Southern XC at Crow Hill on 11 April?

If you fancy something longer we are organising the Bucks Offroad Sportive on May 16. 35km, 80km, 100km and 121km routes. http://www.bucksoffroadsportive.co.uk – we are expecting around 600 riders.

I rode the 121km route last year and the extra 21km loop was a killer. The event is modelled on HONC but IMO is better sign posted and more suited to XC bikes than crossers. Good training for 24hr solos too as you are guaranteed 6+ hours in the saddle.

Sadly not a series 🙁 Its hard enough getting Black Park to let us have the space for the morning (we're meant to finished by 1pm) and with all the organisation, St John's ambulance etc etc its just too much work to do more frequently. If we were near to Gorrick numbers each time and could count on that many people it would be more of a possibility.

It wont help, but if you had been doing cross you would have liked the course. Fast and furious for 1hr 15 to 1hr 45mins. So a bit longer than cross but still loads of fun.

Oldgit – did you make it?

Cheers Tim. Great photos. Shame you couldn't ride though.

Thanks to all those who entered. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the course and the first proper day of spring!

And here's the black one. I've been wearing a Catlike Whisper over the last year so this is a bit old. I've just acquired (crash replacement) a new S-Works version so I'll be wearing that for racing this year.

Agreed. I have two. Very light and very comfortable. They also have an excellent crash replacement policy 🙂

Ap – as early as that. Nasty with Telegraph, Galibier and ADH to go? The trick to a good time is to do NO work on the front at all if you can avoid it. Sounds mean spirited but no one will thank you for being their lead out man for 150km and then blowing. I sat in and was feeling good for ADH but a broken pedal spindle all but wrecked my time. Want to go sub 8hrs this year.

aP – Campag huh? I don't think shimano comes in 29 🙂 Anyway, its good advice. After 160kms and three cols in your legs having a 29 at the back would be a godsend. I rode it with a 26 and it hurt…still got a gold time though 😉

A 130 Bolt Circle Diameter (BCD) on regular 53/39 chainset will make it impossible to run anything smaller than a 38 on the inside. So you can run 50/38 but that wont give you the low gears you want. To go 50/34 or 50/36 you would need a crankset with a BCD of 110.

I'd advise a compact with an 11/26 on the back for the Alps. Perhaps even an 11/28 depending on how strong your legs are.

Well, the BP course is remarkably dry with the exception of one 2m stretch before the bridge. Laps might even be quicker than 20mins 🙂

I'd use the caffeine gels sparingly. They are really good but there is an optimal level of caffeine consumption. 3 caffeine gels per hour would seem to me to be too much.

To be honest, I think three gels and a couple of bars per hour is too much. I'm guessing this is about 100grams+ of carbs. Assuming you are using an energy drink too you are likely to end up with stomach problems. Just too much carbohydrate for your body to process.

1gram per hour per Kg of body weight is the rough rule. 75kg = 75grams which would equate to one bar, one gel and a bottle of drink. I would alternate the gels so that 1 was caffeine every two hours.

This will be much more important in a 24hr event where stomach problems could be the difference between you contining or retiring. I've been there and its not nice.

Sounds time consuming and messy but worth a try if you have the time I guess. Best of luck 😉

Are you really serious? So you'd need to glue a strip of innertube inside the tyre? How are you going to do this and keep it airtight?

Seems to me tubeless set ups do exactly what you are suggesting. If you change a lot of tyres get a compressor and use two part valves. Its simple.

Yeah. It worked a couple of days ago. I posted in this thread http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/did-that-event-that-was-charging-70-happen

…and it was definitely working then.

I didn't think it was dodgy but never expected it to happen due to crazy prizes and no promotion.

Doing MM solo without support would IMO be a soul destroying experience. The course is not exciting and riding round and round in circles can be mind numbing. The reason for doing it is the festival nature and camaradery…not easy to enjoy these things if you are trying to fill your own bottles, trudge to the cafe etc etc.

