IA – any info on the MP3 cable input? Wondering if I can do this on my Mk1.

Stiff chain links often become obvious in the workstand when you turn the pedals backwards, so worth a try to see if it is that.

Landowner is in dispute with the County Council (not quite sure if Hants or Surrey as the Blackwater River is the county border on this section – although I suspect it is Hants).

So he is taking it out on all local authorities by removing co-operation – quite why this manifests as banning cycling but not walking is anyone’s guess, doesn’t sound as though logic is involved.

Rushmoor Council hope this may blow over in time, but in the interim it looks like it comes down to how determined the landowner is to enforce this.

No pics as I’ve only just got it, and its an ancient Mk1 Berlingo Multispace, but I can put my medium 29er in upright with both wheels on as long as one side of the split rear seat is folded. Do have to angle it sideways a bit, but plenty of room.

Would probably go in straight if I removed the rear seat completely.

check last week on a ride behind Dummer and the Candovers I got torn to shreds…

Oh dear, looks like I’m going to get shredded at Sunday’s Trailtrax then! Still, rather that than a mudbath :)

CF do bramble bashers work on a bike then? Not got any myself but seen them at foot orienteering events, I’m sure they are still available to buy.

F that.

Anyone been stopped yet?

Looks like we could divert over the bridge into Dukes Park and back round that way, but why should we?

Oh yes – I forgot that important detail!

What is the difference between TransAm and RAAM? Is it simply a different route?

aracer’s options look good.

Personally for MTB orienteering I just have an A4-sized plastic chopping board with holes poked into it to allow it to be zip-tied to the bars and stem. 6 x bulldog clips hold the map in place.

Total cost less than £2, although it looks rather out of place on a £3k carbon XC race bike. Which is part of the appeal for me :)

Looks like his tracker is back on now, gap roughly the same as it was before.

Was wondering if it is worth selling but I suspect it would be worth almost nothing so more use to me

Depends what bike it is of course, but if it isn’t knackered and you like the way it rides, then yes, worth more to you than you’ll get for it.

Having it as a second/winter bike will also reduce maintenance costs on your new bike, so win-win really.

You don’t need to, unless you’re a team of 10?

Nick – read what you quoted in your previous post ;)

Bikepacking forum says that Mike’s SPOT tracker batteries had run out – he’s still in the lead and should have some new batteries soon.

Nag charliethebikemonger to organise something?

Thanks c_g :)

Where did you get the zip repaired c_g?

I don’t think the Trans-Cambrian is the route being asked for is it? Not a coast-to-coast for a start.

Having said that, T-C is on my to-do list.

Possibly (probably) a dumb question, but will a standard SFN for a 1 1/8″ steerer work in a tapered steerer?

I assume it will, and just expands a little as the steerer gets slightly wider lower down.

Cheers Andrew, thanks for the info :)

Good luck with the 24hr TT!

Well done on your result, inspiring stuff, sounds like an excellent event and if I was ever going to do a solo 24 (unlikely), I would love it to be at Finale! Having raced in Italy once, I agree that age doesn’t appear to be a barrier…the veterans are scary fast…

How do you manage the comms side of blogging at foreign races? I am hoping to go back to Italy next year (was supposed to be this year) and want to blog while I’m there.

Do you just put it all on a phone with roaming enabled and hope there’s 3G to upload it? Or did you rely on local wi-fi hot-spots?

Last time I did this was 2008 when hardly anyone had smartphones, so I pretty much texted home to say I was done each day, and that was that.

Thanks for all the blogs on XCRacer, nice to have something a bit more tangential than a colourless race report!

I particularly enjoyed “Nearly Enough Tent Pegs” :)

By the way, was the overall 24 solo winner really over 50 as the official race updates seemed to suggest?

Looks fascinating – shame it isn’t opening a bit later in the evenings or else I would get down there too.

You can get Lords of Midnight on Android and IOS now – it’s awesome!

Here’s another one from XCRacer.

Yes convert, agreed that lots of walkers equate their access rights with some form of exclusivity, and also that they will accept motor vehicles but not bikes despite the former being more obtrusive!

Presumably this is because they are drivers themselves, but not cyclists – it’s the old “I don’t do this so I don’t want anyone else to either” attitude which is at the root of most access issues in England and Wales.

got stopped in the peaks, guy from London area visiting. stopped in lakes, guy from Kent.

In that case, just say you have the landowner’s permission – they won’t know any better :)

Cane Creek Ergos for years for me too.

Not used them since I got a new race bike last year, but on a lengthy fireroad climb recently I found my hands trying to move back to where they would have been – it can really help to have an alternate position for your hands. Maybe I’ll buy some more.

Is this another wheel size thread in disguise?

