For some reason I’m not enjoying it as much as last year when I did the imperial version. 175km to go, might just nip out and finish it/get rid of it hanging over me on Monday.

Bring on some more climbing challenges 🙂

Yep, but just the metric version this year 🙂

Loved my first road race. Fully intended to do some more this year, but crashed and spent it sat around not able to ride instead 🙁
Next year though…

Enjoyed racing out on the roads more than doing crits, less aggro/ego but still just as competitive, plus the courses tend to be a bit more interesting 🙂

It doesn’t really matter about the weather as it’s usually too dark to see it 🙂

It’s generally wet. In fact it’s always wet, just sometimes it’s frozen at the same time! The main climb can freeze quite readily (making those who’ve forked out on studded tyres very smug), but the course is generally rideable whatever the weather’s doing (and if it isn’t, due to deep snow etc, the local heroes tend to sort it out)

Needs more slo-mo.

Slo-mo EVERYTHING, then we’re talking.

What I find depressing, despite the number of cyclists killed in the last few weeks she thinks the worse thing has done is send a tweet.

Turns out it was. 🙁

(Oh OK, not stopping to leave a piece of paper with your registration number and name of insurer on it was. closely followed by the tweet.)

@twinklydave – you had probably ridden a gazillion miles for that though

However far it was, it was worth it 🙂

The nicest butter pies I have ever eaten were from a deli in Congleton

That seems suspiciously far south for a good butter pie, but I may investigate…

I’m not opposed to it as a concept, but it seems that – as a rule – they have to be made from the cheapest, shittiest bread and grim, mechanically recovered “meat” pies so for that reason I’m ooot!

Go for a butter pie in a simple (freshly baked, by a baker not some supermarket dross) bun. Lovely.

(You’ll probably need a big mug of tea to help wash it down if you’re a beginner)

eat them? I should jolly well say so.

with gusto aplenty

pie barms For The Win 🙂

A reliable bike – noting flashy (except the lights, ha!), just reliable and comfy. A 4 mile walk because your unloved chain exploded is a PITA.

Lights, many thereof. Good to have 2nd front and rear ones in case the main ones give up the ghost.

Mudguards. They reduce the misery of splashing through puddles of god-knows-what slightly more bearable.

Waterproofs if it’s raining (or looks like it might). 5 miles might not be far in the grand scheme of things, but even if you’re only out in the pissing rain for 20mins it’s still nicer with a jacket/trousers that keep you dry, especially if you’re not going flat out, so aren’t going to get too sweaty. 🙂

I’m in, woo 🙂

No idea how I’ll hold up to getting back into training…or trying to ride for 24hrs, but hey, it’s always fun!

Please display your Strava profile, so that I can take all your KOMS.

Unless you’re chicken*.

*Or live very far away from me

The bloke was being ironic, surely? 😯

Strava can be fun/useful and all that, but really, being a dick is just being a dick irrespective of why you’re being one.

Oh, and a suitable response wold be something along the lines of “Why is that anyone’s issue but yours?” or just let them past when it’s convenient to you to do so – sooner they’re gone, the sooner you can get back to riding without someone being a dick behind you 🙂

Strathpuffer’s awesome, … It’s got the best scenery,

Are you an owl?! It’s dark for the whole bloody thing! 😆

It is a brilliant event though.

The Problem with most England based races is that, as you suggest, the course falls apart, which makes it all a bit rubbish (people claim Bonty 24/12 is good though, so maybe that’d be a good one?)

Chances are whichever race you choose will have a friendly atmosphere…and most of them take place in nice bits of the countryside, so don’t worry about that too much!

Probably just the paintwork if you can’t feel it in the lacquer – do the tap test[/url] thing and maybe have a feel inside the frame (if you get your fingers in there!) to set you mind at ease 🙂

[/url]
madone-teide[/url] by twinklydave[/url], on Flickr

Trek Madone 6.9ssl
Ultegra drivechain, Bontrager RXL/XXX finishing kit & wheels.

