I’ve got an 11-month old and am fitter and lighter than ever, so it’s possible but it requires an extra level of dedication to manage it. For me a long commute is key, but this may not work for your situation. You basically have to find a way to wedge in riding in the bits of time that you do have spare. That might mean a turbo trainer, as others have suggested. Turbo training makes it very easy to do focussed sessions, maximises the use of time, and means you are still at home if you are needed. My preference, however, is to get up stupidly early and get some road miles in before mini-qtip is awake. You could also do this after bedtime. On top of that, if my wife is out for the day/morning/afternoon with the baby at the weekend then I make sure I get some riding in.

I think I’m leaning towards the 7Mesh Oro now. Seems like the cut is better than the Castelli and Gore options, although obviously that is body shape dependent.

Castelli Idro has more reflective detailing, which is obviously good.

On the other hand, the Gore has a zip that can undo from the bottom to let you access jersey pockets underneath. I suspect that this would work better than the zip on the rear of the Idro that opens vertically to the right hand side of the pockets.

Trebled up this month with my first 300K ride.

Strava linky

I like mine, but I’ve never written off a wheel. They do let me run low pressures without being plagued by pinch flats though.

Following a crash during practice at the Welsh Enduro Series round at Coed y Brenin yesterday, I now too have a broken lever. The loop of material that surrounds the pivot point snapped. Still worked well enough to get me through the race as the cable tension held the lever in position on the pivot, it was just a bit flappy in use! Seems like a fairly weak point and I can imagine quite a few get broken in crashes, but it wouldn’t be enough to put me off buying the post. I was almost tempted to buy the Race Face lever, which is apparently a straight swap, but it’s twice the price so I’ll take my chances with another BrandX one, especially as I like the positioning and action of it.

Pretty quick to get onto the mainland from RAF valley by car as you’re right next to the A55. If you want mountain biking from your doorstep though then you’re going to be disappointed.

I live on Anglesey. Great for road riding. Pretty much nothing on the island as far as mountain biking goes apart from a couple of cheeky areas for messing around. Plenty on the mainland if you’re willing to drive to it though. My email is in my profile if you want any details or fancy meeting for a ride when you get here.

Mine’s still faultless a few months in

Schwalbe Procore – game changer

chakaping fixed that for you.

qtip fixed that for you

For this month’s first metric century, I got my Strav-art on and drew a whale.

I went Procore as was sick of pinch-flatting tubeless tyres. I only run it in the rear, as never had any issues on the front. I’d rather run a lighter tyre and Procore than be limited in my choice of heavy rear tyres. It has made a huge difference to my riding – I can now run the pressures I want with the tyres I want without fear of burping / pinch puncturing / dinging rims. Expensive but, for me, worth it. I found installation to be dead simple and it certainly won’t stop me from changing tyres (actually easier than changing tubeless tyres without a compressor).

Most recent one I have – Fox Antifreeze @ Coed Y Brenin

I wear Oakley Jawbreakers with my A1. Great glasses, unrestricted field of vision, very quick to swap lenses, comfortable. Expensive though.

Sportful Super Total Comfort bib shorts have kept my backside happy on rides of 125 miles and more.

Thanks for the tips. When I say camping, I mean driving to a campsite and parking next to the tent, so I think one of those packable cots would be overkill.

My wife has bought what is effectively a grow bag with arms, so that combined with his normal grow bag should be fine.

@SaxonRide – maybe a sturdy cardboard box isn’t the worst idea in the world for putting a mattress + him in! One without a lid obviously!

Got the 2017 Five – did think about the Alpine, but absolutely no regrets whatsoever. Have spent most of my time on it so far at Coed y Brenin, where I’m faster both uphill and downhill than on my old 2010 Five. It was also great at Bike Park Wales, although I didn’t ride anything gnarlier than the reds there.

I’m loving my Brand X dropper so far, although only had it a few months. In response to the comments about Gravity Droppers, I can’t say that I’d agree with the supposed faultless reliability and I’ve certainly had to ride home with a non-functioning GD. I’ve had the following issues with my Turbo:

1. The bit of the post with the pin mechanism de-bonded from the post. Fixed by zip-tying it back on.
2. Cable clamp bolts on lever stripped threads. Fixed by using connector from terminal block.

So, I’ve been able to fix/bodge everything at home but I’ve been left with an even uglier dropper that works after a fashion (now requires a bounce on the seat when the lever is pushed to get seat to return, like the old non-Turbo versions) and that needs constant attention (the fixes need re-fixing every now and then). If GD spares were still readily available in this country then I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend one, but having to get parts from the US is costly and takes a long time.

Ticked off March’s century today. Forecast was for a bit of light rain and then heavier towards the end of the ride, but instead it decided to bucket down earlier. The Gabba did a great job of keeping my core dryish and warm, but I really need to get some winter gloves and shoes – my hands and feet were soaked and freezing. I could deal with the cold hands by shaking them and breathing on them, but I couldn’t feel my feet for the remaining 4 hours of the ride!

