I’ve got mine taped to the underside of my stem. They just live there and I never really notice them

Realised I needed some quick energy whilst on the turbo this evening, jumped off, nicked a fondant fancy and a chocolate cookie out of the kitchen cupboard, back on the turbo and felt them kick in after five mins or so. Remotivated me enough to do a 20min core session straight after getting off the bike. Carbs are sometimes really necessary and in my opinion any carbs are better than nothing.
Now tucking into a big bowl of a Thai style chicken thing and whole grain rice.
I eat really well (loads of fresh, home prepared food) but also hit the sugary stuff when it’s needed.

Today I did a tough 4hr ride on Copella apple juice mixed 50/50 with water and Cliff bars (free from my lbs because they were virtually out of date, bless them).
Had a ‘For Godness Shakes’ recovery drink when I got home because I’d been to the supermarket yesterday, followed immediately by a cup of coffee then quiche, baked beans, toast and pate… then a nap…then another coffee and pecan pie.
Man I love being a cyclist!

Molegrips, in my experience it doesn’t seem to make much difference. I’ve done probably a couple of hundred off road races now and have done them on no food and knackered, with sports nutrition, with cobbled together nutrition blah blah blah…
Mainly it’s in the legs, the training and the mind. I can’t actually correlate results to any particular nutrition strategy but by god I can directly correlate it to the will the succeed.

But back to cheap carbs…
Any carbs are better than no carbs and the best carbs are those that are readily available. If you’re a working dad and training 5-10times a week then the carbs you can find in your kitchen are the carbs you’ve got for that ride.

I used to love bar ends. Pity wide bars and fashion killed them. I’m sure they’ll make a comeback soon.

I use the drops when:
Tanking it along during a race situation on the road bike when I’m on the very edge of what’s possible power wise and also when belting into corners so fast that I need to get low and strong in order to make it round. It was only when I started race training that I realised a bike could be ridden in this way, and needed to be ridden in this way in order to survive. Always in the drops for a sprint finish. You can’t sprint properly from the hoods.

Off road on the cx I get in the drops when I’m on a descent that’s just going mental and I fear my hands will get shaken off the hoods or if I’m racing into a cruel headwind. I’ll also use the drops if I need to dominate a corner in a high speed, dry cx race.

The common theme here is if you’re just cruising then the drops are uncomfortable and the hoods, tops or flat bars are much nicer, but if you are racing and need to force the bike down into a turn or sprint so hard the frame is visibly flexing then drops are essential at times.

TiRed.
Every once in a while someone posts something that’s an absolute nugget of pure gold. I trawl the internet searching for these things that will influence my training.
Cheers mate. You’ve just made the Hall of Fame!
I love the light thing. Genius!

Yeah it can be hard to find proper 1980’s sugary squash.

Just remembered a few other things:
Semi dried dates, figs and apricots. Very cheap, easy to pop into a bag, bite sized, and I like to think the fibre in them buffers the release of energy a bit.

In hot weather I love mixing salty snacks in with sugary ones. I often use a feed bag on my handlebars and I remember discovering the joy of honey roasted cashews mixed with chunks of heat softened torq bar chunks during one sun blasted South Downs Way epic.

Hey Steve.
In the past I’ve made my own sports drinks using bulk bags of Myprotein maltodextrin and smaller bags of fructose, I used fresh lemon juice to offset sweetness and it was pretty good (a slug of grapefruit juice was nice as well). Maltodextrin doesn’t taste that sweet but fructose tastes really sweet so I’d often back the fructose down a bit.

These days I can’t be arsed to mix up drinks nor do I want to pay for ready mixed products. I do however buy into the concept of fuel your rides with cabs at a rate of 40grams/hr for long, steady rides and 60grams/hr for harder stuff.

So here’s what I use:
In my bottles; squash! I know, I know it’s not sports nutrition but it’s simple sugars that taste ok and most importantly a bottle is cheap and lasts for a ages.

Solids: I rate: fig rolls, malt loaf, cliff bars, torq bars, supermarket granola slices and for those long, cold, dark, miserable night rides, nothing comes close to a big old bag of rocky road chunks. Sometimes your soul needs feed8ng too.

On the turbo I usually eat bananas as they just seem to hit the mark. I eat to hunger but would aim for at least 2 an hour. A bunch of bananas cost about £1 and there’s some fibre in there too.

