good fun int it?

it flows really nicely i reckon – should be good for those xc races going on there in the spring

They’re “ok” (but not amazingly yummy) with a cup of tea, i can’t eat them while racing…at all.

the shot bloks are pretty good for energy riding nosh

as long as you’re wearing something, that’s the main thing…

lycra on the road
lycra off road if i’m going a long way cos baggies seem to ‘get in the way’ and are more likely to rub me up all wrong
baggies if i’m trying to be gnarly or expect to crash…for a bit of tear resistance

And also the name of the person that sprayed “Tim + Sharon” on the bowling green wall in Ashton Park, Preston.

it, err, wasn’t “Tim” by any chance was it 😉

twinklydave – that first KFC, it wasn’t the one near Samlesbury was it?

i think it was the one in the city centre, which is still going today

Preston also had the first UK motorway, didn’t it?

well, if we’re being accurate, the first uk motorway bypassed Preston…read into that what you will 😆

Preston is all the better for me being in it

it also had the first UK KFC outlet and has achieved little since

if the car has an immobiliser and the battery is so utterly flat that you can’t get anything at all to work (no internal lights, or radio etc) there might not be enough power for the computer to ‘read’ the chip in the key – so the engine wouldn’t start even if you did try to bump it

**i think**

i await being told that this ins’t the case!

“South Downs Way Double, with only three stops for ice cream”, is not exactly the most hotly contested achievement on a bicycle, but then nor is it so negligible as to deserve contempt.

well said
it shows some dedication and fitness, but it’s hardly “fantastical” and you certainly don’t need to be a ‘character’ to do it (note: this is not to say that he isn’t a nice bloke, he might be lovely, i don’t know as i’ve never met him!)

in fact the closest rider i’ve seen to that description was the one legged bloke (brett something-or-other?) who races the Transalp/Transrockies and rides the technical sections really, really bloody well. I watched him clear one rooty, rocky descent back in 2005 – a descent that caught out the vast majority of the other racers – and thought “wow, that was fantastic” 🙂
top bloke to talk to as well, really down to earth and funny

would let me have components for free if i helped build bikes during busy periods
didn’t mind me and mates hanging out all saturday
taught me how to build wheels if i made the tea and bought the chips for everyone
let me jump out of the 2nd floor window onto a huge pile of bike boxes 🙂 (pretty sure i broke a rib or two doing that, but it was still awesome)

sadly all that was years ago, i moved and now the most local bike shop is ribble cycles…so i have no local!

’tis pants

rather be watching that than “she’s the man” though – currently on our tv 🙁

if i had wireless i’d be somewhere else…

to just ‘do’ at 24hr race you have to take it fairly easy – measure out your power, chill when you feel like it and such things. Do lots of base miles (around 60% max HR) to prepare yourself and try to relax
To do well at 24hr races you have to seriously want to be on your bike all the time. All the time. I’m not saying ride you bike silly amounts as you’ll have to train properly (rest being uber important and all that), but you’ll have to want to.

Mix up big long rides that should make your saddle seem like a more natural place to be than anywhere else in the world with some shorter, more power based rides – few UK races have climbs that take longer that 5 – 10 minutes, so get used to lots of reps of that sort of thing.
Get used to riding at night with the stuff you’ll be racing on, get used to riding tired, if the past few summers have been anything to go by get used to riding in the mud too!

You say you’ve got good mental strength, good, cos you’ll need it when you hit the doldrums in the middle of the night. Lots of ‘fairly fit’ people do well at the odd 24hr race simply because they don’t hit the mental wall as hard during those hours where your body is playing every trick it knows to get you to stop and go to sleep. You might get away with feeling OK throughout, you might hit that mental wall, make sure you’ve trained enough to believe in that, rather than what your head is telling you.

Eat and drink stuff. I always fall down with nutrution as there isn’t much I can eat when I’m done in and am still searching for that magic foodstuff that fuels me and doesn’t leave me gagging. It’s worth spending lots of time reaserching what you can keep down and finding out what you crave when knackered and making sure you’ve got lots of it come race day.

If you have support at the race, make sure they’ll be ruthless with you to stop you from wussing out too. If you’re doing it completely on your own, always keep an eye on the time between eating/drinking as it can build up without you noticing and make a note of how long you’re off the course for whenever you have to stop – it adds up scarily quickly!

awesome to see live, Hapalospongidion’s shows leave little to the imagination and much to think about

Oh what a lovely pie – Cosmic Psychos

…but Jo Whiley rates these guys very highly.

lol

rather sadly, i’m beginning to wonder just what th music would actually be like…

If it wasn’t on the same weekend as clic24 down south I’d be well up for it 😥

having had both – 2 SS ceramic; 1st sent back for warantee replacement after it lasted 2 rides, 2nd lasted 3 (admittedly big, but still…) muddy rides and now a hope stainless, which is still nice and smooth after 4 rides, including the strathpuffer solo

i’d say hope

not a lot of difference weight wise and the ceramic ones never seemed to spin any easier

What the hell we’re you riding [:?:]

2.4″ racing ralphs @ 30psi on a rigid on-one scandal. Any off camber bits of rock and i just slithered down them.

