It does sound daft when you put it like that, Brant. 😀

A race means not just going as fast as you can, but maintaining the highest possible average speed over the distance or time allowed.
For most of us mid pack, that means as fast as we can in between rests.
If you look in the solo pit area at any 8+hour event, it’s not just me having a 5 minute breather.
I know it’s not the best way, which is why I asked for advice.
I’ll definitely give the packed lunch/ration pack idea a go.

…and a big variety of food in your supplies cache, as you never know what you will feel like eating

Good point. I tend to eat a mixture of foods, from salted cashews to fruit jellies.
I normally have the fruit jellies in a frame bag and eat them throughout the lap as an alternative to gels as they take almost no effort to chew or swallow.
I then eat the fig rolls or nuts while I’m stopped between laps as they feel like more of a meal.
I’ve got to get used to eating on the move.

Don’t get sucked into First Lap Madness.

It’s a fine line between going out too hard and getting stuck in traffic jams.
At Ashton Court, for example, where it’s almost straight in the single track, I go flat out from the start, then let people overtake me towards the end of the first lap as I settle in to my endurance pace.

Thanks for the replies, even if, as Blazin Saddles says, I’ve already got the answers. Sometimes being told what I need to do by someone else is the motivation to actually do it.

He won the race in the changeovers and by NOT stopping…

Yes, even on a fun ride with friends, it’s amazing how far behind you can drop by a quick pee stop, while they carry on riding, and how long it takes to catch up again. Even a 1 minute break at the end of a lap would be a quick stop by my standards, but I know how hard I have to work to catch someone up with a 1 minute head start.

I’ve only had a pit bitch once, when I rode Bristol Bike Fest 12 hour on the Saturday and Mrs MTG rode the 6 hour on Sunday. Every other time she has been in the same race as me. There is no one else I could ask to stand around in a muddy field for 12 hours for me.

Why are you stopping?

I don’t know.
Because it’s what I’ve always done ?
Because I think that if I don’t I will burn out half way through the race ?
I regularly ride 3 hour trailquests with only the briefest possible stops to punch a Control Point or check my route. I think there’s a barrier in my head at around 6 hours that says I can’t ride that far without regular stops.
Perhaps breaking the race down in to four 3 hour segments would make it easier, although I suspect it would distract me from aiming for the full 12 hours non-stop as my ultimate goal.

I like the idea of having a “packed lunch” ready to grab on the way through without stopping.
At the moment, everything is in one big box. I come back thinking “I fancy some fig rolls”, then have to rummage through the spare inner tubes and water bottles to find them. Having everything portioned out ready and stuffing 6 fig rolls in my left pocket and 10 fruit jellies in the right would give me one less thing to think about.

…i have a alu hartail

Aluminium hardtail ? 26″ ? Derailleurs ? Ugh, how common.
There are certain standards of nicheness that we like to maintain on this forum.

I use Hope ceramic BBs in two bikes.
I thought £80 was a bit steep, but they have easily outlasted 4 Race Face BBs at £25 each, so are worth the investment.

I used FSA ceramic jockey wheels in a Rohloff tensioner. I’ve gone to hardtail now with sliding drop outs or EBB, so don’t need a tensioner any more, but they seemed to be lasting well when I had them.

Paul Whitehouse chose God Save The Queen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20030202.shtml

Probably the one and only time that has been played on radio 4.
They faded it out pretty quick though. 😀

45psi
95kg on a 29er hardtail.
Any less and they burp.

You could have Scotland on a different timezone

Aren’t they already on GMT minus 30 years ?

Won’t somebody please explain the shorts?

Tan line. 😉

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/daylight-saving-time-clocks-going-backforwards

Isn’t it strange how we’re not allowed to mention you know what 😉 , but we can openly discuss quidco ?

Why are these things never done with obvious thread titles

Ahem…

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/crazy-1950-cyclocross-film

On the banks of the River Severn as it meanders its way through the sun dappled leafy glades of Worcestershire.

Then, due to some arcane mechanism within the bank clearing system, his cheque (which had cleared) bounces,

Open a new bank account.
Pay the cheque in.
Withdraw the money.
Close the account.

I remember the last time CRC did a 10% discount. It was about a week after I spent £1100 on a Lynskey frame. 👿

Nice to see it’s multi use.
Every time I order with a Wiggle discount, I suddenly remember the next day there was something else I wanted. 🙄

I could talk about how much nicer it is to ride home on empty roads after locking up the bus depot.

I used to have a Range Rover and as the former Mrs MTG’s drive was a bit steep with a narrow gap between the gate pillars, I used to put it in low range to reverse up the drive to save slipping the clutch.
Mrs MTG borrowed it one day and it wasn’t until she had driven about three miles that she wondered why she was flat out in 5th, but still couldn’t keep up with the traffic doing 60mph on the main road.

