Nice. Need to go back, but not before the snows come.

Confused.

If I get a speeding fine, and stump up the £60 and get 3 points, do I need to tell my insurers? Even if I don't get the awareness course?

I thought no, because the only time this happened I thought they said it wasn't a prosecution if I just paid the fine without arguing.

So – is this a prosection, do I need include it in the list of prosecutions for my insurance?

Wait for the day the HMRC's computers crash. Then we would all learn the true meaning of the term "single point of failure".

I tried it for a while. But at £2 per week it wasn't good enough to justify.

STW is much better anyway.

If you've already got Ubuntu elsewhere, stick to what you know.

Unless you particularly fancy learning about the innards of SusE.

So, according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM#Operating_system_and_SSD_support

If you're running anything earlier than Windows 7 or linux 2.6.33, it will start out fast and then gradually turn to treacle. Does anyone know if this is true?

Vatican city.

But that's not to say they can't learn from us.

Isn't the Pope over here to check out the 7Stanes?

So, is there any actual difference between gel and powdered energy drink, other than the amount of dilution?

Could you just have some very strong energy drink in a bottle?

If it is raining and muddy, just go home.

If you're single speeding, rain and mud is good. You get to go past all the guys with trashed drive trains who would otherwise be way faster.

It's the only way I've ever avoided coming DFL.

Ignore the oh-so-humourous remarks about 4 hour races.

Speaking as a fat old duffer, I've done plenty of 4 hour events that have left me barely able to speak. It all depends on how much effort you put in, how prepared you are, and what the course is like.

Buzz-lightyear's advice is good. Also something like nutrigrain (if you can stand the disgusting things). Just got to keep eating and drinking regularly. Energy drink is good too.

Rest periods? Don't rest. Keep cycling. Sort out replacement bottles to pick up if it's a multi-lap event.

Unless it's going to be obscenely muddy I'd leave my camelbak at home, as they are just so nasty to cycle in, unless you're going quite slowly.

Are you single-speeding?

One thing that's nasty about tubeless is that the gloop contains ethylene glycol (antifreeze). So we're happily spraying this toxic chemical around the countryside.

One of the last punctures I had to fix.

Cold, so cold, snowing gently, shivering, not had enough to eat, wet snow down neck, tyre filling with slush – gloves off, run hand round cold wet inside to try to find thorn. Never again.

Continuous or not? If not, I guess top would be more out of the mud?

Rigid single speed. There's really not much to maintain. When I did have gears they usually didn't work right. Changing gear ratio now takes all day.

Ghetto tubeless; so I *could* change the tyres if I wanted to, but it would be royal pain. Best left alone.

So (2).

Looks a rather large rotor on the back there, bearing in mind the lower speeds of a single speed,

Do single speeds go any slower downhill than geared bikes?

Change your front tyre?

I used a 29×2.25" Maxxis something-or-other, tubeless, at about 35psi for the K100. I did feel a bit beaten up, but it wasn't that bad. I dropped the pressure a bit towards the end which made it almost plush.

If I do it next year I'll try to find something a bit bigger with tougher sidewalls and run it a bit lower pressure.

Those red runs were a bit bumpy though!

Did they misread Hope's instructions and put the wrong-size bearings in?

Take it to pieces yourself and have a look. It can't be that hard I'd have thought (might need to bodge together a bearing press perhaps?)

+1 for Nobby Nics. They're £28 at merlin right now, which is just about bearable, given how good they are.

Much faster than fire XC and can be run ghetto-tubeless (if you're into that sort of thing).

hummm, black spech one side, silver shimano the other, sounds like a new niche!

You'll be ahead of the curve. The envy of all the local kids.

Gulag Archipelego, Solzhenitsyn. Monumental book. At the time I read it the Soviet Union was still around and trying to tell us they were wonderful and would ultimately triumph. And at the time I read it, lots of people in this country even believed this.

EDIT: +1 on Eagle of the Ninth. For exactly the same reason. Fantastic book.

I could be wrong about this, but if you don't keep square taper cranks tightened then the NDS tends to round off until it starts constantly falling off.

At least mine did. The solution was some new cranks, though perhaps you can bodge some kind of shim in there?

I usually tighten them now with a great big long piece of steel pipe. 45Nm I read somewhere.

Can you say how your account was hacked?

the amount of dishing will depend on the offset of the hub flanges.

But why would anyone make a hub intended for fixed/free that works out anything other than symmetrical?

(e.g. like the super cheap fixed/free hub I've got).

36:21 on 29" wheels.

Seemed about right with just a few bits I couldn't get up, and still managing a reasonable pace on the fire roads.

Until about mile 95 that is, when I started going very slowly indeed, although that was fixed with a fig roll!

I used Avon Skin-so-soft. Maybe it actually works – I had them crawling on me but very few actual bites. Still unpleasant though.

A chap from the forestry commission in the queue for the burger stand told me that it's all in the mind.

I ran my Swift as a 1×9 for a bit with just a Surly single-speed 3/32" chainring at the front and had no problems with chain drop (medium-cage derailler). YMMV.

@glenncampbell – I passed you just before Newcastleton with that front tyre flopping around all over the place. Very impressed. I think I would have just given up and cried with that.

Glorious.

Finished in 12h11m; very happy with that as I'd been wondering if I'd make the cut offs at all.

No mechanicals from my ace Singular Swift, SSing. 36:21, which seemed just right until that last brutal scrabbly climb, where I'd run out of steam and was generally feeling rubbish. Got passed by a bunch of guys on gears who I'd spent the previous 20 minutes overtaking.

Fig rolls though. They are where the future of sports nutrition lies.

Some lovely sections of singletrack (that first triple arrow was a little gem) and had no idea that area had so much to offer.

I must thank miketually – all your postings on here were genuinely very useful. I think we met up at the top of a big hill somewhere.

Boy, did the beer taste good at the end though.

A pint of full fat milk after riding a hundred miles around Kielder reservoir just hits the spot perfectly.

Semi-skimmed? Nasty stuff. 😯

A looong time ago I used to play Bb cornet in a brass band. One gig was at a party given by Robert Maxwell (charming, in an unctuous, not entirely trustworthy sort of way) and Diana Dors – still glamorous and a huge presence.

The food they provided for us was out of this world. A massive step up from the usual stale cucumber sandwiches. But obviously we didn't play well enough as we were never invited back for another gig.

I'll be there. Singular Swift. SS (probably).

That's the real problem with single speeding. I kept on telling myself that I was in control, and I could give up anytime I wanted to. But I just can't do it now. I'm trapped by my addiction with no way out.

I guess I'm going to have to go SS. At least I'll get back to the start nice and early.

Yes, but they look cool.

Drop-off cafe at Afan/Glencorrwywwyg is a lot better than the one at GT.

Take the train?

Nearest station is Haltwhistle, a mere 30 miles across a huge road-free forest.

Seems like rule #5 applies here.

http://www.velominati.com/blog/the-rules/

Did you know Martin Shaw died last week on stage?

Not dead, just a bit poorly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11022553

Probably working on a good excuse for not finishing Kielder.

650W? That's a lot of CO2.

Does no-one care about global warming, acidification of the oceans, melting glaciers anymore?

Screw the environment, what's it ever done for us anyway.

Still worth playing with bike fit – perhaps the person who did it for you was confused. Saddle height, cleat positions, crank length. Maybe other things. Google is your friend.