Yes I’ve got the Four4th green LEDs. They really reduce the reflected glare, and I find they work much better than white LEDs in twilight conditions too.

No problem if other people are riding with white LEDs. What the website means is, don’t use a green bar light with a white helmet light, or vice versa.

Demo versions are available if you want to try, although it may depend where you are (Four4th are in Farnham, Surrey) drop them an email and find out.

34:20 on mine.

It’s pretty draggy though, will servicing it really make a big difference? Might have to see if I can DIY it.

Got another date planned George? Hoping to have a stab at the route next month once bike has arrived, would be good to at least start with some others.

I’m out too – new race bike still not arrived and old “race” bike not servicable.

Maybe I’ll get it done next month instead.

Loved it as always, fantastically close racing even in solo.

Really hope it doesn’t change to a 24 hour though, would lose that special magic for me. The 1am prizegiving in the packed, drunken marquee is a great way to round things off. At 1pm the next day most people will be packing up or already gone like they are at most 24hr races.

Rocks hidden in Mike’s saddlebag :D

Doesn’t seem to have slowed him down!

As some of the others say, side-entry bottle cage will allow you to get a 500ml bottle in.

Not ideal, but it hasn’t stopped me doing rather a lot of racing on my Superlight over the last 5+ years. Having said that, looking forward to having triple the capacity when I hopefully get a new xc hardtail soon.

Lot of fat there which wont help with carb absorption..

Possibly not, but when it’s a long way into an endurance race, a morale boost can be pretty important. And some variety to wake up the taste buds helps to keep the intake of monotonous energy food going too.

Big bag of salt and vinegar flavour peanuts do the job for me when I’ve had enough of sweet stuff. Savoury, tangy and sour all at once.

I have both M775s and M785s and in neither case does the free stroke adjustment do anything at all.

Thanks George. Looks like even you’ve had enough of singletrack by the time you hit Clandon on the way home :)

gee – don’t suppose you have a GPX version of the file you could send me?

Garmin Connect doesn’t seem to let you export as GPX any more, only directly to a Garmin device. I have a Satmap, so that’s no help.

Email in profile if you aren’t already feeling like this is all getting too much bother :)

OK, will give FB a stab tomorrow night.

Despite not being a novice, I’ll be rubbish on the steep technical trails anyway (assuming they are downhill!)

If someone can be bothered to set up a group go ahead!

On reflection, as it could be construed as racing on bridleways, perhaps best not to.

Keen to take part though…

I could be up for that George :)

Are you going to set up a FB group or something to get an idea of who’s going to take part?

Thoroughly enjoyed that, brought back memories of an epic adventure that seemed to capture so many people’s imagination!

Congrats, I came 45th in that, and I thought i was going fast!!!

Are the times for that actually published yet?

Not that I’m going to be inside the top 100!

Absolutely loved it as always!

Only 5 people in my race (6 hour evening solo) because most people don’t seem to even know about the 6pm race, but still had a good battle for the win (which I lost!).

Some of my favourite singletrack on any XC race course, super-friendly atmosphere, bats swooping along the fireroad in the woods by the pond. But best of all was around 9:45pm, coming out of the woods onto the open grass plateau at the top of the course, to find a spectacular red moon rising on the horizon. Absolutely stunning!

About to ride from one end of Hampshire to the other, then across the Isle Of Wight to Ventnor.

Weekend of sun, sea and maybe a beer or two, with a wedding thrown in tomorrow morning (not mine!) :)

As gee says, it will definitely be tougher than the equivalent distance at Swinley.

Good luck to all, gutted I can’t make this one.

teamhurtmore – did you do the Peaslake MTBO (orienteering) yesterday?

If you’re into that kind of thing, the next Gorrick Trailtrax is from Tilford on 19th May. Likely to be covering Hankley Common, Thursley Common, Punchbowl, Puttenham Common etc.

Starts and finishes at a pub :)

Details here.

