The three times ( not at BPW) I’ve landed on my face then the bike has hit me on the back of my head, I’ve chuckled inside a full face helmet.
The 2 times I’ve hit face first in a normal lid, really hurt and pee’d me off.

Always wear a FF at BPW, simply because it’s an uplift so why not? When I pad up and put on a FF it means it’s a play day, not a training day. Whoopee!

Cheers for that Weeksy.
With all the racing going on at the moment it’s hard to know which to watch.
Cracking finish!

I’m going to make it my mission to beat every e- biker I see using pure fitness.
I like a challenge.

Love that interview mrblobby, cheers for posting it.

For me Sagan is everything I want from a racer; he is the polar opposite to the controlled, wheelsucking, watt obsessed ‘modern’ bike rider. I like his devil may care attitude both on and off the bike. From amateur cat4 all the way up to the pro peleton, if everyone stopped being so scared of loosing and just knocked 6 bells of sh*t out of each other from the off, we’d all have a lot more fun both participating and watching racing.

I could ride to the forest on the mtb. 8 miles on the road is half an hour, do the World Cup route (4 miles?) twice at full speed in an hour, then return. That’s two hours.
Realistic or cloud cuckoo land?

Oh do stop it scotroutes. How camp does that sound! :lol:

I just pressure wash everything including my shoes and clothes when I get back. :D

Good to hear from you again Rob. I rather enjoyed last years double double thread.

I can tell you that the climb used in the London League is just doable in 36:15 if you really smash it out of the saddle and love a hill.

oh my god that’s so terrible

Hoping to be riding on the South Downs as the sun comes up on Sunday. Could be stunning.

Jeez jekkl! Really?

I wipe it off with a gt85 soaked rag as soon as it comes out of the packet. Saves getting sticky hands.

Just got back home. Think it was about 5-6hrs out there, but gps screen was too filthy to see and I was too tired to care. First half was a winter wonderland, with some sections of sheet ice to enjoy slipping around on. Surprisingly no crashes despite lots of wandering tyres.
Lovely pie, cake and two cups of coffee in Peaslake then on the way home got in a race with a decent xc racer on summer lightning (sadly he whooped my ass), but it felt great to finish off with a proper ragging it session.
Very muddy and rainy by the end, but a top day out. Never have a bad ride on those hillls.

Ah ha! The bar is raised by the humble map!

Over new year I was scrutinizing routes on such maps in a rented stone cottage, with a log burner on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. Beer featured too. Bliss!

I’ve got coil Sektors for my Blue Pig after my Fox Talas failed for the 3rd time. I bought them because they were cheap and reliable.
They are ok, and do the job reasonably well, but they are a far cry from top of the range forks. However I like them because they work, are good enough and are dead easy to service.

I think the Surrey hills beckon. Cheers lads.

I’ve had that once before; was great until around 11am…

Looks like fun weekend. Singlespeed ‘cross is just about my favourite thing.

I feel exactly the opposite. Riding flats is completely unerving, and I can’t comprehend why you wouldn’t want your feet firmly attached to the peddles. Do a season of cross and you’d be able to clip out and dab in a nano-second.
For the record I use spd’s on my road bike too and have never had anyone commment about it even in road races and crits.

lol bikebouy!

Or just use Duct tape eh? :wink:

Aluminium doesn’t bond well to epoxy which is why it’s failed like that. If I was doing it myself I’d create some mechanical keys to the surface of the dropout insert then use an epoxy thickened with micro-fibres (not Araldite!). I’d also wrap a carbon fibre ‘bandage’ around the join for added peace of mind.
I used to build/mend windsurf boards so know a bit about this

My advice would be to send it to the repair place as it’d cost more to assemble all the different materials yourself.

Beck’s blue is ok

I raced my second ever National Trophy yesterday at Shrewsbury. I was pretty nervous, not helped by crashing twice during my sighting laps.
Race itself was proper muddy so, not having a pit crew, I rode my trusty singlespeed. Bagged 25th in vet 40, despite a few more crashes and a backwards and forwards battle with a bunch as each of us took it in turns to slide off the course. :D

Don’t suppose anyone knows where I can see photos from the event? There’s one of me on the BC website and I know Huw Williams was there, but there were a few snappers on the course.

36:15

I usually do slightly better on my sscx.
6th at Sunday’s regional champs. 2nd,and two 4ths at league events.

I think all under 16 racing should be one-design. I think you should pay your tenner, pull a bike off the rack (supplied by British Cycling) and go race. Fastest kid wins.

Kryton you are mental. Wellcome to the madhouse!
Sounds like you are squeezing the most out of life, exhausting though it may be.

The rest of my team subscribes to the 4 months of base concept. Maybe they’re right? Personally I like to run myself ragged which gives me speed but carries risks.

If you’re not going to race the cx bike then perhaps get rid of it. Your defy will fit road duties.

