Oh, forgot to mention, for running on either Windows or Ubuntu.

You can get a couple of hours riding from Lordswood if you know where yoy are going, best to get a local to show you round if you can.

IMO you will be better off spending an hour or two in Lordswood, pub lunch in Ampfield or Hursley and then onto Farley Mount.

Send me an email (in profile) and I’ll send you a route as a suggestion.

Here you go Thom.

link[/url]

Been to them a couple of times and they provide a discount if you book and few weeks in advance.

I don’t really look at the bike when I’m riding it. 😉

Myself the the missus stayed at an overpriced campsite in Devon (car camping) and I submitted a review to the UK Camping website. The review was balanced, praised the good bits but was honest about the bad bits.

The response received was that I had not published enough reviews for other campsites for my inital review to published and so they didn’t.

Carbon

34t

I train on a SS road bike and a SS MTB for racing. I can’t ride for toffee with gears now. I would stick gears on there IMHO.

Thanks for the replies.

Been thinking of doing the double attempt for a while. I’m going to attempt a sub 12 hour one way on singlespeed in August as training for Kielder 100. Depending on how I get on I may consider the double for next year in April.

DaisyD: Good luck for next week!

Best course I’ve ridden by far. Well ahead of Mayhem in terms of fun factor and technical stuff.

was successful for football though, but i dont even like football

I think this sums up the way the system has worked out, people buying tickets for sports they are not primarily interested in. I wonder how many tickets will be offloaded later on next year when they can be sold on?

Yeah, logged in at 6am, searched, all gone…

I don’t anyone who has managed to get tickets from the first ballot. I know whatever system they put there will be winners and losers but this system is dreadful. Should have ordered the tickets from a German website like the rest of the world.

Here’s a genuine question to Pete.

If you take the example of a Typhoon fighter jet. The design of the jet is aerodynamically unstable whereby a pilot would not be able to control the plane with conventional hydraulically actuated controls.

It needs alot of software code to keep the thing in the air, so the machine has lots of carefully designed moving parts working in conjunction with lots of carefully designed software. Both of which were not designed and built in isolation of one another. They are were both designed in conjunction, so the software code becomes a component of the machine.

So the question is where does the “real engineering” start and end for such a machine?

I’ve been running a 1×10 for just over a month (though 1×9 occasionally for last 3 years). I have the same gearing (34 + 11/36) and I would say it covers most riding situations (from Bikepacking, Welsh mountains and local woods).

The only negative I would say of 1×10 over a triple setup is for racing. Sometimes it is quicker to change from a big ring to the middle for downshifting than clicking though multiple gears.

For general trail riding I would say it is spot on as long as you don’t mind missing the granny gear.

Have a single speed as backup if you’ve got a spare bike. The mud is legendary for making gears inoperable so one gear is better than none.

You can up-spec calipers but not levers, at least you certainly could with “previous” versions. but I’m not sure you can run a servo wave lever with a caliper that’s not from a servo-wave brake or vice-versa.

Been using XT servo-wave levers with 2004 XT non-servowave calipers for a while and no problems so far for me.

The insurance is provided by public liability insurance from UK Youth who own the grounds and the Avon Tyrrell site.

Peugeot Elite whilst doing my paper round (20+ years ago).

DNF were you leaving Pennal around 7pm?

If so Thomthumb and I rolled into Pennel and saw 3 or 4 WRT’ers heading North and thought they they must be brave or nuts to bivy on Tarrenhendre.

We bivied near Pennal and pushed up Tarrenhendre the next morning.

1/16th

1×9/10?

Thanks for the update guys. In contrast I ordered some parts from Germany Tuesday on as well. Cost £5 for delivery, order fully tracked and arrived today. Bonkers!

Thanks for the tips plush, been looking forward to trying out the area after flying over the Long Mynd when the GF had had a day experience flying lesson over that way.

Lowey: Some cracking shots there, might give that route a go.

Weeble: will definitely be gearing down from the look of those hills!

Cheers Lowey, how long did it take you get round?

