Yeah but weeksy, what if the majority of riders were on them? It’s got to have more of an impact.

Can I just say for all those who a riding them because of a medical condition, I support you wholeheartedly. If their use off road was limited to people who genuinely needed them then I’m sure we’d all be united in our support.

It’s the slide toward mass participation some of us worry about. I came across quite a few last weekend and they are simply something different to a bicycle. The riders were bombing along whilst seated, weaving through other cyclists. It looked so motorised. Horrible whine coming from the motor too. Not exactly ‘back to nature’.

If it annoys me as a cyclist then god knows the hatred we’ll all inevitably get from the walkers.

You could always licence them to those who could prove they had a vaiid reason for needing them.

Is that really the kind of power they can produce? I presumed you’d get about 300w overall from an unfit rider which is what a decent xc rider can produce on their own for sustained periods.

If sprinted up a hill at 600w I’d expect a lot of wheelspin and scrabble. The thought of an increasing number of people regularly doing this on heavy bikes and chunky tires is pretty alarming.

I’d ban them from off road personally. Fantastic vehicle for road journeys sure but our woodlands are in a precarious state as it is without adding to the erosion. Don’t forget all that mass coming back down the hill will tear up the descents too, especially if the rider likes to skid.

6-700 watts is an enormous amount of power. Holding 185w as a rider is really easy. Barely raising my heart rate for me. 6-700 watts is a flat out sprint/max effort for 30 seconds. A bike tire will tear the hell out of a climb if that kind of power is being applied regularly.

For reference, I’ve trained and raced for almost a decade now. I was fastest when working with a coach, power meter and doing five hard interval sessions a week. However we’re talking a few percent faster for a massive investment of energy.

This year I’ve just ridden with no agenda. Still doing OK at the races.

I’m starting to tire of every ‘guru’ churning out the same information which is then repeated by everyone else. If you analyse a genera ride it contains all the training you’re looking for. (But doesn’t sell books/coaching/YouTube channels etc)

If you’re riding MTB in the ‘grey zone’ or road somewhere hilly, then all your rides will contain intervals of varying duration and intensity and recovery periods.

Riding your bike lots will make you fit. Volume is king. Ride fast sometimes for the fun of it and slower when you’re tired.

I’m too tired to post properly right now, but if your thing is climbing all day and hooning down the wavy fast lines scored into fireroads at a speed that makes the needle flicker into the ‘this isn’t wise’ red zone then bemc is for you. Had such a great time and pushed myself harder than I’ve ever done before. Some sublime single track too especially on the second day.

I do hope you continue to post up your true feelings on here. As racers we all spend so much time thinking about our performance that threads like these are so INTERESTING to read. I love talking about training but we run out of topics of conversation if everyone just posts up about good days.

I’m racing and living with Kryton over the bemc along with another team mate. We are very much of the mindset that this is a holiday to be enjoyed with the bonus of getting to ride our bikes every day. None of us are going to trouble the leaderboard so having a good time has got to be the priority. I’m hoping to ride at a pace where the world does not disappear into a sea of pain, but instead ride fast but be able to look at the scenery from time to time. Looking forward to kicking back after a days racing with a beer if I feel like it or simply just lots of good food and some dvd’s. Five days away from home and work, staying in a house with two mates. Sounds like a good time to me! Don’t want to let petty worries like race results spoil things.

It should also be noted that your race had the fastest winning time of the lot including sport and elite/expert!

xc gaining popularity, a sunny, dry day, and a nationals course? That would certainly help account for finishing position.

So then looking at your times, like you said, you just fell off the cliff after lap 1. Either you simply went too hard on this lap and blew up, but it doesn’t sound like you did from your description, or those caffeine shots are indeed messing your system up. What was your average heart rate for the race, and your max and min?

It must be highly likely that at least ten extra fast people turned up to practice the course prior to the nationals in a few weeks time. That would account for a lot.

I definitely think it’s a good time to change the focus if you’re not enjoying yourself. Personally I’d be thinking of long, steady days in the saddle, road touring the coast of Scotland with a friend. Now that’d be a goal to look forward to.

