Yea, flatfish is dead right … should be .net, sorry.

The Welsh Ride Thing involves … Depart noon saturday carrying everything you think you’ll need for 2 nights out.

Spend Sat, Sun and part of Mon (bank holiday) following a route that you devised over the past month. The route will (should) pass through grid references you were given a month prior.

Spend Sat and Sun night out in the hills, mountains and forests of mid Wales, minding the bears and wolves.

Return to base noon(ish) Mon full of stories of daring do and misadventure. Drink tea and eat cake.

The WRT is not a race as everyone’s routes could be different, it’s not an enduro, it’s not a Trail Quest or a Polaris … it’s most certainly just a, Thing 😉

I’ll be posting this years details pretty soon, so if you’re interested keep an eye out on the forum. Oh, all money raised goes to the Air Ambulance too.

If I couldn’t be certain of the weather, I’d take.

Bivvy bag, if you’re not planning on using it lots then I’d say Alpkit Hunka … £35 I recall.

Sleeping bag, I prefer down (but many don’t for bivvying). Anywhere between £30 and £300 depending what you want. Again, Alpkit would be worth a look if you like the idea of down.

Tarp, in my opinion a tarp is well worth taking. Have a good play with it at home first to get a good idea of how you can set it up in different situations. DD hammocks are about the cheapest for something not designed to cover a trailer.

Sleeping mat, so many different types. I always used a 3/4 self inflating mat but have now changed to an insulated air bed type (Pacific Ourdoors) and the tiny weight increase is well worth it.

Meths stove for brewing (or little gas stove if you like but it won’t be as light). Small pan (use it as a cup)

If I could say it wasn’t going to rain then I’d leave the tarp at home. I’d also say try and get as much weight off your back and onto the bike … it makes a big difference over a few days.

Have a look at http://www.bikepacking.org for some packing ideas.

I’ve got some cable Gusset Chutes on an Inbred … both pistons move (caliper slides giving same effect). Seem to work well enough, certainly no worse than the BB7s I have on another bike.

Sorry to correct you Buzz but you’ll find it was £75 not £70. Afterall the new west wing needs paying for and the Aston needed a service 😉

I’m feeling all confused now too. I’m a coach, I ride flats, sometimes I ride a singlespeed other times I don’t. Amongst my collection of bikes there are 26″ wheels, 29″ wheels and a bike with one of each. Am I a bad person or not? The OP has made me feel like a contradiction 😉

Stu … ygm

The name “Wild Cat” was discussed.

Very true Ray … oddly, the best rider in the world won’t always make the best coach / instructor.

As I think someone said earlier. Getting the basics sorted is like building a house with good foundations, it enables you to progress. These basics are often the areas which make the biggest difference to peoples everyday riding, they’re also the bits which are easily overlooked. Change a few little bits and the positive difference can be quite dramatic.

When you’re riding nothing exists on its own, riding a drop without the ability to control the bike afterwards (perhaps braking, cornering, etc may be required) may still result in a crash. If someone asks for a days instruction in riding drops, we don’t go marching up to the drops straight away. There’s a build up of skills and techniques (mental and physical) to get them there … if there wasn’t then every instructor could just hand out the MTFU speach and leave you to it 😉

Rik, no more pics sorry (I’ll try and sort some). It’s just a normal 3m x 3m tarp, in this case from DD hammocks. There’s no cutting only folding, I’ve used tarp clips to hold the folds and also attatch guys where needed. the pole sleeve is also held in place with a tarp clip.

Come midge season I’ve got a mesh inner tent from bearpawtents.com in the states which hangs in side the tarp and weighs next to nothing. I also had it made with 12″ high bathtub sides to help keep any draughts out 😉

Tarp clips came from http://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk The whole thing inc’ pegs, pole and guys comes in around 800g. Add the inner and it’s still sub kilo.

I had a pink 456 for a while, no one laughed … well not to my face anyway!

Yea, longer forks will make things a touch slacker.

Wirewool’s not bad.

Slot dropout Inbred nearly fits the bill, only the fork travel to consider … saying that, I’m sure there’s plenty out there running a 140mm fork (taking into account axle to crown height rather than travel).

Rack mounts – yes
27.2 seat post – yes
Accept Alfine – yes
Lightish – nearly
Size required – think so
26″ wheels – yes
Normal 1 1/8 headtube – yes
Disc mounts – yes
Forks – reckon you’d swing it 😉

wrightyson, it was you causing the 3 car traffic jams then was it 😉

It’s all in the set up Bigface … any tarp’ll do, tarp choice really comes down to cost v weight 😉

http://www.forestfreeride.co.uk

Around 2 hours from Derby.

Total cost of mine was under £200 and that included putting £50 behind the bar. Quite possibly the worst £200 I ever spent as getting rid cost me well over 100K 😀

Longest lasting ISIS BB I’ve had was/is Superstar. Only ever managed 6 months from a Crank Bros one.