Otherwise I think speed trumps miles. I get duration through chronic exposure to riding. How can training five days a week for 6 years not lead to adaptation to cycling?

Giant tcx. Nice bike!
Rodger in London x league Vets uses the same bike to win or nearly win every race. (He races a full program of summer xc too).
Steve races spring/summer on the road/TT. He’s consistently the fastest in the SE (Apart from Andy Taylor; I think he’s a Cyborg, don’t know what he does).
There’s a theme here.

If your time is that limited then fair enough. But can’t you get in a long ride weekdays? I head out on a Tues at 7-7.30pm, ride until 10-10.30pm, then eat some dinner and hit the sack. Race training 7-8.30pm on a Wed and turbo approx 9-10.15 on a Thurs.

Hey Kryton. :wink:

My year currently looks like this:

Race cx until end Jan.
Race mtb until end Sept.
and repeat…

There’ll be some well considered mental breaks during this but racing regularly keeps you fast. (It really does. I’ve studied Friel for years but now I have a proper coach and you don’t have to stop for 5 months a year, believe me!)

You’ve bought a cx bike, is it an actual cx race bike? If so race the thing until it bleeds!
Fit in base miles on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, then hone your top end every Sunday.

Went to Swinley today on my new mtb (binned my plans of racing National Trophy cx as I’ve been ill) and rode for 3 hrs. Unsurprisingly all that top end fitness translated well into going pretty fast for 3 hrs.

Fitness is fitness, bikes are bikes. Cross bikes are ace, especially if you rag the hell out of them and yourself in cross races every Sunday for 5 months.

Racing is all about a complete package. Cross racing is unique in making you focus on your whole body. I’ve done two sessions on a Swiss ball this weekend to help my core strength for next Saturdays regional champs. Cross has made me look at my overall ability in a hard light.

So my advice is; (after that long digression), keep the new bike but only if you’ll ride the thing in anger. There are about 7 races left on the calendar for each region. trust me, it’ll make you faster.

London X-League at Ardingly today.

Nice mud for the Juniors and Vets – still wet enough to be slippery but not too sticky. I hear the seniors had it a bit more claggy. Oh well, serves them right for being younger than me.

Thought I had 3rd sown up when halfway through the last lap a rider appears from nowhere and whooshes past. I hadn’t spotted him as he’s not one of the regulars so I’d assumed he was a back marker. What a bugger!
:D

Finally got some muddy off-camber at East Kent CX. Was such a joy to need skill as well as power, although when it comes to getting up slippery off-camber banks, more power is usually the skill you need. :D

It surprises me a little to read a lot of the opinions on this subject.

When I did my first xc race, I was in awe of the speed of the top guys, and from that moment on dreamed of being as fast as them. 6 years on, after an absolute shitload of regular training, I’m able to fight against my heroes for ‘Sunday Glory’.
So now I’ve moved the bar up and am looking at National races and dreaming…

Isn’t it the point to start at the bottom and dream of working up through the ranks? On the way there will be plenty of mini-battles with other riders. A good finish position just means you were among the best there that day, it doesn’t count for anything really. But a shoulder to shoulder last lap, whether it’s for 1st or 50th, is a memorable and thrilling thing.

MrOvershoot.
Puts all our bitching about broken toys into perspective.

Please don’t neglect to look after yourself. You have a lot to deal with as well as your wife, so do seek help from friends and professionals. Sometimes just having someone to listen to YOUR problems can make such a difference.

Thoughts are with you fella, and anyone else on here in a similar position.

Got to give it to Kryton. His threads are always good value. :D

Had a quick peruse of other entrants. I reckon you’ll do ok.

Do three sighting laps: 1st really slow, 2nd testing lines a bit faster, 3rd near race pace.

Allow 40 mins from you start time for this.

Don’t enter novice, it’ll be embarrassing as you’ll probably drop everyone within minutes. You are an experienced racer after all.

I see Johnathan Dennis is riding in Seniors. Just stick on his wheel; you’ll be alreet. :lol:

I say do it. It’s a ridiculously thrilling and challenging type of racing. We all meet up at different venues every Sunday, catch up on the chat, race our socks off, babble like maniacs after, then go home to train like mad for the next one.

Personally I’m faster now I’ve stopped following the long winded Friel type plans and train hard and race all year round, albeit with 2-3 blocks of rest annually, to mentally recover.

In reality, who actually peaks for 2 key races/year? Not good enough for that, so prefer to have fun trying to smash my mates up as regularly as possible.

Oh, and just enter your age group category (Seniors, I presume?). There’s such a broad rage of abilities, you’ll be just fine. If you can race xc, which you can, then nothing will bother you on a cx course.

Shwalbe do a tough gravel tyre, the Landcruiser. I rode 100miles without any cuts or punctures at about 35psi