Just want to make my excuses now: I've been out for 7 days thus far with a cold. Hope to ride on Sunday.
I'm going to be trialing changing bikes ever lap and sort out my feeding / hydration with some new powders & some different food. New tyres too.

Hope to make 5 laps but signed in for the 7 lap race as it means I can start early.

See you all down there.

… and I just thought I was a little chubby – now I know it's water retention & not fat 😉

Tip: Use CO2 cartrides to seat difficult tyres.

Spoke with their agent in the UK today.
They, along with RRalfs etc work just fine with the Stans system.

Tip: Use CO2 cartrides to seat difficult tyres.

I've got a 24hr event coming up so I'll give the Torq powder a go and see what it might do, if anything. I'll report back any findings.

HERE

Did I read somewhere that you must combine it with Vit C for it to be effective? Might have been the Torq web site.

But I want my money!
(goes & sulks in the corner)

I've done a Google search for the Spanked Rat you mention & came up with some most strange images.
No hills were hurt in the making of any of their videos I'm reliably informed. 😉

I came very close to knocking down a child yesterday outside a parade of shops in Bushey High Street.
Quite put the wind up me.
As I screeched to a halt (30mph zone), the kid shat himself I think and scurried back across to the pavement, you should have seen his petrified face!

The lady in the car on his side of the road looked at me in an apologetic manner & then told me it was her fault.

I can only assume she'd stopped to let the kids across the road (15m up from a pedestrian crossing!) & had neglected to remember it was a normal 2 lane highway.
To$$ER!

That's why mountain biking must be safer than road riding!

Be kind to me or you will not share in my windfall!

(do not tell anyone or the Spanish / Nigerian authorities might rumble our little plan. Can of Soda in today's post. Please loan me $18,000,000 whist the money clears.)

2hrs is what we did it in.
Very leisurely as he's unfit!

It's far more scenic out there than the Ftd. Worth taking a moment at that bench near the end of the Monkey Trail.

What plans have the FC put forward?

Normally the FC do seem to have everything in good order, so I was wondering what's in the pipeline as I assume the business plan projected many thousands of riders using the trail?

(Has Scruff climbed down off his high horse yet?)

Yes, but training way off schedule.
Off this week with a horrendous sore throat (again) which is usually a precursor to a dreadful cold / man-flu.
That's about 5-6 weeks off the bike in 2010 – not clever.

I'm happy to try for as many laps as I can even if I'll be the slowest of the riders booked in to ride. Not that worried TBH, but would like to put in as many hours as I physically can manage as I'm a 24 solo virgin (at 45yrs).

I'm hoping to ride the Gorrick's 70 miler on Sunday as an indicator of how I am doing.

I don't know what it is about Cannock Chase, but of all the trail centres I've ridden, it's the one location where I come across riders with a profusion of Halford sourced bikes but more importantly in a wooded trail, without lids.

Which in turn leads me to believe that those who are familiar with the FtD route will naturally graduate to the Monkey Trail. It's these guys and girls that I have concerns for (such as 2x crossing the road!) more than the atypical STW rider who is most likely a more switched on, alert & experienced rider.

The Monkey Trail is a completely different proposition to FtD and that's part of the unease I feel as the transition is almost too great. There's talk (above) of riders queueing, of riders walking bikes down the trail – not ideal – so a weekday does seem the best time to ride the Chase trails.

I clean my rotors with lighter fluid (from the corner shop) & paper towels. It might work just as well and be less £?

121km coming up v.soon at the West Drayton Off road sportive.

FOB can really have a bit of fun, thruth be known.
You can formally welcome the groom into your family and talk about some times you've had together.

And have a dig at the bride along the way, in a jovial way (cooking, credit card bills, driving skills, clothes, horses, junior school, school plays, sports days, TV) you know her better than us!
You could have some Visa Bills to hand on to the groom as she's now his responsibility.

It was always to look good with M'cycle tyres! Looks before function.

On the XC routes it made no difference that I could detect, but something was not quite right on my 4hr road rides. Swapping it around and hey-presto it's good news again.

It's made no difference to the front.

You presume to know what bike I was riding.
An incorrect presumption.

If there are short cuts / escape route, then two of us missed them. If they exist, then I stand corrected, although we both missed them on our ride.

The points are still valid, the only thing that's changed is that 1/2 way along the thread you'll see that the comments have become ever more personal in nature, it’s only to be expected from some members, especially if you don’t agree with some of what’s been said or done.

I posted the original comments as I felt that some of these issues were being glossed over by other posts which centred on back-slapping and perhaps not addressing some of the concerns agreed with and expanded upon here earlier. As you say yourself, there are stumps and such like that can ruin a ride unnecessarily. There is no harm in exploring these in a public forum without the seemingly inevitable trend for personal assaults which serve no purpose.

Furthermore, for a route that takes you out beyond the more populated areas, I saw no "Escape" signage, surely a given on such Red graded route?