Another vote for Kenda Small Block 8.

I liked it too :) And congratulations on getting out and doing it rather than waiting for ideal conditions.

It’s certainly easy to “hit the wall” around the 60-70 mile mark when heading east. What earlier seemed like consistent good progress suddenly turns into a crawl over a never-ending series of steep climbs, with the clock spinning crazily while the mileage barely ticks over. Especially as there are quite a few cafe stops and you can convince yourself you’ve earned them all!

Last time I rode the SDW I started at Eastbourne, and the time-trap effect didn’t happen. Getting the worst of the climbing out of the way and ignoring all the tempting cafes, while still relatively fresh, made a big difference to the overall time.

For what it’s worth, I have a 2008 frame, and it has no bolt on the drive side, and a bolt on the non-drive side.

Suspect that it probably doesn’t matter which way round the pivot and bolt go, but maybe give SC a shout? I wanted to check shock dimensions a couple of weeks ago, and posted a question on their Facebook page – they answered within a day.

Post Office in Niton does great cream teas with a lovely garden out the back.

But you’ll probably find plenty of others too.

Yep, socket for the win.

Try a foreign exchange company, they tend to take smaller margins than the banks due to lower overheads. And if you don’t need to do the exchange right away then they can monitor the market for you over a period and alert you when the rate is favourable.

I can recommend SGM-FX[/url] as being thoroughly reputable, but then I work for them (albeit not on the sales side) so not unbiased. There are quite a few others around too, but I can’t vouch for them.

One of these – has a velcro strap that will go round a belt if you have one?

I sent a message using the web form on their site at the start of this month, and got an email response from Steve a couple of days later.

So they were definitely still going a few weeks ago.

Red ones are fastest!

Impossible for me to know how fast you are, just saying that Sport and Super Vets are roughly comparable in terms of speed, and Open and Vets are fairly similar to each other too.

Unless you know someone who races, and can look at their past lap times in comparison with other categories, you’re best off picking what you think suits you best distance and convenience-wise. And if it turns out to be too easy or too hard, then move up or down a category next time.

Anyway, good luck and see you at the first round, Round 2 :)

If you’re fast enough for Sport, you could also do Super Vets, which is the same eligibility criteria as Vets, but 4 laps instead of 3.

You’re also eligible for Fun and Open, so in some ways it comes down to what time you want to race.

One of my team mates races a carbon Whippet with 650b wheels and a Fox fork. She seems to do ok on it!

If you manage to ride fast but only at the start you’ll just hold up everyone else in the trees.

And therefore a very good tactic for those of us not quick enough to go balls out the whole way round!

Enter an event next summer that is way above your current fitness or ability level.

Then every time you want to cut short a ride, or not bother going out, say to yourself “If I can’t do this, then I won’t be able to do that”. May not work for everyone, but certainly did for me.

Was only pit-bitching for once (although rode the course yesterday), looked like it held up ok but destroyed everyone’s legs!

Well done the race team and all who took part :)

Chapeau to those with the mental staying power to stick it out!

It’s not always staying power – last 12hr I did I really wanted to quit early on, then realised I was stuck on-site anyway and simply had nothing better to do!

Bah, solo only. Shame, team would’ve been fun. Reckon it’d be great in the dark!

It’s about time you manned up and did a solo Nick ;)

Currently in Berlshire in a hotel, driving back to Hampshire later and thinking of a SDW ride. Sounds like it could be a slippy one PeterPoddy?

Just about to head out in North Hampshire (the sandy free-draining bit), but planning on riding near Arundel tomorrow. Hoping the clay on the SDW may be frozen by then, but I suspect that is very wishful thinking!

Bear in mind there have been some changes to the start at the Eastbourne end recently. Don’t know if the Southdownsdouble website has included them yet.

There are also 2 options near Winchester Hill.

The old route through Warnford is faster and still perfectly legal from a ROW perspective, but isn’t signposted SDW any more. The new route through Exton is slower.