MM might be in June but that by no means makes it a summer event.

You can get pit support from whoever you like.

Matt Page did 26 laps in 24 hours. To make the top 50% you would have needed to do 12 laps.

Get a pit crew. It will be a lot harder, motivationally and physically, without them.

People who walk out in front of you with headphones on = ipeds

Good reporting from the mirror…what on earth does this mean?

"Our source said that in one incident outside a night club he got into a row with the boyfriend of a reveller’s ­girlfriend."

George – MTFU 😉

We'll try and make sure they're aren't any.

I'm wrong on one count. This weekend's pre-ride is Saturday. Oh, and I wasn't being elitist…we're not that sort of club and anyone is welcome to join.

Anyway, there's a network of trails over a BP which anyone can ride any day of the week 🙂 Its a pretty regular venue for the club weekly night ride.

The exact route for the race wont be obvious until the tape is put up on Saturday 13. We tend to put in changes the day before as its not til you ride it in anger that you realise you've left good bits out/made it too fast/slow etc. You can of course get an idea for the course any time.

There isn't to much clearing to do and we wont be making any of the singletrack wider. It can actually be a tricky course to pass in as it is singletrack heavy with only short stretches of fire road. Keeps it interesting though.

We'll be marking out the course on the 13th. It does take us most of the day to rake, clear leaves, tape etc. We don't have a problem with people pre-riding it on the Saturday but please wait til we've finished. It will only be about 5km in length (short circuit, lots of laps) so you could easily pre-ride on Sunday morning.

You can ride at BP any day of the week but the course wont be identifiable until the 13th. There is a pre-ride this Saturday but for WDMBC members only really.

Oh – Singlespeed for me.

Ride All Night? http://www.rideallnight.co.uk/

Think it was cancelled last year although it says "Returns for 2010". Never heard anyone promote it or anyone say they were going.

No arguments on headtubes – but there appears to be very little demand for OS BBs from designers of metal bikes if we can only think of 1 non-carbon BB30 type frame.

Are the Cannondale CAAD9s BB30?

I think there is now 2 options. A standard S-Works and a S-Works SL. The latter comes with a carbon spider which reduces the weight by a fair bit.

That makes sense. I'm trying to get my head around this. If you look at the differences between the BB30 and SW-OS versions of the Extralite crank you see that with the BB30 you use press in cups to hold the 41mm OS bearings. With the SW-OS you press the bearings straight into the frame. I guess this compensates for the wider frame shell.

Nick – is the spindle longer or shorter? The availability of the s-works crankset is pretty poor. Is the new lightweight carbon spider one even available here?

Taken from weightweenies. Pretty comprehensive…but does pose the question…why?

Dear Raton,
Yes, BB86, often confused with “BB90,” uses existing integrated-spindle/external-bearing cranksets on a press-in bearing system. BB30 is often perceived as a Cannondale and Specialized system and may account as much as anything for a host of BB83/BB86/BB90/BB92/BB94/BB95 “standards” now in circulation by bicycle manufacturers who don’t necessarily want to adopt the system of their competitors.

Here is a quick guide to a number of these new standards:

BB30, or 30 X 68 and 30 X 73mm bottom brackets, come in either 68mm or 73mm shell widths for road or mountain bikes. The spindle diameter is 30mm, and the 41mm-diameter bearings press straight into the BB shell and are held in place by snaprings. In addition to Cannondale (who named the system) and Specialized (which doesn’t call its system BB30), FSA and SRAM (TruVativ) make BB30 cranksets; Shimano does not, and Campagnolo makes press-in adaptor cups to fit its Ultra-Torque (and Fulcrum Racing-Torq) cranks to a BB30 shell.

