in the box was a small piece of paper with a product notice along the lines of:
“If the tread falls off, glue it back on with silicone sealant”

Hopefully Fizik are a little more customer focused than that!

My experience of the Uberbike BB has been well, forgettable really.

That’s to say it’s done its job very well since I slapped it on my hack bike sometime back in January. Still spinning nice and freely and with zero maintenance.

Been a tightwad, I went for the cheaper stainless option.

For Dalby (and all the Welsh trail centres I’ve been to), 100mm is plenty. It’s also great fun to be able to whizz by the lardy buggers on 140+ as they bob up the climbs…

Just make sure you get a good enough lead on ’em before they catch you up on the next down hill 😉

Trigger has on the fly rear adjustment. So you can switch from 130mm to 80mm for the climbs 8)

A riding buddy has one, it’s roughly 28lbs with a few mods and changes.

It seems to defy gravity as although a little lardy, it climbs very well.
To quote him after our recent Wales trip to CyB “it just smashed the downs!”

Not much to go on, but he loves it. And that Lefty Max is a seriously stiff bit of kit.

Best atmosphere of all the races I attended this season and so glad it’s going to be at Newnham Park again 😀

Can get a large 29er frame in with the front wheel off.

Bike, partner, one small terrier and a weeks worth of holiday luggage all just about squeezed in.

On a whole, I found riders at D2D more polite than any of the previous endurance events that I’ve attended this year. The plentiful overtaking spots and fireroads seemed to keep frustration levels low. Although I now have finely tuned my hearing to filter out the phrase “rider up”

There was some great camaraderie amongst the solos through the night and maybe my sleep deprived mind imagined it, but wasn’t there a guy riding around with a radio strapped to his helmet?!

Had a C30 for 3 years.

Could just squeeze a large full susser in the back with front wheel off and front passenger seat pushed forward.
Getting it through the small hatch aperture was the tricky part, not impossible.

A Saris Bones will fit the hatch without any problem.

The pointy end of the pack are nearly always on some super light, spine crushing hardtail.

I don’t know how they do it. After trying a few laps at Bonty on my Flash, I soon saw sense and jumped back on my Tallboy!

The non 4×4 Panda is indeed much more capable on the motorway. I think the gear ratios were different on the 4×4 compared to the standard Pandas.

Always felt like I wanted to change up another gear when at 70. That and the 4×4 setup did make it more thirsty.