I don't want a fatality or serious accident any more than you do, but it seems to me there are some glaring omissions here that could be exploited in a court of law.
This would not be a good development either for Cannock Chase nor every other Forestry Commission mountain bike area, so I'd be keen to see these loop holes closed thus preventing a legal precedent being established.

Sad to say, but this has been the only red graded trail where I mistrusted the trail builders / designers & so I took it easier than normal; contrast that to somewhere like Penmachno where you get a real sense of the designer's intentions and so it flows, ever faster & so seemlessly.

The point I was making is that it seemed to me that the course designer seemed to have taken the best bits of other trails and transplanted them on the Brum hillside. The switch-backs leave a lot to be desired.

I hope it works out for you, but I wonder if anyone has taken the time to tell the Highways Agency that you're expecting thousands of riders across that busy main road. If not, may I suggest you take some legal advice as there seems to be a shortcoming in the business plan where "Duty of Care" is concerned, it seems to me.

If it's been three years in the making then there's no excuse for there not to be better signage both for the riders and the motorists & this is something that needs your urgent attention.

You only just found out?!
It's always been one of your duties.
This rather suggest you aren't fully up to speed with what's required of you at the wedding!

Your MC toasts the b&g, not you.
There is a limit to the cheesy / cute tails, so make them pithy & heart felt; not dripping in sentimental self-absorbed slush.

They have wrapped rubber strips arond the metal contact points.
CT guy is living in cloud cookoo land, 1000 a day!
That might be an average, but in the 2hrs I was there, I saw maybe 10 people; & that's part of its beauty.

I have Spec' cycling shoes.
Their insoles are more than good enough.
I have tried Superfeet instead this year and went back to Spec, although all my walking boots have Superfeet to great effect.

Can I suggest you check the collar on your seat post? Maybe move your saddle a little and see if that helped more? Perhaps your seat post has slipped ever so slightly?

Ensure that you feet are not forced inwards / outwards even by 5 degrees with clip-in pedals – take your cleats off, and then re-fit & it might make a difference, it did for me 3 weeks ago.

Have you thought about Ti and / or a 29er?
Best of both worlds especially on a HT.

Looking at 7 laps but if I am a little too steady, I'm sure they'll Black Flag me & send me home!

Need to try 2x bikes out on the same ride, not something I've done before and I need to get the whole feeding & riding thing underway, so it'll be more of a training ride than a full-on race for me.

See you down there.
(what's an average steady lap time likely to be?)

I had something similar once.
It stemmed from the clothes not drying very well – just the once.
Every time thereafter when they got wet, there'd be an odd smell.

Replace the kit.

You learn something every day! 😉

I have both Hope & XTR.
Last week I had to free up the pistons on both systems on 2x bikes as this very same thing was happening.

Take the wheel out & then the pads out, WD40 the whole caliper / piston area.
Work the brake lever forcing the pistons out (not so they drop out!) and clean. Push the pistons back in manually. Repeat.

Re-assemble and ensure the caliper(s) sit with the pads centrally making that the gaps are equal on each side of the rotor; I have added some thin washers to two calipers to make the gap more even.

Apologies if this sounds like a Hayes Manual!

On Friday there was a flimsy 2ft notice on the grass waring of bikes.
Rubbish really.
How about some road markings?
How about some countdown 100m, 200m signage away from the crossing?
How many thousands of visitors do they expect, 10, 20?

Another concern, as expressed above, is the FTD flip-flop wellie brigade, mostly clueless and oft' not wearing lids; it's going to hurt & intimidate many riders who think it's much of the same FTD trails, which it most certainly is not.

As much as I didlike the H&S executive (my uncle wrote many sections as a non-exec director) I do think some more signs would be in order.

"Peaches" Cuddling up to an "Orange" plus a man with an orange helmet & their parole officer?
Cute!

Replaced the CF Monkey Lite bars as you suggested as they were eBay used anyhow.

'06 Turner here.
Not really pure Race machines, too burly for that, but they eat up the miles & make XC routes easier than they have any right to be.
The Flux is one of those bikes that's fundamentally "right" & I've never read a bad word said against them – you will have years of great riding ahead of you with her.
Welcome to the club!

I got on with mine from the word Go.
Never tried a saddle with the middle cut out so no comparrison.

+1 for the slot drop-out On-One Ti29er.
So good, it got it's name from me!

Q: "How far"
A: "No idea, maybe 3hrs"
Q: "How far though"
A: "No idea, but 3hrs so far"
"Oh"

?

1775 – don't listen to the nasty men!
They'll go away soon.

Anyone any ideas about "quick" times BTW?

I'm riding there Friday (tomorrow) morning for 3hrs.

In my defence Hora, in 32 days time (?) that mileage and frequency will drop away – that’s assuming my legs still function at all & I haven’t been carried off by the man-eating Scottish midges!