Cheers for putting the tarp pics up flatfish.

If anyone’s interested it’s a 3m x 3m set up with a single pole. The idea being that you’re covered on 3 sides, with a ‘built in’ ground sheet and a decent sized ‘porch’ for cooking and you can sit up. You can’t really tell from the pic but the are forward of the pole under the beak is quite a size, so enough room to store gear too. The front guy can be dropped to lower the beak for really bad weather too, so you’re almost enclosed.

The key is finding a way of attaching a pole to the tarp. The pole needs to sit inboard of the tarp, not at it’s edge, otherwise you don’t get the beak and steep sided back. I ended up making a 3″ pole sleeve from nylon webbing (not much fun to sew) which is attached to the tarp using ‘tarp clips’. The pole weighs 110g and folds to 30cm so it’s easy enough to find it a home on the bike.

Right I’ll take my anorak off now then 😉

Bigface I’d love to show you, I’ll send flatfish a picture and see if he’ll put it up for me – fingers crossed.

We’ve been running bikepacking / bivvy trips for the last three years. Details of 2011 trips are now on-line, if anyone’s interested have a look at http://www.forestfreeride.co.uk

Also, for those who don’t know, the Welsh Ride Thing will be on again. The date, as usual will be May 28th/29th/30th. If you fancy it then keep your eyes open here. If you’ve attended in the past you should get an email at some point … if niether of those seems to happen then just email me. The WRT does have a blog so you could keep checking that too http://welshridething.blogspot.com/ 😉

Cheers,
Stuart

You’re having dinner … you don’t know how lucky you are!

Has that stove only got 2 jets? 😉

If I had a picture account thing then I’d show you a pic of my new tarp set up … very nice it is too.

Hope you had a good time.

Norm no mates here, shall be riding to Rosslare, onto ferry then across Ireland. I recall me and bike about £60 return … I’m almost excited*

* Believe me, this is not usual.

Yep, some people should really have their spanners taken away!

I shall echo what Blachound says … Gil for decals and 32:16 if you’re not blessed with hills*

*Sometimes I become soft and run 32:17 or even 32:18 but in my defence we do have mountains.

I’ve driven out to meet the post man this morning (he’s not allowed on any side roads), came back with the post for all the local farms.

A pair of tyres that were posted yesterday (big up to nextdaytyres.com) arrived as did some stuff from the US but alas no ST or other stuff that was sent out before the latest snow. Obviously anything posted in that 3 day window between the snow is now sat at the bottom of a large pile. 😉

I’m going to say a Wingnut Hyper 2.5, they’d neen reduced to £50 on the Spoke shirts web site last week. If you don’t fancy that then I’d get a 20l Gourdon from Alpkit, fully waterproof, light and very comfy … also cheap.

Hang on, I’ll get my crystal ball out 😉

davidtaylforth … will you be stopping on the way to do a few cuts, perms and blow drys? 😉

3/32 is “normal” sized chain, ie, 8/9sd. 1/8 is BMX, SS, Track sized chain … the choice is yours. Decide on which chain then get the correct ring or buy a ring, then get a chain to suit. A lot of SS stuff these days is 3/32, most cassette cogs will be 3/32 if they don’t say otherwise.

All this talk of 36 and 38T is just wrong 😉 Buy a 32T ring and a few rear cogs (15, 16, 17T). Rears are obviously much cheaper than fronts.

Tiger if you’d like some proper snow get yourself back up here, it’s up to my knees at the moment … yes, I know some might say it can’t be very deep then in that case 😉

I’d of thought you’d be ok on the A6. GF has driven to Stockport from mid Wales this morning … we’ve got 14″ of snow down, so it’s 4×4 or nowt. Also spoke to my mum who’s near Whaley Bridge and she says they’ve an inch or so but it’s not bad.

We’ve had 10″ so far and it’s still a white out 😯

Mended your pannier yet Valleydaddy? 😉

We’re now snowed in … again. I shall look forward to having Christmas presents sometime in Feb and my copy of ST 😉

Odd, over here in mid Wales that’s the kind of stuff all the shops sell … chainsaw files next to bread seems normal these days 😉

It’s the wheels, please lose the wheels.

For those folk who do like looking at maps and riding without signage, a cafe and showers then perhaps consider trying the, Welsh Ride Thing next May. Think of it it, part Polaris, part trail quest, some just riding and a dash of Ray Mears to season.

In fact, there’s so many aspects to it that everybody must dislike atleast one … so I’m now left wondering why people want to do it 😉

uluru … very latest mag has the calendar.

That’s it then, Trimix has his … I demand satisfaction 😉

Saw the xxc article and I’ve had a bit of a chat with Jason from xxc mag about it … trouble is,*Americans often seem to have a slightly different angle on things to us, with plenty of racing for the lord type of stuff going on … Ride the Divide is a good example of the differences between us and them.

* Any Americans please don’t be offended.

I saw that wwaswas but it says mags by Wednesday at the latest.