Those are shots from the pit area. You want to have a look at the shots on the website front page, then you'll get a flavour of what 99% or the course was about. It just had to have an open are for transition every lap, diving out of the woods, before darting right back in there. Don't worry about that!

BrightonBigDog LINK HERE[/url]

Hope that whets your appetite for the course.

It was the best event of the year by a mile. Having done Mayhem, TwentyFour12 and SITS, the BrightonBigDog course AND race atmosphere were a huge step up in terms of enjoyment. Huge quantities of tea and cake, and free beer as you crossed the finish line And then there was a post race party. Simply awesome!

Surely next year's "MUST DO" event ?

Thanks people, glad it wasn't just me that thought it was really quite hard and yet quite a lot of fun to race for 24hrs!

Oof ouch, Blackhound, riding a SS around the tacky leg emptying sections is truly heroic. Recover quick and recover strong ;-)

I daren't go to get looked at – I'm feeling pretty messed up from head to toe. Still, I'm hugely looking forward to tearing it up at the BrightonBigDog tomorrow, the course is utterly stunning, standout course of the season for me. For those people that will be at the sharp end the prize fund is bonkers too!

Cheers Dave. I was glad I didn't blow up too! It was a bit brutal at the head of affairs with everyone going hammer and tongs to break the others and get a lap. It was very very exciting, nail biting even as the gaps opened and closed and positions were swapped. I didn't realise it would be so much fun! One second it was the start of the race and the next minute, still out the saddle attacking the climbs, it was night time!

My first 8 laps were:
00:44:19
00:41:46
00:42:52
00:44:12
00:45:04
00:47:44
00:46:49
00:47:48

Whilst the course may not have been electric, the racing was. What a lot of fun! It'll be a while before I've recovered, not sure I'll be 100% for the Kielder 100, which will be annoying, I've been told 6-8 weeks to be back to anything near 100%, crikey!

hmmmm, maybe I got a little over excited there, but I hope my (over?) reaction can be understood due to the amount of effort both before and during the race to achieve what really is a dream come true, and getting a solo 24 win.

Hell, even winning a small local race is never EVER easy!

I was the "newbie"

I did do the 3rd fastest SDD earlier in the year, under 20hrs, oh and came 2nd in TwentyFour12 open Teams (winning the Masters sub-cat), 2nd at D2D in pairs last year and 3rd in the South Downs MaXx Exposure, all reasonably big events, I just haven't done "self publicity".

Of course if "certain other" people had been there they could have won, but this is true of EVERY race. You just can't have everyone doing every race.

There were a good few "names" on the start list: James Leavsely was there, he came 3rd at Mayhem, Rod Mason entered, he came 4th at Mayhem, Jason Miles was there, he came 5th at Mayhem, Dave Buchannan was there of the IronHorse Extreme Team, just done Welsh C2C in under 24hrs, Dave Powell of Ragley (formerly on-one) was there, Ed Toogood of Whyte Bikes was there. Just who did you have in mind? Just because Matt Page or Ant White didn't race doesn't make it easy. I've been training for this for over a year, building through shorter events (see above), this was not beginners luck, many hundreds of hours of prep and an amazing pit from Exposure who provided my lights got me to the top of the podium.

Ian Leitch was there, he was my pit crew! So that's a testament to how serious my attempt at a win was, I lined up at the start with a podium, and hopefully a win in mind no matter who was there.

And you can only race who turns up on the day!

I should add that, in my opinion, having an "easy" course makes solo tougher as more concentration is required as there's less in the trail to attack and keep you focussed in some sections or just to really look forward to. I was warned by my pit, who pre-rode the course, that finishing would be hard. Lots of time in the saddle pedalling per lap too, which made it really tough on the body and hard to eat (as I didn't stop, bar one 3min off the bike interval for a quick trackside leg rub at 4am)

I suspect that a lot of the perception of it being "easy" was due to the lack of speed one could carry through the twisties due to the sticky mud everywhere. That course in the dry may have been a lot less "easy".

"I'll wager that could be won a cross bike pretty easily…."

If you think finishing a 24, let alone winning is it is easy then you're an idiot. These are tough.

