... by the time I got to Llanwrthwyl (the climb+descent out of Elan) I was re-adjusting the front brake and by the bottom of the next climb+descent (the hike-a-bike before Carnau) the lever was near the bars again — damnable Welsh grit, I have never experienced such rapid wear before! :shock: I got...

Race / Bridleway / Strava doesn't sit easy with me especially after all my 'talks' with the CSP of late It was a surprise to me when Dee mentioned on Saturday that timed-riding of bicycles on bridleways is forbidden — I had never heard of it being so specific before, I thought it related to all &qu...

Nice one, Stu :-bd And thank you for organising the event — I have done some difficult two-wheeled events before, mostly on-road, but nothing has come close to this BB200 for me in terms of pain-per-mile! I think I quite enjoyed it ... ask me in a week. I expect to give it another crack; I've ordere...

Richard G wrote: That was exactly where I crashed and broke my shifters / garmin / rib.

Possibly even the same ditch.

Yikes! Although part of me is happy to hear I'm in good company

GWS, Richard!

Many thanks to Stu and Dee for running the event, and Chew and Simon at the finish. :-bd First BB200 for me, with only WRT for experience. That was ... brutal! Started well enough, catching a few riders up the hills, being caught by others. Drowned my bearings on that little forest track high up aft...

This dropped into my inbox yesterday and I thought it was interesting — a side-by-side comparison of lights with a well-marked-out woodland-ish trail. You have to go quite a long way to the right to get to the Good Stuff, though. https://www.tredz.co.uk/lights-comparison-test Clearly the Cateye Volt...

... There's about 15 hills with a 200m climb, and 50 with a 100m climb. That's mind destroying!! So, now the plan is to turn up with a gps, a load of food, some lights and enjoy it. Blimey — the hills look so small along the bottom of the screen! Now that you've put it like that, I'm bricking it! :...

Just remember folks... whilst he may have ridden (walked) all of this at some point or another, the route is from memory in quite a few places, not from an actual logged ride. :lol: And my GPX tidies up only the roady/tracky bits — the memorable sections do follow Stuart's route almost dot-for-dot ...

Wilkyboy wrote:I'm not a fan of standing around staring at maps trying to work out where I went wrong**

** edit: although I'm actually quite good at that, too

I'm more than used to a certain level of post-ride grumble but pre-ride grumbling is something quite new and makes me wonder whether times / attitudes are changing. At this moment, I'd ask anyone riding this years event to make the most of it. I'm probably* over-preparing, but when you live in the ...

I think we need to bear in mind that each year, sections of the route are plotted directly over a RoW as shown on OS mapping. Usually, there's no actual path on the ground that tallys with the RoW. However, there may be some other track that runs nearby. In the interests of keeping landowners / RoW...

Edit - BTW, I get that some need the smaller files for their ancient GPS units. But it would be nice to get half decent ones as an option for those of us living in this century! As I said up-thread, I replotted the whole route in RWGPS and wrote a routesheet. I have checked off with Stuart the bits...

Thx. On my hill-climbing pace, I reckon I'd only be aiming for Nant Rhys on the first night, anyway ...

Hmm, caught a cold at the wedding I was at this weekend. This year I shall not be at the pace of those right at the front....might even sleep en route, although in expecting the bothies to be a bit full! Is the new bothy open yet? The one about 10km after Claerwen (but NOT Claerddu), on Esgair Embo...

SPOILER ALERT! Edit: it also thinks the route is 228 km long, with 4,200m ascent, way different to bikehike. On checking the detail of the route, it appears that Komoot re-plots the track onto trails and roads within its database, so has significantly altered some parts of the route. I short, all t...

SPOILER ALERT! One of the things I did was to try to work out the surface on the ground and tot them all up to give an indication of what to expect. I was just about to ask if there was an app that did this analysis for a gpx file; are your number derived from the software or your own manual number...

I've been looking closely at the route, re-plotting it (in RWGPS) to reduce the inaccuracies due to canyon effect (it looks like someone's recorded track, but subsequently simplified, so a long way off in places). A couple of illuminating facts fell out of this, which will become apparent to all fin...

I've decided not to 'plan' my food stops this year, it always falls over anyway. Looks like a water filter/chlorine tabs is a necessity though, unless I can just wring out my jersey into a bottle? I do plan on sitting down at 200km and having a strop though. Get yourself to 201km and you can have s...

ScotRoutes wrote:Audax. Like stamp collecting for cyclists.

(but don't tell Mrs W)

But it's a pretty ugly piece of road-engineering. Fortunately there are some bigger, harder, more interesting climbs that follow it before the long, deceptively curvy descent to Tregaron. Yes and I always think the climb up from Dolgoch side is much worse (than the famous side) ... longer, false su...

Dyffers wrote:

ZeroDarkBivi wrote: Anybody want to explain what this AUK points thing is all about for the uninitiated? Do they make prizes?

Some light reading about Audax: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1201.0

Alternatively: http://www.camaudax.uk/audax/.

Anybody want to explain what this AUK points thing is all about for the uninitiated? Do they make prizes? If you regularly ride audaxes, esp. year-on-year, then they're a great way to measure your season's performance. If you ride RRTY then points can mean an individual award/badge, eventually. (I ...

Any route that contains a section called the Staircase is vaguely worrying Possibly even worse when you call it by its full title of, 'Devils Staircase' :-bd But it's a pretty ugly piece of road-engineering. Fortunately there are some bigger, harder, more interesting climbs that follow it before th...

400A entered. For me no points = no point, so it had to be the BR time limited one. Me too. Wales, my favourite part of the country, where I grew up. But now I live in Fenlandia, so the riding up the hills should be an interesting experience ... I'll be on 25mm tyres, as they're the largest my gear...

Oh sh!t! Eye cancer! My friends and I just use the term 'bad P-word' to describe them. Goes back to when they used MCUs for shocks. :lol: But I must say great that you're still riding it :-bd Thanks. On new MCUs it rode pretty well, but give 'em a few weeks and it was a bit ropey. That said, this w...