I do think most of the bases can be covered with a good MTB ride. There are always sections which require maximum efforts of different durations to get up/through.

When I was training to power I found 30s-3min intervals done at max effort were my most effective weapon.

Kryton. My Sram 11-42 is definitely lasting well on my 1x bike. Keep on top of chain replacement though as they wear as fast as any other and a stretched chain will kill your cassette. I did a chain in about 100hrs of hard riding.

Kryton. How much will your new cassette, chain, and jockey wheels cost you if we have a muddy stage race next week. ;)

And when you go through 3 drive trains a year then cheap is definitely good!

28-10 isn’t enough for an xc sprint or anything like enough for a fast road ride.

32-42 isn’t easy enough when deep into a mtb marathon up really steep hills.

It misses by only a gear or two but those are vital gears. However I still use it for racing because when tired I like the sequential shifting so I choose a chainring and accept the limitations. When training over a whole year I like to prioritise certain efforts and if you’re faced with a big hill but don’t want to go out of zone 2 then you need easier gears and if you want to ride a road chain gang on your mtb then you need harder ones. 2 by kinda works well for this.

Probably, but then they’d call it something fancy and charge £££ for it.

(Yes I know you could do it yourself, I’m just being silly)

Sequential gearing is nice, I use it for racing MTB and CX, but for training it can be limiting, expensive and dare I say it a tad noisy when it gets gritty on those big cassette gears.

I was very much a 1 by evangelist, still am a lot of the time. Hell I was running 1×9 five years ago for xc racing. However I ride so much now, in so many different situations, trying to use one bike for as much as possible, that I’ve got fed up with the cost and limitations of 1 by systems (along with all the stupid variations in standards making nothing cross compatible).

Going back a few years in tech solves many a problem.

It’s not a biggy, no need for folk to get upset, it’s just an observation.

And as for paying £80+ for a cassette and £30 for a chain, that’s just depressing. Pity the guys on 12sp though. How much for a cassette!

God I’d forgotten how bitchy some of you guys are. It’s not essential to be rude you know.

The gear range thing comes from the fact that I’m doing a long race soon and deliberating whether to run a 28 or 32 tooth chainring on my 1×11 bike. No such dilemmas with the two by.

I’ve had enough of this site. I’ve spent years perusing it but now it’s just aggravating. mtbr forum is pretty good for a browse so I now head over there if I want to kill ten mins.

Advertising only works if there are people left to see it. Make your site unpleasant to use and people will rapidly disappear.

I’ll check back here from time to time in the hope that it’s no longer a jumpy mess. I remember when it was just a list of topics and you clicked on one and read some stuff. Used to love that.

As stated, it’s a completely separate loop. Takes about 6mins/lap and is wonderfully involving as it twists and turns through the trees. it’s a surprisingly good racetrack and great for treating as a fun race.

I did the Exposure big night out on the Sat night. I thought I knew slippery from cyclocross but this was on another level. Imagine the wettest, muddiest cx race you’ve ever done then make it last 2 hours, after a 300m climb, in the dark, with streams to cross, random rocks, and long descents that were just point and hope. It was absolutely marvellous!

Followed this with the full marathon on Sunday in thankfully drier conditions (although the second half was pretty slippery). Managed 3hrs 10 by my garmin. Highlight was getting caught by a young lass towards the end. After watching her descend through the woods at blistering pace (accompanied by the politest collection of excuse me’s and thank you’s from her), I put two and two together and realised I was watching Harriet Harnden (World cx Cup u23 superstar). I put in an effort to catch her up then rode with her for a while so I could chat. What a delightful end to a classic weekend.

Massive thank you to the guys from Builth. The amount of effort these guys put into making the event feel special is staggering. The whole weekend is like being at a mini festival and the racing is superbly run with lead vehicles, quad/motorbike mountain support, police holding traffic on the roundabouts as you leave the venue in a huge peloton. I could go on and on, it’s a great way to spend a couple of days.