I did win it solo, on a light 29er, but I also came 2nd at 24/12 on the same bike, a supposedly much techier course that was won by a team on 29ers. Dave Powell was going similarly fast on his 29er and terrahawk who came 3rd. These are good technical riders and one does well solo by riding efficiently and keeping speed, this requires skill no matter how "easy" the corners are. After 8 laps, looking at the overall pace, I was about level with the team that finished 20th overall (including all teams, mixed and pairs). That is not easy. The fact there were fewer drop offs and corners does not make this "easier" to win, it just makes the bike speed faster!

There are only three "big" 24hr races in the summer, and Strathpuffer in January, with so few podium spots available, I'd say anyone going top 5 was pretty damn 'core and has achieved something massive. Yes, not "everyone" was there, but it's impossible to do all of the events solo if you want to compete at the sharp end as your body just can't recover as all 3 come in pretty quick succession, hence there were 8 riders taking the 9 availabe spots, only Any White popped up twice.

Oh, I see by the watermarks on the lower ones that you're selling them. Well, hey-ho, please feel free to ignore my request, I wasn't trying to be cheeky.

Great pic anyway

Rob

Hey Rich, that's an awesome photo of me (men's solo winner). I don't suppose I could ask you to email it to me as a souvenir. That ride will be one I'm going to cherish forever. Your photo's going in a frame with the number board!

Mant thanks in advance

Rob Dean (robdeanhove at hotmail.com)

Cheers mrsflash. I can take none of the credit though, it's all support crew derived, USE/Exposure and Ian Leitch from Independent Fabrications did all the hard work and seemed to put in more energy to my pits than I could muster through a good chunk of the night!

29ers are the way forwards now geometry is getting evolved and weights are coming down, they roll so much more smoothly that, coupled with a nice big volume tyre you can just fly through the twisty stuff. I had a lot of fun on mine and chatted to twinklydave, who had a LOT of fun on his.

Mens solo winner (me!) for Morvélo
won on a 29er hardtail. Some of my lap times were pleasingly quick for me, despite reigning my HR in on the climbs, I'd like to think that was the speed my bike carried through the trees and around the corners.

2 weeks ago at 24/12 the Open Men's Podium was locked out by big wheels: Open team was won by the GF 29ers, Morvélo were the 2nd placed team and 3 of us were on 29ers and the Trek 69ers were 3rd.

The US XC nationals were recently won, in both mens & womens categories, by 29ers and that's short course stuff, not enduro.

Now is the time of the big wheel ;-)

Woo – Podium photos!

26 laps and a win on my first ever 24hr solo, and what an experience. Truly bonkers. I'd never even done a 12hr solo before (although I did do the South Downs Double a month ago).

I did, however, have what must be the world's greatest pit, and the podium was a direct result of their endless enthusiasm, encouragement, energy and just outright bullying to keep me on the bike and taping out the laps after a ferocious first 6hrs to the race. I never would have finished, let alone got to the podium without them. So it's a victory to Ian Leitch of Indepedent Fabrications who headed up the team of the USE/Exposure crew (including Trevor Allen 3rd 24/12 solo) who were amazing in their support and endless energy, with additional nicer, more softly spoken (but still bullying!) night time encouragement from Jenn from Minx. All of the energy from these amazing people made the day happen for me, and they were the machine that masterminded the victory, I was just a passenger.

Special mention to all the other soloists, I think I swappded a few words with most of them at some point, if only a quick exchange of "go on solo" in mutual encouragement.

A brutally sticky course was offset by some of the most enthusiastic and cheery marshalling I've ever seen at a race (or maybe it was just pity when they saw the state i was in by the look of pain on my face).

Hope to see you all at the BrightonBigDog next weekend, presented by Morvélo who designed the beautiful and very fast kit that powered me to victory, for what promises to be the best race course of the year.

Rob

:idea: 22-32-44:9s11-34 for me :-P

It depends what you want it for. A second vote for the GF 29ers here. At TwentyFour12 last week the winning team were XCracer.com GF 29ers who all rode 29ers, more powerfully second place was a team of "just" me and my mates from our regular Brighton Tuesday night ride and 3 of us were on GF 29ers too. 3rd were the Trek 69er collective, riding GF 29er drived 69ers (of coursem had they had 2 big wheels they may have knocked us, Morvélo, off 2nd spot on the podium!). A pretty damn good demonstration of 29er speed.

Yes, it was an endurance event but the even is renowned for having one of the more technical courses and 29ers didn't feature so prominently in the Mayhem results where the course was less technical and possibly just crazy light bikes would have been a bigger advantage.