Scott and Shimano came up with BB83/BB86, often called the “Shimano system,” but not by Shimano. It accepts a standard 24 X 90mm road or 24 X 95mm MTB crank spindle. The shell is 86.5mm wide with a 41mm ID. The bearing has a 37mm OD and is pressed into a nylon insert with a 41mm OD that presses into the frame . Each insert’s shoulder is 1.75mm wide, creating the 90mm width and hence the BB90 name. Shimano, FSA and SRAM offer BBs to fit this shell; Campagnolo makes press-in adaptor cups to fit its Ultra-Torque (and Fulcrum Racing-Torq) cranks to BB83/BB86 shells.

BB92 is the MTB version of the BB83/BB86 with a 91.5mm wide shell for MTB triple cranks. Again, the 3.5mm of the two shoulders add width to 95mm.

BB90 is Trek’s Campy- (and Shimano-, SRAM-, FSA-) compatible Madone system. The BB shell is 90mm wide by 37mm ID. The 37mm OD bearings (the same bearings as inside an external-bearing cup) insert directly into the carbon frame and accept integrated-spindle cranks.

BB95 is the MTB version of BB90 with a 95mm wide shell on the new Trek Top Fuel and Fuel EX carbon.

Wilier’s new system has a 94mm wide BB into which a Campagnolo Ultra-Torque (or Fulcrum Racing-Torq) crankset fits directly without cups or retaining clip.

OD is 44mm. I think the BB width is different though. This can be sorted with the press in adapter or in my case some thin spacers that sit behind the bearing and in front of the c-clips. Simplistically doesn't BB30 mean 30mm spindle?

James-0 – the point of OS BBs in whatever format is you can use a larger spindle. Because its got a bigger diameter it can be stiffer and you can (in many cases) actually use less material, so its lighter. Also because you don't need the bearing cups you again saving weight (no cups). I can't see what the size of the tubes has to do with it. Especially with carbon.

I think there is the press fit adapters – so you can use existing HT2 etc cranksets. And also, the press fit style bearings which mean you can use an oversized axle for the crankset – which I guess is where the weight/stiffness improvements can be found.

My Extralite bearings were 44mm outside diameter pressed into the BB shell and held in by an interfearance fit and the c-clips. They accept a 30mm axle. Incidentally this was the same as the standard 68mm set up but didn't use the cups.

Edit: there were also some small spacers which i suspect are used to shim the axle length to fit the width of the BB without the bearing cups.

Clear as mud isn't it. I thought the pressfit 30 allowed the use of 30mm spindles rather than the 24mm HT2?

Original Source to bring out a deoderant perhaps. That would be my guess.

Get a speen adapter (www.speen.de) and you can use road mechs with top pull frames. I'm running a SRAM red front mech on my MTB.

20lbs IIRC. My Stumpjumper Carbon with Stan's Race 7000, SID WC, Magura Marta SLs, Extralite 2×9 etc comes in at 19lbs and its going to be damn hard to get it much lighter. I think 21lbs is optimistic.

Doesn't stop it from being a nice bike and the Ti frame should give a nice zingy ride. Tim – I'd ditch that RaceFace Evolve crank when you get a chance.

It looks nice – but I think you might be dissapointed when it goes on the scales. I can't see it being 21lbs. But I might be wrong 🙂

http://www.thefeedstation.com

I've used these guys a couple of times.

Sounds like me 😛

Prop rad single track gnar wasn't it 😉

Too slow 😉

I think it has most of the features the 305 does, its ANT+, smaller and cheaper. If you don't want actual maps its seems ideal.

It does have a screen like this

This looks a bit like the 305 screen no? I've got a 500 sitting at Beyond waiting for me to pick up.

Indeed. The sad state of affairs is that if the firm (scheme sponsor) goes bust and you are not already receiving your pension, you are unlikely to get what you were promised. Bankrupt company schemes go into the Pension Protection Fund – a lifeboat scheme – which tries to make the best of a bad situation.

No private company DB pension schemes are immune to this. Look at BA. Its a pension scheme with a airline bolted on the side.

MrSmith – The Griffin. LOL. Nice, send him to a titty bar!