Love it because, well, first of all because it didn’t cost me anything – you know the ‘Rapha Rising’ thing on Strava, where the 1st prize was a bike, well that’s it, all those days spent riding up hills paid off! 🙂

One off paintjob means you don’t get it confused with anyone elses, outside any cafes and, although I must admit I wasn’t massively impressed with the difference between it and my PLanet X Superlight Team when I first got it, it’s earned a place in my heart by being utterly ace while riding in Tenerife.
Amazingly comfy all day long, brilliant handling on the descents and nice and light when you have to carry it up the stairs back at the hotel 🙂

Sadly I smashed it to pieces a couple of weeks ago, but hopefully it’ll be back up and running as soon as I am…

It’d probably be like a crit that lasted for 5hrs…with close to 200 people in it, none of whom even notice cat4 climbs, so no!

Set your phone to ring early on? I recommend this as your ringtone for best effect.

Many many routes of various lengths recorded on me Strava wotsit.

You’re never too far away from a decent cake/brew stop round there 🙂

(Or somewhere to burn off said cake grovelling up a hill)

Rain on your tent, when you’re all lovely and warm in your sleeping bag…and you don’t have to get up 🙂

(Same sounds is also the worst in the world when you wake up needing a pee)

Still, I’m dead old, Dave’s got no excuse.

I think you’ll find I’ve got a whole bucket load of excuses. Too many to list if I’m honest. 🙂

That was an awful lot of fun!

…no wait, I don’t mean “fun”, do I, I mean “suffering”. 😯

Loved it though, cheers to everyone involved, except the guy who organised the headwind – he can sod off. 🙂

Don’t both the Campag & Deore hubs use “proper” loose bearings, rather than cartridge? I imagine loose bearinged (new word!) hubs at the same price bracket would last longer, it’s certainly been the case with wheels I’ve owned.

2500 miles for the cheap bearings (they’re going to be cheap when the whole wheelset doesn’t cost much!) to last seems fair enough to me – and it really is a simple job to dismantle the hub and replace them. I replaced the ones in my old Model B wheelset (older version of the AL30) with some nice SKF ones and they lasted for aaaaages.

I’ve had the cassette chew into the freehub body of innumerable hubs before now – from the cheaper PX end of the spectrum right up to DT240s. It happens. You can, once you’ve got the cassette off, tidy up the burrs with a file and carry on for quite some time before worrying that it might be time to replace it.

(Not sure why they suggested a loose cassette, it can happen even if you’ve been all “Hulk” on the lockring…)

“Ha ha, yeah, very clever. I’ll just stick to carrying my minipump in my hand thanks.”

A lot of people seem to forget that you can’t have a singletrack-fest of a course, it becomes soul-destroyingly frustrating to be sitting behind a “less able rider” and prompts daft overtakes through the bracken,

The few sections of singletrack on the course had really well planned/executed overtaking space – off the ‘fast’ line, but ideal for keeping your progress up past slower riders. The singletrack itself just needed more corners, gradient (up or down, whatever!) and armouring to ensure it could hold up to heavier rain than it was subject to this year.
Oh and more of it too!

The venue is lovely. Had a wonderful view in the morning out of the caravan across the valley.
The event is always ‘big’ – Pat knows what he’s doing with these things, you’re in safe hands in that respect!

The course needs to be able to fit 1000s of riders on it at any one time, while fitting in the area allowed by the owners of the estate (hello Ma’am!), so miles of uber twisty, ribbon like singletrack isn’t going to happen (there are, however, plenty of races out there that DO have this, give them a go too!).
The course also needs to be suitable for a lot of…how can I put this…N00BS! People who don’t really ride much, and who’ll get intimidated by the “10ft drop to berm to fade to rock garden” you, me and a few other gnar-meisters long for, so that’s not going to happen either.

Sadly, for me anyway, it went too far the other way and seemed devoid of anything, well, fun! Up a fireroad, round a corner, back down a fireroad. Repeat.
A couple of sections of straight, featureless 3ft wide tracks in between the endless fireroad zigzags does not an exciting course make! Feel free to add a pithy “go faster then comment” if you like, but even compared to Eastnor it lacked excitement.

