The material at the bottom of top tube bags is good to stop stuff rattling, but items will still rattle against each other so you may need to stuff some material in there to stop that if it annoys you (my CO2 cylinders rattle against each other and against tools)

Grundig 180 gravel race in Plymouth, with category for retro MTBs

https://southwestmountainbiking.eventrac.co.uk/e/grundig-180-gravel-race-11337

I grew up in Lydney and still have family there, plus another area in the Forest.  Since the removal of the tolls on the Severn Bridge there’s been a big influx of people living in Lydney and commuting to Bristol, so any idea that it isn’t open to outsiders has gone. You might find that in some of the more old-school places like Drybrook or Ruardean, but not in the three main towns of Lydney, Coleford and Cinderford. Lydney is a big town now, so I’m not sure how much community feel there is – you might need to look at a smaller town, or a tight-knit area in Lydney to achieve that.

Biking access is obviously ace, even from Lydney there is quick access into the Forest.

Not been in the pubs in ages, but a few pubs in the Forest are great, not so much the ones in Lydney. Same for restaurants.  Miners Arms in Sling is supposed to be quite good. Plenty of shops in Lydney – Tesco, Lidl, etc

I wouldn’t want to work there – no local jobs, plus commuting is awful at rush hour, but it would be good to retire there – do some research on finding that right community though.

Thanks for all the feedback – consistent! Disappointingly there isn’t a word for fear of low tyre pressures – I’m off to see if I can fix a life-long fixation with hard tyres… Not sure I’ll get time to race again this season, but that means plenty of time to practice for next year

Completed first ever league race this weekend (WMCCL at Worcester). I knew it wasn’t going to be great, but it was abysmal… what did I do wrong? 

62/65 in category, 82 out of 103 starters. V50 category (which was busy because Wessex and Welsh races were cancelled.

85 kg, with FTP slowly moving up from about 220W (long recovery from broken pelvis). HR at max for the whole 40mins, so I couldn’t have gone harder…

Riding a Tifosi Cavazzo gravel bike with 38mm Vittoria Tereno wets, probably at 35/40 psi – tubeless.

it was heavy grass and mud, and I felt like I was going nowhere, could not go fast in any section, really struggled in the mud. Is it a case of tyres, gravel gearing, or just HTFU if I want to race in a league?

Sadly I missed them, but Evie Richards and Hattie Harnden raced in the women’s race and from the lap times made it look easy!

Kemble Round https://thekembleround.uk/
From Kemble station unsurprisingly

Full Monty is done in level mode, so you may not learn anything apart from how painful that test is… I’d also give it a couple days between tests to fully recover.

Try one of the other workouts on SYSTM in erg mode and just focus on keeping cadence at the targets. The Mike Cotty Girona ride is a good one as it’s subtle power changes and a few high cadence spins.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/40639584

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/34935565

couple of routes there that are suitable for gravel. Second one has one climb that will probably need some hike a bike in current conditions

Someone did the entire Welsh XC series this year on retro bikes, different one each round. I was watching the FOD round and they came flying through on an old Orange, really stood out amongst the big wheels. He wasn’t hanging around either

@doris5000 can you link to your music so we can give you a few extra streams, t shirts, albums, gigs etc?

Apple music here, it just works as we all have Apple devices. I use it for lots of new music, kids use it for repeatedly playing annoying R&B rubbish. Spotify was suggested by the kids at one point but only if I pay for it, so we stuck with Apple.

Magnet fishing finds?

For France I’ve used https://www.utagawavtt.com/

Ridewithgps.com combined with Street View and satellite view is also good

After racing MTB & CX most weeks for 3-4 months without incident, I went for a gentle road ride…

Front wheel wash out due to road surface and hit the ground hard.

6 broken ribs, 4 of which were flail breaks. Fractured pelvis in two places. Two nights in hospital.

Are you wearing it on your wrist on putting it on the handlebars? I believe the Garmin AMOLED watches dim the screen when on the handlebars as they don’t detect a heart rate and assume they aren’t being worn.

I looked at an Epix but prioritised the slimness of the watch and bought a Forerunner 255 in the end

I’ve got BC Silver membership – good point, I’ll talk to them. I had heard they passed you straight onto a no win no fee type of lawyer who were mostly interested in claims against drivers. Not sure if that’s true.

Healing well thanks – just over 5 weeks ago and can sleep/breathe comfortably now, and walking (slowly and carefully…)

Chugger – no interest or connection to the charity, but needed a job.

Couldn’t do it, lasted 2 hours and took $4 (Australian ones). Was too embarrassed to hang around whilst the worked out my commission so I just left it all with them

The demo bikes at Santa Cruz and other rental options get booked up pretty early, if you are going to get one then do it as early as possible.

Hard tail will be awesome out at Wilder Ranch – you can ride there from The centre of Santa Cruz on a dedicated bike path. Incredible views, and old school biking (mix of fire roads and non-technical single track).