Thanks for the link scruff. Will have a look at their map.

I find that Zero tablets aren’t as effective as Nuun tablets. According to the recommendations of Zero tablets you should use 2 tablets for a 1.5l bladder. This will have 500mg of sodium.

Zero tablets have 250mg sodium per tablet.

Nuun have 700mg of sodium per tablet (Nuun recommend 1x tablet per 500ml).

So to fill a 1.5l bladder you need 2x Zero tablets or 1x Nuun tablet (if stick with the High 5’s recommendation of sodium intake required).

Therefore I reckon Nuun tablets are better value.

EDIT: Information above is wrong, please ignore. Though I still prefer Nuun.

I’m usually a 38″ chest, thinking about medium or large. Any one know what size would be best?

Signed

No, only on planning on using a silk liner and (synthetic) down jacket (if required). I am expecting moisture to be on the inside in the morning. Will be using a tarp as well so I won’t be breathing into it.

The thermolite has a hole in the bottom and velcro sealable side for ventilation and the inside is meant to reflect bodyheat which a bivy big doesn’t. Not saying it’s better than a bivy bag (probably not) but as I said before there is only one to find out.

Your sleeping bag gets wet when you try to pack it up, your kit all gets wet and cannot be dried out as you have nowhere dry to store it, a tarp simply does not provide the protection from driving rain and soaking ground

This is a limitation to bivying. If you read the Book of the Bivy by Ronald Turnbull he recommends that every other night or say 1 night in three is spent at a YHA or B ‘n’ B to dry kit out. As long as the limitations of bivying (with or without a tarp) are understood it is perfectly safe and much more enjoyable than a tent IMHO.

No won’t be taking the PD400. The bivy spot will be some woods within 40 minutes ride back to my house. Plus I will take a down jacket to be on the safe side.

I also want to try it on a coldish night with rain to see good (bad) the setup is. Will post my thoughts when the deed is done. The thermolite is meant to be warm down 9 degrees with thin clothing so it will be interesting to see how it fairs. And it isn’t meant to crackle like Blizzard bags.

Good luck with the thermo-lite Jimmers

Cheers! I’ve already got a Alpkit Hunka, PD400 sleeping bag and a Wee Airic mat. Which are fairly lightweight and comfy (did the WRT last year and the SDW in winter). I want to measure the relationship between shedding grams versus grimness factor.

EDIT: Plus how much single malt to drain from my flask to keep warm (ignoring advice regarding ingestion of alcohol when mildly hypothermic)

Thinking of getting either the Altura seatpack as per the previous page, does anyone what the volume is?

The Ortlieb equivalent is 2.8l. Which one has the most volume if anyone knows?

Hoping to sort out a bivy in the next week or so to test a superlight setup and see how miserable the experience will be. Setup will a balloon bed, 220g(ish) poncho tarp, silk liner and one of these to act as bivy bag and sleeping bag;

I expect it to be a miserable expierence but wish to see how miserable is unbearable and there’s only one way to find out…

My choice would be n-gear jumpstop on the inside, non-ramped single speed / DH chainring with a cheap but light BBG guide http://www.bbgbashguard.com/%5B/url%5D on the outside (from the states but delivery is lightening quick).

That’s what I use on my Scandal with a 1×9 setup, sq. taper cranks and old style BB.

There is flint but TBH honest flint is that sharp it’s going to rip apart any tyre. Fast rolling tyres would be my choice as it’s a long way and low rolling resistance helps.

Aye, I guess modern materials can be considered amazing.

I thought I would never trust nor ride a plastic bike. But I have a Carbon 456 sitting in the lounge waiting to be built up and the frame weighs the same as my Scandal! Still can’t quite get my head round that one especially as it sounds like a tupperware box when I tap the frame.

Thanks for responses. Going for a 14″ Dell with 1336×768 and admitting defeat. 1600×900 on a small screen = eyeball ache!

Apologies, should have mentioned that it needs to be a Windows machine as the software we develop requires Windows.