Oh, and the main thing: Eastnor became unrideable after heavy rain. Gatcombe wasn’t meant to, but it did. Thick, stodgy slop that rolled over your rims after the afternoon rain. Multch in the woods that blocked wheels for a while, then for the rest of the race it turned to plasticine (Eastnor veterans will know what I mean!). There may have been some rock under a few areas, but given that the weather wasn’t anywhere near as bad as last year, I honestly don’t think Gatcombe would do any better in a deluge equal to 2012.

Oh, and no course running through the campsite = atmosphere killer. (again, I understand why it wasn’t possible, but that doesn’t change anything!)

One thing that wasn’t missing was great racing. Top effort by everyone who took part – all the categories seemed to be full of battles right through the event, with some epic performances going on. Ace.

Ahh right, good.

I just couldn’t work it out from the pdf: http://www.wigglemountainmayhem.com/assets/wmm-2013-camping.pdf

Erm…it stretches out behind that picture as well, right?!
😕

It’s quite a big field, but big enough for a race course, race hq, solo tent, catering outlets, rows of shops and stalls, access roads AND thousands of people?

(I notice you mention “one of the” camping fields, so I’m guessing there’s more than that?)

They’ve been fine when I’ve used them recently(ish). I’m using the Disco Brakes ones ATM which seem OK, so are the ones from XCRacer (alligator?).

Fully intend to vomit at the top of every climb*

*Thru alcohol not effort

Rock on then, you’ll be reet 🙂

No.
You can get on the podium if you try hard enough 😉

(All this is based on previous MM courses, obviously, but I doubt the new one’ll be more technical than something like the Strathpuffer course, for example…and even that’s still raceable on a rigid)

At the semantic level, calling something a challenge is going to make people ‘challenge’ themselves. Usually by trying to complete the challenge quickly, as opposed to seeing who can stare off at the view for the longest…though I kind of like this idea!

I guess if it was called a ‘bimble’ or something similar you’d get a different type of entrant and a different atmosphere.

It’s unlikely the organisers gave it the wrong name by accident, so they were probably looking to take on some of the attributes that the word ‘challenge’ inspires.

Had a car sit behind me while grinding my way up a climb a week or so ago. No revving, trying to inch past (it’s a singletrack road with a bit of a drop to one side) or anything, which I thought was nice.

Ignoring the damage it would do to my Strava score 😉 I pulled in and slowed down at one of the passing places, only for the car to slow down behind me. Thinking that perhaps the driver didn’t like the look of where he’d have to overtake or something I carried on again with the car behind me.

I pulled over again at the next passing place but again the car just slowed down – keeping a safe distance all the time – and waited for me to carry on.

This started to wind me up a bit, so I pulled right over to let the car past and, as it did so, the passenger window wound down and the driver leant over to say something to me.

Obviously I was expecting some sort of barrage of abuse and was ready with my set piece arguements about why I had every right to be there/he was a crap driver/death to all etc, so was quite shocked when the suit wearing occupant politely announced that he was going to ride over this particular hill as part of a challenge in a few days time and was simply getting an idea of how tough it was and how long it would take on a bike.

😳

There’s nothing to stop any of them going back to ride the area(s) again at any speed they like, at any other time 😉

…or to stop them going up there lots of times before to get an idea of what it’s like 😀

These things work

but you do look…well, like you imagine you would with one on your forehead.

Got to watch a waterfall going backwards on Tuesday, which was ace…until I realised I had 70 miles to go, straight into the headwind 😕

That was not pleasant.

At last year’s 24hrs of Exposure I got a lovely cheery “Get out of the way, you d–k” from someone who I can only presume to have been one of the leaders

He didn’t win, if that helps!
I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t me and I can pretty much guarantee that Huw wouldn’t have said anything like that…so whoever it was didn’t profit from being a dick 🙂

Heater fan unit resistor pack on a Vauxhall Vectra. Buried so far into the guts of the dashboard that it takes a mechanic an hour to replace it. – Rubbish

If it’s anything like the one in the Zafira, it takes about 10 – 15 mins to replace 😉
But it’s a rubbish design generally, which is why they blow so often. So keep the resistor in the museum.

Yes. But I’m not silly enough to imagine they really mean anything!

(Note: This does not mean I won’t shed a tear for them when someone – who is quite obviously cheating as no-one could ever go faster than me – knocks me off top spot). 🙂