We all use our 29ers for Tuesday night singletrack thrashing, not just for race day only too.

If you've got the cash the Gary Fisher Paragon is a great super fast bike straight out the box. The XCal is great value too – same frame, fork and riding position package for a load less cash., and a great platform for upgrading if you want it to double as a race day rocket too.

Yoo-Hoo! I'm giving it a bash.

After two abortive pairs efforts where my team mates haven't made the finish line, I'm going for solo this year. It'll be my first 24hr solo. GULP!

If you see a big bloke on a GF 29er wearing a Morvélo top feel free to scream and shot at me to TTFU and pedal faster!

I have, further in fact, off road (202miles = 325km), one of the best things I've ever done, thoroughly enjoyed every second.

READ ABOUT IT HERE

sofatester – no not aimed at anyone, just trying to help give a nice complete answer to the original question. So my answer was aimed at trickpsychlist if anyone!

trickphychlist – I recommend taking on more fluid than that in the winter, lots more in the summer. If you’re going gently your body will be able to get a lot of the energy you need from itself. Most of a bottle of fluid and a snack (gel/bar?) per hour should see you through without the risk of a bonk raising its ugly head. Of coursem this varies from person to person, while experimenting with what works for you, it’s not a bad idea to carry an “emergency gel” or similar if you go too minimalist ;-)

Cheers for the congrats. Keep looking, go on, you know you want to, it’s a great ride, I didn’t stop smiling from start to finish (except up Butser!) and am still ginning just thinking about it now.

crikey – yes, one does go slower off road, this is why I also gave the time, about 20hrs

An 80mile road side sounds like about 4-5hrs of riding. A bottle is typically 750ml or 500ml, this gives a maximum rate of fluid intake that is less than 200ml/hr which is not enough for any sort of exercise. The question was about long rides specifically, and this is very clearly not enough for sustained effort of any sort. Even in winter.

As for need ing to drink watching TV as an indication of not drinking enough whilst riding? I think you’ll find you need to drink when not in the bike to stay hydrated. 4-5hrs of doing anything is thirsty work.

As I said, yes it is possible to ride for this long with a bottle, and I am sure that you and a lot of people on this site could do this, maybe even with drinking nothing, but it will be comfier and certainly easier when properly hydrated. This applies to all human beings, bar none.

Dimmadam – as you correctly pointed out, bottles of energy drink are an alternate and equally appropriate way of fuelling and hydrating your body. I found this did not work for me so can not comment on quantities etc. to answer the original question. However for short rides, to minimise the amount of separate items I have to carry I do go with a just a bottle as you do sometimes. I just like eating too much to sustain this for longer periods and the “reward” of some food when going with solid energy seems to work better with my head. As you say, stopping for lunch, and then trying to get back on the bike with a belly full of pub grub is a nightmare and can be a ride wrecker

I just did the South Downs Double MORE ABOUT THAT HERE – now that was a hell of a long ride. Pushed all the way for 202 off road miles! I got it wrong once so spent a lot of time and effort getting my feeding and drinking improved and well tested.

The 1g carb per 1kg lean bodyweight thing is about right, for any sort of effort really, your body can’t process all the energy it needs for hard effort from your stomach, the rest comes from you. You’ll struggle to consume less than a whole bunch more than you eat.

You’ll also need to worry about what you eat as well as how much and how may calories. You’ll need some small amount of fat and protein and you’ll need electroytes to function and I found you’ll need them for your stomach too as well as to keep the cramps away.

One thing in this thread is lots of people seem to be grossly under hydrating. An 80 odd mile ride on one bottle. Nuts, I drink more than that when sitting on my ass watching the TV! Yes it’s possible, but you’ll be faster and more comfortable if you drink more.

Over 20hrs small errors soon add up. For my ride (202 miles, 19hrs 59mins, 25’400ft climbing!) I ate:

5 chicken sandwiches
2 nutrigrain bars
8 gels
6 bars
2 flapjacks
10 NUUN tabs
1 REGO powder sachet
15 litres of water (and finished quite dehydrated!)

All a bit general, but I hope this helps

I just did quite a long ride on my 29er, in full on XC mode, and it looked after me admirably, not a whisper of a moan from back or bottom. It’s done Peaks, trail centres, short course XC with nothing but tweaks to the cockpit (bars’n’stem).