However, if the others demand Whinlatter again I shan’t object

the pub at the bottom of the hill does a nice pint too; there’s almost a reason in itself 🙂

last descent was quite good, as you say a lot of it was already falling apart when a couple of us rode it back in the summer, which was a bit crap

oh and the lakeland slate that sticks out everywhere is amazingly slippy in the wet, i found myself facing the wrong way several times after hitting a patch and spinning round wildly!

if i hapened to be up keswick way again i’d probably do some natural stuff round skiddaw rather than have anther go at the trail TBH. It’s by no means awful, but there’s better natural stuff nearby

i used to write stuff for on-one, mostly about why i didn’t win races in a creative way 🙂
someone once said something positive about what i wrote, which was just about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me 🙂

i also spout boring crap in a poorly constructed way on my own blog, which is used more as a way of letting my family know i’m not dead…

brilliant event!
i did it back in 2005 and still have vivid memories of riding in the peloton at the start of each day to the sound of a chorus of farts and burps, as days of living on energy drink and gels began to catch up with everyone! (that’s not what made it brilliant, btw, just memorable)

the organisation is superb, the scenery is properly nice – good enough to almost make the pain of the 3hr long climbs bearable and there was some fantastic singletrack the year i did it (some people have complained about it being very fire-roady in other years)

i set off from part of the way along the pennine bridleway to ride (most of) it and the MTL in a day a year or so ago, sadly the lad who accompanied me did his knee in so we had to call it quits after about 70 miles

keep meaning to redo it, the bit we managed was quite nice

don’t think it would really compare to the GDR though!

richpips’ lakes idea was brilliant, it’s a shame it couldn’t take place properly

As you describe it, the latter….

😥
life’s never been the same since appearing in those rightguard deo commercials…

Not directed at you twinklydave, angry with Endura, I’m giving them a call today to discuss!

no probs, i agree with you too!

give the jacket a go out in the rain while you’re not riding – just walking or something. I found that my waterproofs would “let water through” while riding, but if was just out wandering about in even the heaviest downpours, they’d keep my dry for, literally, hours.

I’m guessing either the water gets ‘forced through’ while riding, or i’m just a reet sweaty bugger..

the dashboard of my car couldn’t be arsed this morning so i never made it
🙁

i gave getting there a go…and the dash popped back into life to tell me i was hitting 95…but it was too late (and i was still being overtaken by a merc?!)

bum

oh
my directions to get there were gash too, so never trust AA Routefinder!

hurry up with HTN2 guys – I’ll be setting off for it tomorrow morning to make sure i get there on time 😉

so then, oh course master

which will win, CX or MTB 🙂

Do I need to bring some replacement stickers Dave?

i was going to use gaffer tape and tippex, but that sounds far more professional 😉

oh i know it’ll be a mud bath…but which bike will be better in it?

cx bike with super skinny tyres = great in some slop but not on any nadgery bits

hardtail = slidey in mud but more controllable on anything techy

these are the issues of someone with more bikes than sense

i’ll be there

umming and erring about what bike to ride and what tyres to run 🙂

(and probably eating cake)

Who’s going to win?

I’ll have a fiver on Twinklydave.

bet you a fiver i don’t! 🙂

Mr Brant,

I’ve been patiently waiting for news on the beef jerky situation for longer than this lot and their sodding niche frames, please don’t tell me I’m gonna have to wait for CRC to hit the skids before I can get any!!!

oh the humanity!!

mrnutt: rumour has it (god aren’t rumours fun..) that he will be trialling some prototype dried meat products at HTN1.5 this weekend

saguaro’s or racing ralphs would be my recommendation

even in 2.4″ guise the RRs are damn fast, with decent grip and comfort too

i can get a 29er and a cross bike in the back of my berlingo without taking the wheels off, by wedging them in diagonally, there’s still acres of room either side of them for kit that way and i can leave one rear seat up should a feel like it

it gets a bit loud in there at (and over…) 70mph though

xt hub eh, is the hub body central on the axle – it’s easy to put it back together slightly over to one side on the threads on the axle after taking it apart and it only needs to be slightly off to allow the rotor to rub on the fork legs

(as you can probably guess, you can “bodge” a solution by moving the hub body across a bit to cure the problem, even if it isn’t off to one side to start with)

it might be the centrelock adaptor though – they can leave the rotor slightly further out from the hub and it only needs a couple of mm to foul the fork leg

any size you like, it can take it 🙂

yeah, i get horribly ansy if i’m not riding…not in a productive way though, i tent to just potter about getting grumpy

luckily i “force” myself to go out riding a fair bit, so i’m usually either riding or worn out 😀

pit bitch

no sleeping bag (when racing solo) – thereby making dropping out for a kip less appealing 😉

citroen berlingo multispace
“fugly as”
(awesome for bike and kit transporting though, hence me owning one…)