The sleeping arrangements at the bunk house are interesting. The pub is looking like a good idea!

Very good point! If you leave early enough, it’ll be a breeze up through Frenchay into town. Leave late and it will get ugly.

In 10 – 15 years time you’ll be reminiscing about how you were wrong about Di2 and how Di4 is completely unnecessary 🙂

Can we complain enough to put it back?

Does anyone know why the drone footage has been removed from YouTube?

Yeah, the 60km to 90km section was a proper challenge today.

Those sections with the clagging mud had the weediest sticks for clearing the clags. Pretty much snapping in your hand.

Did anyone actually manage to ride the hill out of Laverton?

I never want to ride my bike ever again. Brilliant event.

I was going to get a Trek Boone, but found a Storck TIX deal from Germany that I couldn’t refuse.

The TIX is lovely. The bolt thrus are a bit crap though, so bought some new ones from DT Swiss.

It’s gert lush, me babber.

It’s pretty heartbreaking viewing.

Sounds like an intervention in the end. He was pushing himself over the edge just to keep up.

Extraordinary attempt, especially given the accident and even more given the roads and weather in this country.

This puts things into perspective: http://2015.strava.com/video/RkyulNk

Grails are great, but I’ve got some serious dents in my rims from some rocky CX rides. Wish they were a little bit tougher.

Stick with the Mud Wrestlers and run them tubeless.

Good tyres unless it’s an utter quagmire.

Was only pointing out that it’s plenty doable on a crosser. Calm down dears. If you’d prefer, a guy on a CX was first back on the 75km.

Is a great event. You can take it steady or go for it. Whatever makes you happy.

It was won on a CX bike last year. There is loads of technical singletrack, but also plenty of road / gravel. A superlight hardtail would be the best compromise, but way more fun on a full sus.

Asks for weight in LBs and apparently no way of changing.

Lazy development and instantly closed.

Damn it! Just bought a 1L bottle of Muc-Off C3. Even Googled before to see if it had magically become available again.

Are there any links for the route that includes all the trail centres?

Excellent tip off!

£5 to have it delivered to the shop is a bit of a swindle though!

I had an E61 and it was a money pit. Lovely car, but it was an electrical basket case.

The loom on the tailgate mentioned earlier requires the roof lining to be removed to fix, so could easily cost over £400. It seems like it was designed to get no further than the warranty period. If you get the msport wheels, they will crack on the smallest pot hole (Google it). I had this twice in a year and thankfully they were repairable by welding. Had water in the ECU and injector issues. Problem with the immobiliser. When it’s working, it’s amazing.

I traded down to a SAAB 95 aero and it has been much better. Handling not as good, but as quick and more versatile.

Me too, although I stocked up on vulcaniser and twiglets on Ebay as it was super cheap.

Sympathy from the night shift! 🙂

Abolishing VED would save a fair bit of cash.

Think about the cost of applying, policy, enforcement (man power, equipment, legal costs), reminder letters, as well as the cost of providing the facilities to renew (techies managing the system, people managing the techies, managers to manage the managers).

It’s a fairly large cost to the tax payer that is almost entirely bureaucracy. It could go to front-line services if they just added the duty to fuel costs. I’m sure they could offer some tax break to haulers to lessen the impact to that industry – they seem to subsidise most private industry anyway.

They are going to need to raise a bit more money before they start paying for new roads. Motor tax revenue barely covers the cost of dealing with road crashes.

Motor tax revenue: ~£38bnhttp://t.co/KN4uZGJLl9
Highways Agency: ~£4.7bnhttps://t.co/4WmiJk3BWm
RTC costs: ~£34bnhttps://t.co/IhZISSS2O1

— Bez (@beztweets) January 15, 2015

As far as I can tell it isn’t enforced, but then neither were the 30 zones!

It seems that people are flaunting it, but it does seem to have slowed them down overall. Rather than going 37 in a 30, they are going 27 in a 20.

I quite like it. It’s much more appropriate for residential areas and is a much more relaxing drive.

Whilst I respect all opinions, my opinion is that most Strava snobs are just curmudgeons.

This is a bit like someone on a camera forum saying ‘OMG, the average spent on a camera is £100!’

Standard or plus?

But there is nothing you can’t do on a cx, right?

Oh and don’t worry about the direction 🙂

http://www.bontrager.com/model/11881

Seriously. I don’t care how much it cost, because it works and it has improved my life significantly!

Do you think I’ll suffer because of technical terrain or is it relentlessly bumpy?

Get about 10-15 psi in, then work around the rim giving it a good hard massage from both sides. May also work for a lover.

Ashton court’s all smooth and fast, with no roots to speak of

Let us speak of the freshly exposed roots after the event village hair pin. Roots that cannot be seen in the dark with wet muddy glasses.

Yup – only 234hours and 53,000m so far this year. Pretty lightweight really especially given he only has 9 KOMs – as in 9 pages.

Is that all?!

Good course, if not a bit harder than I was expecting, but fun all the same, just finished a blog post actually if anybody is interested: http://ridingcircle.blogspot.com/2015/06/race-report-bristol-bike-fest.html

Enjoyed that!

Is your wife OK? Was pretty dicey in places. Didn’t help with photographers popping out of nowhere and firing flashes in your face right at the time when you needed to concentrate the most.

I saw one guy lying on his back at the bottom of the bung hole, so he could snap people coming down. Completely bonkers.

21 laps SS solo? Jebus!

I managed 17. Could have done 18 if I didn’t have to deal with a dodgy stomach shortly after the fourth hour, but I still wouldn’t have got to fifth.

Out of curiosity, how much training are you putting in to get that pace? Do you have children?

Mudfest! I literally had mud everywhere.

Brilliant as usual. Bit rubbish that they moved the portaloos well away from the solo pit area.

The air cadets are awesome there. They are out all day in the mud and the rain and every time you pass, they are cheering you on.

Fair point. You can and do get mud and lots of it after the zigzags, but that section is short. Summer tyres all the way.

Just be careful if it’s wet as some sections get very slippery. Saw a couple of very nasty crashes at Oktoberfest last year. One on the zigzags where a guy went down on his shoulder, hard, and one on the Beggar Bush section where a girl missed a tree, but tore a huge chunk out of her knee. The quarry section can get a bit sketchy when it’s wet and busy too.

Don’t burn yourself out on the first climb! I think traffic will be a bigger deal than usual as this year everyone is finishing at 21:00. Could be fun *and* frustrating.

Thanks for the info!

What’s the general consensus about accommodation here? Do you prefer self catering or bed and breakfast / dinner?

Also, if there was space to camp with secure lockups, is that something you’d use?

Finally, if you are making the trip to BPW, do you plan to stay over and go to other trail centres in the are?

I’ve been told that toddlers lack the brain function to regulate emotions effectively, so they will go into a spiral of emotion about *anything*.

Just ignore it as long as they aren’t hurting themselves. Don;t even make eye contact. Once the emotions have subsided (can take a while), reengage. Research has apparently shown that the cause of the tantrum is of pretty much zero importance to them once the tantrum is over. As the pre-frontal cortex develops, they will be able to deal with it. Most importantly, don’t take it personally or reward the behaviour.

Interestingly, when they hit puberty, that part of the brain will once again struggle with regulating emotions, hence the whole moody teenager thing.

It’s easier to deal with it once you understand it’s mostly chemical.

CX guy with pink grip tape?

He definitely did the 75. Did you get lost? I think most people lost the route at some point. If you Strava, check out the flybys feature. You’ll see him zooming off in the last third once the technical stuff was done and heading home with a sub four hours.