And Weeksy, I think that if you’re feeling the excitement of the prospect of some racing then the first questions you should be asking yourself are not ‘what stuff can I buy to make me faster’ but ‘how can I design and implement a training plan that will make me faster’? Try spending some time writing down your available free time then do some internet research into how best to fill that time. I can recommend the blogs and vids of Tom Bell for this. He explains things very clearly.

I enjoyed your reply padkinson. A well thought out argument that totally correlates with how it feels during an xc race.

I ride an xc hardtail for my do it all bike. In winter it sports a few small frame bags to stache food and extra clothing and I use it on and off road. After doing this for a while I realised that I couldn’t go back to using a road bike which is just far too harsh and rattly compared to an mtb. A further perk is that rocket rons on the road produce a fair bit of drag which coupled with the upright riding position means you can still put force through the peddles going downhill which is great for holding consistent average power. It also uses a 2×10 drivetrain which is great for gear range, shifts well even when cruddy, and is cheap to replace. I give this a squirt of water at the end of each ride but the bike remeains unwashed most of the time.
It’s fine for clubruns too. In a pack there’s plenty of shelter if you need it and the extra height and riding position makes it easy to see over the tops of other riders which is nice, plus the odd pothole isn’t going to faze it.
I do a lot of miles though so have probably thought about it more than most. Currently logging about 15-18hrs a week of zone 2 riding.

Ta11pau1.

Thing is about this sport in my opinion is that you get more out of it as you get fitter. Places like Bedge and Swinley are way more fun when you’re going fast and then can get even more exhillarating if you get really fast. Neither trail centre is much cop done at a bimble but both can be a hoot done flat out.

There’s rideable natural stuff near you by the way, but winter will always involve a fair bit of mud.

Cheers for the heads up Kryten. Both of the first two rounds of the Scott marathon series will be awesome. Builth is a beast of a ride and that monster route on rd 2 just has to be done. To the OP as someone else who loves the SDW I can unreservedly recommend these events.

It’s really normal to feel like this mid season so don’t beat yourself up about it. There’s a great saying that there is no such thing as ‘should’ in amateur racing.

i felt the same last weekend, and also had a bit of a cold for an excuse so instead of racing I spent the whole day heckling. Had many laughs with other spectators and it was really informative and inspirational to watch my peers race (and nice to give them a cheer). Came home super motivated.

Sorry guys. Twice this evening I’ve written long replies expressing thanks and thoughts but this hellish site has closed the page and removed my text.

Anyway tomorrow I’ll hit Cut Gate with a full belly a good nights sleep and renewed expectations.

Thanks for your help.

Right! Bolstered by your suggestions, I’ll do the Cut Gate route I have on my GPS tomorrow. Have no means of plotting new routes  so will stick with that this time and plot alternatives next time.

I spent a year in my twenties working with cattle. Lovely creatures and generally very calm. If you just mingled with them then they didn’t pay you much attention although you might get licked to death. If you do need to get one to move then you can just nip behind it and give it’s tail a tug, that really freaks them out!

Vet 40 at Ardingly for me too. Cracking course with some proper tech to deal with. Managed 36th.

Thanks again.

Have found a nice out and back for Cut gate and then around Ladybower. Scott marathon route also downloaded.

Have put a 65km White Peak xc route on as well. Could make a nice contrast on day two.

Thank you for the advice. I definitely don’t want to even go near a busy road.

On my second day I was thinking about doing the Scott mtb marathon route from Hope. Good idea?

P.s. turbo might feel harder than outside but it’s safer and easier to maintain the effort. The results won’t be wildly different from outside anyway.

Normalised power becomes more different from average power the hillier the ride, it’s taking into account that an hour of hilly riding with its associated hard efforts will have more impact on the body than an hour at steady state.

If you want a good approximation of your ftp then put aside 45mins and do a proper test on the turbo. 10 mins warm up followed by 30mins all out effort (recording the last 20mins average power). Pace it sensibly, can I recommend starting at 200w then building to 220w after ten mins. After that listen to your body for clues. Your breathing should be tipping into panting but not getting ragged. The last ten mins should be eyes shut, sweat dripping onto the floor, total focus to the task. Stop looking at the numbers and wring the very last drop out of your body.

Go on, do it! We’ve all had to at some point or other. Let us know the result. I’m going to predict 250w.

Bin the road riding. That world is full of hate. Just ride off road and be happy forever.

I don’t understand how anybody can experience riding with a dropped saddle and not immediately agree that it’s so much better for everything that involves moving the bike around i.e. corners and undulations. It’s like they don’t understand at all how to ride a mtb, which in this day and age of ‘how to’ vids and pics etc seems weird.