Not ridden in demo forest for a while, but hard tail should be OK there – most of it is flow trails but there are a few super steep tech sections

You will stand out as pretty much every other bike I saw out there in May was a full sus ebike

Well that was fun whilst it lasted! Having survived 6 MTB XC races, and 4 night cross races this year it was all looking so good.
On a gentle road bike bimble I hit a trench of subsided road and got spat off quite rapidly. I’ve never screamed and swore so loudly, but got back on and attempted to ride home. Didn’t make it.
Wife picked me up, took one look at me, and took me straight to hospital.

After 6 hours (4 X-Rays, 1 CT scan, 3 meltdowns (all mine)) its clear why I screamed so loudly. 5 Broken ribs (flail breaks), broken nose, and fractured pelvis (sounded like acid tablet, but I think this isn’t quite correct). No more cross racing this year for me!

2 nights in hospital, now home for long slow recovery.

Three rounds in to the Swindon Night Cross at Supermarine, with fourth round this week. Second round was awful, zero grip so I massively overcompensated with new wheels and 38mm full wet tubeless. Third round was great fun – getting dark at the start now.

Aiming for top ten vet, not through talent, but sheer consistency of turning up every week…

I rode this
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/353572694
years ago, purely to title my Strava ride ‘I’m on Crac’h’. Rode it on an MTB, but gravel bike is likely to be more suitable

If you have a Garmin account, Connect picks up lots of public routes around the area

I run the tubeless MTB tyres at 24psi (ish, I’m 85Kgs) so that seems reasonable. I could see if my current wheels can manage a shonky tubeless fit (never had luck with that on older wheels), get new wheels (rim brakes and tubeless for CX?) or look at a new to me frame.

Or keep my fingers crossed for dry weather…

Last night’s cross was the first slippy one, and compared to last weeks flat out race on hardpack I was suddenly mincing through the woods like Bambi on ice. I’m currently running G-One in 33mm, but my wheels/bike are older models so they are using tubes. Am I going to get a significant benefit by moving to tubeless? I never feel like I can get pressure right with tubes – they are high now (40psi +) as anything lower seems to puncture really easily, and I’m already feeling obstacles such as rocks/roots hitting the rim.

Two of the B52s left Fairford about 6.30 this morning – quite a sound to get woken up by. They don’t usually pop up on ADS-B

By the sounds of it, 1 or 2 more are leaving now (10ish)

Do you still need a Strava premium account for the live segments to work?

Looks like she was being towed back onto the peloton by a team mate, and was head down going hard. The team mate is the one who shot off to the left doing somersaults and then was pictured looking dazed (probably looking for her bike), but Frain thought she could make it through the gaps and got it wrong.

A £50 option won’t do the job – the Curry’s one are personal webcams for use at home or on an individual desk. If they do have a microphone in them, it won’t do a great job of picking up speech from everyone in the room, nor will it give any audio.

https://www.poly.com/gb/en/products/video-conferencing/studio-p/studio-p15

The P15 works really well in a room that size, and gives you video and audio – no need for separate table mic. USB connection so you just plug it into any laptop and it works with Zoom, Teams, etc.

Creepy stalker mode on…
Is anyone using BeReal? I like the idea of in the moment photos and simultaneous front/back shots, but there’s a lot of rubbish to wade through

A Christian God? Does that mean there is more than one?

Just been diagnosed with shingles, not going to be doing any riding let alone racing for a while ☹️ Hope it’s a good event, fingers crossed I’ll be back healthy for the last 2 rounds

Have you been in touch with Jay and Maddie Horton? They run the soggy bottom races and filthy foxes courses. They might know people from those courses who this would benefit.

Also try Rockets and Rascals (Steve Toze?)

Fantastic sounding initiative – good luck with it!

Gary Fisher?

Crashed and broke his tracker

Nobody admitting to owning any Country and Western then?
Jolene doesn’t count.

@monkeyboyjc – you must have floated across the moss sections? Every time I got to them it felt like I’d hit treacle…

Good course given the space and lack of elevation. After getting my arse kicked at CX over the last few years, I took consolation in thinking that they were just roadies, and I’d beat them on a proper offroad course. Turns out they’re all good at MTB as well, and I got my arse kicked again – think I just escaped getting lapped twice by the winner.

Next two are entered, hoping for slightly drier start/finish area next time.

I was at the venue on Friday night (with permission of landowner), if the course goes across the rally area then it’s going to be sticky mud as well :-)

Course length is advertised as 3K, so with 40 riders entered in advance there’s going to be a few sections where it’s just you and the zombies…

Same organiser as the Supermarine series, so expect a similar approach. The venue is a 4×4 and rally driving centre so I’d expect churned up ground with a course that’s constantly short sharp up and downs – there’s no altitude gain to speak of. It’s probably going to be a short enough course that there will always be someone just ahead or just behind to keep you motivated

I’ve entered the first one, and will shortly be entering all the others. Actually quite excited to have local XC racing.

Cotton burner mixes up XC and Enduro over a 3 round series. You don’t know which race type it is until you get to the start

Henley and Christmas Common

Poly Voyager 5200 or Legend for around the ear – UC version if you are connecting a laptop
Poly Voyager 6200 UC for around the neck with earbuds