I’ve never done a ride like that before and the bike looked after me admirably, but with the modern 29ers having had the steerer angles, forks etc sorted it’s plenty zippy in the singletrack. I’ll be using it on the legendary singletrack at the BrightonBigDog race later in the year. Can’t wait!

I also have an inbred 29er SS and it’s similarly fantastic. Have a P& rigid SS and the inbred is not precetably more ponderous or slow out on the trail: gears, forks, bars stem and tyres all make much more difference to the feel of the bike.

Firstly, this is me: http://www.bikemagic.com/news/article/mps/uan/6845

If you want my advice (lots of hours logged on long SDW rides), if you’ve done several 3-4hr rides and are comfy, a careful 100 is easily possible. If you’ve done lots of 15-20miles rides that have been out of the house for 4hrs but chatting with mates at junctions and gates (this second option was me), get some longer rides in with fewer breaks first ;-)

Useful things are:

1) Two bottle cages, not a camelback, get the weight off your back (you’
ll appreciate that after 10hrs!)

2) Get some sudocrem, or similar, chamois cream for your bum

3) Take some electrolites (my error) to help muscle and stomach cramps stay away. Bananas are good.

4) Start eating/drinking in the first hour. your body can only process 300kcal of carbs an hour approximately, you’ll be burning about 800 an hours, get it working from the off to avoid it having to break down crazy amounts of energy from you.

5) You’ll need to drink up to a bottle an hour depending on the heat

6) Don’t over eat, this can be as fatal as eating too little

7) Don’t change ANYTHING on your bike the night before, don’t use anything on the day you’ve not used before.

8) 10mph average quoted above is tough, specially on the BHF ride with lots of other riders. It’s NOT a race, it’s an endurance challenge. Look at the finish times from last year, you’ll see what a reasonable time is.

9) Don’t fit skinny race tyres, don’t pump your tyres up too hard. I use 2.2″ tyres, tubeless, at normal/low-ish pressures for comfort and grip. Your back will not thank you for going with “faster” tryes

10) Smile and enjoy the fantastic views and scenery! You’ll have a great day out.

Good luck

Rob

EBB is not a new dsign, it’s the commonly used Busnhell EBB, also available from Bushnell directly.

I’ve had one in my EBB 29er SS since 2003 and very nice and easy to use they are too.

The “round metal spring” simply holds it all together out of the bike and maintains side to side alignment of the three main parts within the BB shell when you’re fiddling with the EBB position.

See here: BUSHNELL SITE LINK

1) you’ll still need rim tape to cover the spoke holes
2) in theory it might, I run stan’s flow 26″ strips on bontrager 29er rims and it’s fine with non-UST tyres, the stans strips are much thicker under the spoke bead though so will offer much better sealing, and won’t interfere with the bead locking, so will be more secure.

I recommend going with a stretched stan’s rim strip for the extra sealing robustness and mostly for the bead locking robustness to avoid burping and your tyre rolling off the rim

Superfly ;-)

A significantly lighter stiffer frame than I’d owned before. And the 29er wheels. You just gotta love them big wheels.

It’s pretty too. Everybody knows pretty bikes go faster, particularly if you smile cheerfully while riding them.

I’ve got one, and so do 4 of my mates now! A great singletrack weapon, as well as being light and generally fast. The frames around 3.5lbs for an 18″ I believe.

If you’re after an occasional race bike that rides fast and can be ridden far, it’s the frame to have I’d say. One mate’s currently in 5th in the Gorrick series on his, mine rode past Rob Lee on the MaXx Exposure last year at about 50miles, it was definitely the bike! So that’s short fast & twisty and long enduro performance tested and proven.

I used a Superfly (exact same geometry) for ”a bit of a long ride” a couple of weeks ago and it was simply awesome. Long ride planned tomorrow with much playing in the woods. Pace is staying in the shed and the Paragon’s coming out. Case closed!

Surely there can be no more questions. Just get one, you won’t regeret it. Just Shhhhhh…. don’t tell anyone or we won’t have an advantage over the rest of the world any more!

As for frame cacking. Well, I bet you could find stories of any frame cracking, being the victim of alien abduction or spontaneously combusting if you searched the web hard enough. Just don’t read the american forums “I’m 28stone and I bent my bike….. “, duh! well obviously!