However there are times when a dropper is not so good like when you just need a reliable training machine for doing the miles, or when you want to fit a seat post bag.

Furthermore whilst actual xc racing a dropper isn’t always a great idea. What non racers may fail to grasp is that your legs can be so exhausted that you simply don’t have the spare strength to stand through flow sections unless you do it with locked out legs which rather negates the dropper post. Also it’s another control and another decision to make when your brain is in a hypoxic state.

Therefore for training and racing the dropper goes on and off the bike as each ride demands. If a race is going to have decent jumps and drops or extended sections of tech then the dropper will go on, but if the biggest feature is a 6” tree root then I’ll opt for simplicity even if in play mode I’d have the saddle slammed on the same course.

I’ve got a Slant 120mm on one of my bikes and it’s a good fork. Not as supple as some but it’s done hundreds of hours without getting sloppy and works well enough. I did a lowers service the other day but when I came to reassemble found out that I needed a special tool to pull a bolts through the lowers. It’s only a piece of internally threaded rod but nowhere in the uk sold it. Rang Upgrade and was told I’d have to wait 90 days for them to back order it. Went online and ordered it from the USA for $5 and had it in six days. Bit unimpressed with Upgrade for that but feeling the love for the US right now! Fork feels great with new oil in it.

Did an experiment for you Ferrals: Split today’s workout into two sessions. Each only took 30mins but have left me with nicely used legs tonight. Bonus is I think my overall energy levels are a bit higher than they would have been and I also had a few mins spare after each one for some stretching which always makes me feel good.

Very easy getting on the turbo when you know you’ve only got 3x3min efforts instead of 6x3min. Altogether I can report that I think splitting workouts into two sessions is just fine.

Hope that helps.

Any training will always trump no training so just get out, do what you can and don’t get bogged down in the fine details.

I like to look at the coming week, see what free time I’ll have then plan some sessions around it. No point trying to fit in the sessions proscribed to you by a generic computer program if it doesn’t fit with your life, you just spend the whole time feeling guilty about missing workouts and that leads to despondency. Ride to and from work, go fast when you’ve got the energy and slow when you haven’t. Consistent riding gets you so close to your peak. If you then race cross most weekends, that’ll ice the cake nicely.

Had a look at the MSG Facebook page and they have a national mentioned for end June, venue tbc. Therefore we could deduce it might be at Phoenix. Good year for the southerners but I do hope it goes to Glentress as well as I’ve heard very good things about that course.

Really excited the national series will be visiting Hadleigh again. It’s a fantastic venue. Looks like the National series is the one for me this year as I really want to race at Dalby and Cannock as well.

Does anyone know where the Nat marathon champs will be this year?

I’m trying to think of a race or series to inspire me next season. Something not to long (I prefer xc to marathon), with massive climbs and technical descents. Is there anything like that in the UK?

Actually everything on stw gets this complicated. Maybe people should be restricted to one post a day.

Oops! Just fallen foul of my own rule :)

Carry on.

It’s been quite entertaining reading this, it’s like an episode of Eastenders. Who knew going for a bike ride could get so complicated? :)

He looked totally in control on that final climb didn’t he. I still like him though, he rides with flair. I presume they are all reasonably doped to some degree or other (TUE’s anyone?) but I like riders with panache. Valverde has it in spades.

Just use your eyes and experience. Jeez! Does everyone need to be spoon fed these days.

I predict many peoples wallets will be lighter but not their bikes or bellies. ;)

I think the internet is getting so broken now. There’s so much information that it’s virtually impossible to find answers to simple questions like what is the uci broadcast schedule without being subject to loads of similar but fruitless results.

As for watching cx this season, as far as I can gather, to watch the three main series plus the wc races you’d need to have: flobikes, fubo, Eurosport, and move to Canada as one of the series (Brico or DVV I think) will  not be shown in the uk. It’s all too much for me. Luckily London x league has been awesome so far this year. Iconic venues and already a muddy round. In the evening I’ll continue my 2013 season viewing with Superprestige zondhofen.

That’s the calendar I saw Ferrals. Although the message said ‘geoblocking applies to Waterloo stage only’ when I read it so hopefully it won’t just keep rolling on.

Probably an American rights thing. I think it was the same last year.

I’m not sure where I saw it now but it said something like geo restrictions only apply to the first round.

New venues are cool for the sport as are new promoters. It’ll be awesome!