Strava linky

Ah well, that’s fair enough. There’s a few of happy campers so the organisers obviously know their market, I hope it’s a success for them in future years.

I definitely pushed myself hard! 2hrs 32 for 3 laps.

2hrs 36 according to the official times :P Still nearly 7 minutes quicker than me.

I do understand where you’re coming from, but I thought the event description was very clear about the nature of the event and the inclusive nature of it does mean that there are practical limitations when it comes to selecting which trails to use and how to link them.

No different to any road sportive. The only real advantage over just riding the trails were the medical backup, feed stations, event photography, and timing (and timing isn’t really any different to using your own GPS), plus you get a token memento. I didn’t use the feed station so there was even less benefit for me, but I still enjoyed it and pushed myself a little bit harder than I normally would have riding the trails at CyB (which for me is the point). Challenge events like this give some people something to aim for (either a distance or technicality of trails that they wouldn’t normally ride), for others they’re a reason to push themselves a bit harder than normal on a ride. If the distance is one that you would easily ride and you turned up and didn’t push yourself any harder than normal then you would definitely have been better off riding the other, better, less crowded trails at CyB. Of course you could just turn up at the trails and decide to ride further than normal or harder than normal without entering an event, but you probably wouldn’t have the same mental focus and, more importantly, you wouldn’t have the same medical backup should something go wrong.

There was a lot of fireroad climbing, but I think that was kind of necessary for an event aimed at a diverse range of abilities. Passing riders on the singletrack sections was tricky to say the least – some riders were very good at letting people past where appropriate, others not so much. Besides, the majority of the climbs at CyB are on fireroad and they did include quite a few singletrack climbs too (the first section, the Minotaur hairpins climb, and the techy climb before the berms.

They haven’t changed the website at all in the five years that they’ve had it. If they did want to make changes, then they have to do it themselves through the company’s CMS. The company involved were also trying to get them to pay an additional fee to optimise the website for phone viewing.

The business is a holiday cottage. The website is a simple static site with a contact form – no online booking system, no e-commerce. They don’t require any updates to content or any additional support. As such, there really is no reason to be paying that much.

I haven’t spoken to the company involved yet, just trying to work out where they stand before I do.

Yes, IP as in Intellectual Property.

I’ve not seen the actual contract. Unfortunately my in-laws are clueless regarding the whole thing, so have no idea what they’ve signed up for. Hopefully they still have a copy of the contract.

I’d been aiming for another imperial century this afternoon (plan to do at least one a month), but ended up being a few km short after snapping my rear gear cable 85 km into the ride. I really should do some maintenance on my crappy commuter/winter bike. Winding the limiter screw right in allowed me to use the 5th cog of my 8-speed cassette, leaving me with 50:16 and 34:16 gears. Fortunately most of the steep climbs were already done, but there was still quite a lot of gurning my way up hills. I’m taking it as my century for the month though, given that I rode another 35 km this morning.

Strava linky

I’ve not ridden Cut Gate for a couple of years now, having moved away from the area, but it used to be a regular ride. I absolutely love the trail, but like others only ride it in drier conditions.

My inclination is to leave it alone and focus on rider education. I appreciate that rider education is likely to have limited effect, given the reasons outlined by others above. However, some people will pay attention.

I’d hate to see the trail covered in flagstones. A few little sections of flagstone where necessary is one thing, but it can definitely go too far. The packhorse trail down into Marsden is a prime example of this – a couple of really boggy bits did need to be flagged but massive sections of the trail got unnecessarily ‘improved’. The end result was the ability to ride at much higher speeds, potentially causing increased conflict with other trail users, and a surface that was prone to getting covered in ice.

In a way, it’s almost better for it to have large boggy sections when it’s wet, rather than one or two smaller ones, as it makes people less inclined to ride it in unsuitable conditions.

Great film – surprisingly engrossing.

I’ve been looking for something similar – Sportful Hot Pack Norain is currently at the top of the list.

None in 35 km :)

Very happy with the performance on mine a couple of months in.

I definitely wouldn’t want to be doing that every day. My commute is 35 km each way, and I generally do it 3 times a week, which leaves me with enough energy and enthusiasm for riding at the weekend. I often extend the distance, sometimes by quite a bit, but the terrain is more rolling than brutal. I find that the frequency gets me more than the distance – doing 3x 100km days a week is a lot easier than 4 or 5 un-extended days. It sounds like something your might want to do once or possibly twice a week, but probably not more. Everyone is different though, so give it a go and find out what sort of frequency suits you.

Exactly what I’m running, for exactly the same reasons. I haven’t died yet!

Me too

Thought I’d start the year with an Imperial century for good measure
Strava linky

Very happy with mine so far, but it’s early days. I like the remote lever and don’t think it feels particularly cheap – it’s pretty basic, but it doesn’t need to be anything more complicated.

Yeah, why not!

Divide the number of teeth on the chainring by the number of teeth on the cassette sprocket – the lower the result, the easier the gear.