On the other hand…

I used to have an AEC Matador breakdown truck and used to tow my Land Rover to steam rallies with it to use as sleeping accommodation.
I set off for a rally once and had gone about 15 miles when I thought I could do with a drink from out of the Land Rover.
I pulled in to a layby and as soon as I opened the cab door I could smell something burning.
A Land Rover handbrake has absolutely no effect on a 9 ton breakdown truck. 🙂

From an engineering point of view, that’s a poor design. There’s too much leverage on the plate.
It looks like there’s just about room for a second, thin plate inside the drop out.
That would make the shaft effectively shorter.
The thin plate would be under tension, so wouldn’t need to be particularly strong.
The existing outer plate would then be under compression, rather than a bending load, so would be adequate.

still havent answered my question………….

The one about the transfusion ?
Yes, I would, because it is a proven medical practice that works on humans. I wouldn’t refuse it just because it’s use was delayed for 200 years by people trying to use dog’s blood in humans.
I wear a helmet on my bike. I wouldn’t stop wearing it as a matter of principle if I found out it had been tested on animals.

Would you avoid aspirin because it can be fatal to cats ?
Would you use thalidomide because it is harmless to animals ?

and that statistic does indeed have a whiff of BS about it

It’s from Nature. They’re normally pretty thorough about checking the accuracy of their articles.
What would you say was the percentage of drugs passed by animal tests which immediately failed when first tried on humans because they’re useless, dangerous or both.

Think of all the thousands of second hand cars that get sold every day.
I’ve never heard of a buyer asking the seller what oil is in it so they can do any future top ups with the same brand.
And, as coffeeking says, you never get every last drop out at an oil change anyway.
Oils get mixed all the time and it’s not a problem.

found another one

I thought you meant you’d just found another bike you forgot was there. 🙂

I only listed 7 because I haven’t got all day.

http://www.vivisectioninformation.com again…

92% of drugs passed by animal tests immediately fail when first tried on humans because they’re useless, dangerous or both.

Don’t you think blood transfusion is a poor example to support your argument when animal experiments delayed the discovery of blood groups and successful human transfusions by 200 years ?

I haven’t got any children, but if I did I would be happy to deny them the use of methoxyflurane, Flosint, Zelmid, Nomifensine, Amrinone, Clioquinol, and, of course, thalidomide amongst other drugs, all of which proved near harmless in animals, but harmful, or fatal to humans.

As for medical research; millions of people benefit as a result of experiments that have been made on animals

Can you give some examples of these benefits ?

How do they compare with…

Howard Florey, the Nobel Prize winner credited with co-discovering and manufacturing penicillin, stated: “How fortunate we didn’t have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never been granted a license, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized.”

…if they go round bombing people

I thought we’d just established that they don’t.

Unfortunately I’ve seen the unpredictability of computer modeled dose rates go very, very wrong when tested in vivo…

Can you give some examples of animal modelled dose rates going right ?

According to the former scientific executive of Huntingdon Life Sciences, animal tests and human results agree “5%-25% of the time.”

http://www.vivisectioninformation.com/index.php?p=1_8_All-you-need-to-know-in-33-facts

Torminalis, I’ll take that as a No, then. 😛

…the ALF, a group who have consistently advocated violence

Can you give some examples of the ALF advocating violence against people, as opposed to advocating damage to property. There is a significant difference.

I go in to endurance events reasonably confidant of a top third place.
Occasionally, that turns out to be laughably optimistic, but on the other hand, I have been known to get top quarter.

Consistent top quarter placing overall while riding in veterans class is my goal.

More specifically, taking shorter pit stops. Lapping in 32 minutes and eating on the move would be faster than lapping in 30 minutes and stopping for a 3 minute break.

kimbers
…though i believe animal testing for medical research is essential, and its related to my work

“Vivisection is barbaric, useless, and a hindrance to scientific progress. …There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don’t know enough about it, and those who make money from it.”
Dr. Werner Hartinger, 1988/89, surgeon of thirty years, West Germany

Trailquest around Congerstone, Leicestershire.
Not so much off road at this one, which kept the average speed high.
60km in 3 hours.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54221599

I regularly ride events from 3 hour trailquests to 24 hour solo marathons.
I’ve found that how much I eat during a ride makes a huge difference to how I feel towards the end of the ride and afterwards.
I never feel like eating while riding, but if I keep forcing the fruit jellies, bananas and fig rolls down, I can keep going.
the headache part of what you’re getting sounds like dehydration.

What’s the difference between a duck ?

Hey, that’s really cool the way that’s laid out by lap.

I changed places 8 times between 3rd and 6th in my category. 😀 (Old Gits. There were only 8 in it 😕 )

Exercise is a waste of time for weight loss

He’s got a point, you know.
I used 5700Kcal in 4 hours at the Forest of Dean Enduro and was still fat at the end of it.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/50632052

I killed the thread last Friday.
Let’s see if I can do the same this week…

Three hour trailquest around Congerstone, Leicestershire on a Lynskey Rohloff 29er, complete with beard and map board.

http://www.midlandtrailquests.co.uk/events-and-results/event-details.php?e=119

Thanks.
I always look in Bike Forum or Chat Forum. I didn’t think to look in Forum Summary.

the most popular ones appear at the bottom of the forum listing

I can’t see them. Where are they ?

I live on my own and commute along the river bank in the middle of the night.
In Winter, it’s not unusual for mine to be the only tracks for several days.
I wonder what would would happen if I didn’t turn up for work and didn’t answer my phone one day. I wonder if they would send someone out to look for me ?