Fair enough Ewan, but they could just say ‘Tunnel Hill is in use tonight, so are PorridgePot and Minley’ and we can go to Caesar’s Camp or Frith Hill instead.

That’s not highly detailed but helps us hugely to avoid conflict.

Was the issue of demarcating night training with glowsticks as per the regulations raised last night? I know we’ve asked before, but it seems like it is worth restating pretty much every question TAG have put to them in the past, now that we maybe have their attention.

I hope they will reconsider their views on providing information about upcoming exercises, many of us would be more than happy to avoid exercises and ride the areas that aren’t in use at any particular time.

Whilst it is very easy to cite security concerns and very hard to refute them directly, if it was really an obstacle then surely the same would apply to Salisbury Plain.

Yet there is a monthly Salisbury Plain Training Area Newsletter published on the government website giving detailed descriptions of planned exercises and the dates, units and specific areas involved! Hard to reconcile this with what we were told last night. I wanted to raise it but wasn’t quite sure of my facts.

No idea about Waterloo, sorry.

What sort of bike are you talking about? A non-descript commuter well locked-up will probably be ok at Farnborough unless you are unlucky (my cheap Pinnacle hybrid has been for the past year or so, but that’s Mon-Fri).

But if it’s anything nice, I wouldn’t. Found a girl searching folornly for her bike a couple of months ago, couldn’t do much to help her except make sure she had an alternative method of getting home safely.

Likewise a poorly secured bike, even if it is plainly an ancient wreck (like my Dawes MTB, which probably injured whoever stole it from the station).

Judging by the number of police information leaflets, notices, frame-stamping campaigns etc at Farnborough station, its clearly a big problem there.

Anyone regularily leave their bikes at Farnborough Main? you reckon it’d be reet over a weekend??

I wouldn’t risk it. Plenty of thefts from there unfortunately.

If we isolate ourselves then the MoD can focus on us.

This is a key point. The MoD approach seems to be to say different things to different user groups, and nothing at all to those they think don’t deserve a voice. Quite what they are trying to achieve isn’t at all clear – there was certainly no big announcement that I detected.

The presentation, such as it was, clearly wasn’t aimed at an audience of MTBers and a large MTB presence took them by surprise. The Lt Col presenting realised this but wasn’t able to think on his feet and ended up alternating between telling us bikes were a big problem and anti-social, and then claiming he wasn’t even aware of us (to much derision).

A couple of times during the presentation the speaker started to blame MTBers for various things, then corrected himself to refer to BMXers instead. I assume he thought there were no BMXers in the audience either (there were). Someone should tell him BMXing is not a crime!

As others have said above, the true situation may well be “carry on as before”, but the MoD are never going to announce that. Some constructive discussions were held after the meeting broke up, I expect TAG will be commenting after a chance for calm reflection.

All in all not an entirely productive meeting, and some MTBers did themselves no favours. But certainly a chance to see what is said about us when they think we aren’t present.

If the MoD didn’t realise that they need to engage with us before, I would hope they got the message last night. Ditto for the local politicians. Won’t hold my breath though…

Good to hear the local paper is attending.

Gerald Howarth is also relevant being the MP for Aldershot and Farnborough themselves (although many of the training areas themselves are just outside his constituency boundary).

Sadly

is heavily involved in the defence part of Parliament

this part is/was true for him too.

Where’s UKIP when you need them???

Hope that’s a joke c_g ;) UKIP are very much not cyclists’ friends…

The contraflow bike lane along Park Road ?

:D

Yes c_g many exercises (excluding live fire) do not use the entirety of whichever training area they are in, some use very small parts.

The whole blanket ban just smacks of the person at the top wanting the easiest solution – easiest to think of and articulate that is, not easiest to actually implement.

Don’t know if CTC are attending, I’ve invited a local rep but she is currently immobilised after an accident on North Camp’s most ludicrous piece of cycling ‘infrastructure’.

I think tonight’s announcement covers all civilian use, not just bikes.

Often if riding alone, although fairly quietly especially if on the road, in which case it is usually spoken word rather than music anyway.

Never during races, except the rare occasions I’ve raced on proper mountains – distracts from the pain of climbs that last for an hour or more, switched off again at the top though!

Is there any reason why these MOD areas can’t operate a red flag system in the way that Salisbury Plain does?

Red flags is just for live firing areas really. If red flags were used whenever any kind of exercise was going on, they would be up almost the whole time.

If the army followed their own regulations for demarcating active exercises, that would allow riders to avoid blundering into them without closing entire swathes of the landscape at once.

Why the army don’t do this is one of many questions that will hopefully be asked tonight. If indeed there is any opportunity for Q&As – we shall see.

Hoping to get home from work in time for this. Sounds like it could be a pretty well-attended meeting if the number of people posting about it on social media is anything to go by.