Something else:

It’s my conclusion that training models based on what the pros do are not suitable for amateurs. The pros can put in big training rides during the week then rest a day or two before the weekend race. For the vast majority of us we get over half our training in at the weekend as that is when we have the time to do it. Loosing this weekend volume in order to rest for a race can make progress near impossible. Therefore prioritising certain races and training through others is a necessary evil and you just got to put your ego away some of the time. Get one good result at a key race and you can dine off that for ever. No one remembers the other, less impressive performances.

I’ve got a few observations from my year so far:

After 3 years of coach led training I’ve gone solo this year and have gone old school by just riding my bike lots, resting when tired and then planning the next bunch of rides to try include something a little more epic each time (more elevation, greater distance, exploring new areas etc). I’m using the old race for full on intensity and I often attend a Crit training session too for some max efforts. Other than that the intensity comes from racing my mates up the odd hill but largely the majority of riding is done at a conversational pace. I keep track of my ctl etc and so far this season I’m feeling pretty fit.

The other main thing of interest is that I’ve done significant rides the day before races. 4-5hr z2 rides before a race, including the National at Sherwood may not seem optimal but I didn’t want that drop in ctl as discussed earlier. Turned out my races went just fine and I was happy with my performance, so I got a solid weekend in and had a fun time at the races. Goals this year are simple: be my best at a three day stage race in May then be really strong for the nat champs in July.

As a final note I’d like to add that I’ve been training with Kryton for over a year now. He’s made significant progress in that time both physically but more importantly in how he paces his efforts. He’s learning from his coached interval sessions how the body works and how energy is limited and must be used optimally. When he says he’s ‘sliding down the results table’, what he should say is that he did the first race with a stomach upset and missed the second round. Therefore absolutely no conclusions can be drawn yet.

thank you

I want to race Dalby but can’t really face a 4-5hr drive each way.

Will be at Builth marathon though.

Fact is everyone wants to move up but there simply isn’t always space to do this. I almost went for a move between someone and the barriers as there was a gap, but my Spidey Sense said no so I held back and sure enough the gap slammed shut just as my bars would have been vulnerable. Even when you go for a risky pass you usually only gain one place. I feel it’s better to save a bit of energy for when the race opens out.

First race of the season everyone goes a bit mental don’t they? Maybe a comms briefing beforehand about holding a reasonably straight line and not being an idiot would help, Probably not though.

I must say I was impressed by the decorum when we ground to a halt at the first bottleneck. No-one behaved badly and there was no grumbling. We even cracked a couple of jokes about how dynamic our race had become. Lost 6 mins on that first lap but that’s what happens when you’re gridded at the back (and get briefly held up by a start straight crash). Got to work hard, get the results and move up towards the front rows where there is less chaos.

Thanks.

26th Vet from grid position 67.

Loved it!

Where do I find the results for Sherwood?

How’s that cold Ernie? Definitely not going to make it?

What about the page jumping all over the place? It’s become so frustrating on my phone. I hate sites like this.

Ernie and rsvktm. We can form a Top Fuel attack squadron on the back row as that’s what I ride as well.

Penultimate row is in for a surprise.

I’m going to have some fun! Gridded right at the back of vets since I’ve not raced xc for years yet there’s a guy I comfortably beat the other week gridded top 10.

Looking forward to the challenge.

I use Rockshox Secktors on my muddy conditions training bike. They’ve done thousands of miles on horrendous slop with just a squirt of silicone on the stantions from time to time.

Kryton. You realise in three weeks time we’ll be CAMPING at Builth Wells.

Learn to spot the difference between dead branches and live ones.

I don’t really understand phone and computer stuff. I’m using a pretty basic android phone but it works reasonably well. Trying to use this forum I find the page jumps about so I wait a couple of seconds for it to settle down but just as I go to select my thread the page jumps again and I get something random.

I presume it’s something to do with the ads?

Is this how things are going to be from now on or is this one of the unresolved issues that will be sorted in time?

Well I did write you a long answer to this question but this stupid site crashed and lost my text so you’ll have to settle with. No, it’ll make no difference.

Paul Oldham turned to me towards the end and said “fookin hell, have you seen what speed we’re doing? I don’t do that on me road bike.”

I was too star struck to do anything more than politely agree.