Pace RC31 C-Types.

Fantastically light weight.
Comfy.
So springy you could see them bend under braking.

I bought them 2nd hand, rode them on and off for a few years then sold them last year for the same amount I'd paid.

Maybe not immediately obvious but those TOGS thumb grip things contribute to warmer hands too as you don't have to be gripping your bars so tightly all the time, reducing the heat sink effect that Greg mentions. I like Lizard Skins DSP tape on my road bars as the "stickiness" of it also re...

I have two sets of Shimano XT8000 brakes. One came with finned pads, the other plain. Can't say I've noticed any difference in my usage.

My dynamo feeds a Kemo with a switch to either lights or USB

Didn't Alpacka just want to take care of the European market them selves as the grew?

No. Andy at backcountry.scot started selling them.

Have videos like like the latest from Barry, books, magazine articles and Trackleaders made the HT 'better' or just turned it into more of a gladiatorial spectacle? They've arguably made it "easier". When the HT was first run, all that information on bothies, cafes, food stops, trail cond...

The path by the Falls of Glomach isn't for the feint-hearted

voodoo_simon wrote:Bells are so useful, the general public love them

Reaching said bell with hands cosily ensconced in pogies however....

I've only ever used the basic HotPogs, though I've seen and felt a few others. In the UK (and I live in the coldest bit of it) they work really well. I usually wear a thin pair of gloves/liner gloves too as taking your hands out of them for any reason (to operate a camera, open a gate, grab a snack)...

It's a shame you bypassed the nice singletrack sections on the way to Lochaline, but they would definitely have been tougher/slower than the road. Deer keds are interesting - as in they annoy me but don't bite me. Everything else in the Highlands seems to think I'm some sort of meals-on-wheels. Cleg...

And if you do it at the same time as the group start, you should meet everyone once.

Small but perfectly formed...



It's a tiny USB OTG converter for a normal USB cable. It means I can attach my Oregon to my phone to download / upload routes when I'm on the road.

postierich wrote:I will ride the route backwards

It has to be done. Indeed, I've considered it myself. I'm not sure if that would make it tougher or easier but I suspect it would balance out by the time you got to 550 miles.

Don't go.

It's rubbish.

July Bivvy by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

I rest my case.....

Is this the correct time to point out that both the Borders 350 and Markus's new Scottish trail have a lower ratio of successful completions than the HTR550? In fact, I think even the Cairngorms Loops might be lower these days

How far North? There's certainly talk of a Scottish winter bivvy somewhere around Perthshire.

Sag wagon past Lochinver would be interesting

macskive wrote:It's now sold.......to me!

Nice. I have the same bike and it's lovely. It's only a medium frame so I don't have quite as much room for a frame bag but I reckon a Lomo bag will just squeeze in for a bit of enduropacking.

If you're competing then you're racing, otherwise you're participating. See; any number of sportives, marathons, 10Ks. It's perfectly possible to participate in the same event in which others are competing. Participation is often its own reward and you can't simply say that taking part in an event w...

As above. I use flats on a couple of bikes, SPD-SLs on my road bike and Crank Bros Candys on others. I migrate between them.with no issues. Indeed I often fit Candys to the road bike if the weather is crap and I want more suitable footwear. But then I'm also fairly agnostic when it comes to the whol...

Dave Barter wrote:Seems odd to enter a race if you are not a racer? I'd conjecture that you'd be better off doing an ITT than taking up a place vs one who is.

Said thousands of London Marathon runners, like, never.

Bearbonesnorm wrote:

Its the same chainline though, so the crank issue is the same.

Sorry Colin. To clarify, I was thinking about the wheels.

The Transmitter page actually says it's the standard Boost hubs, not the weird QR ones. Looks like that's confined to the Frontier.

Off the wall suggestion from me, but could you engineer something that retrofitted at hub level to avoid the mud situation that I fully empathise with. It relies on the higher velocity of the rim. Surely every point on the wheel has the same velocity? But you meant angular velocity didn't you. Obvs...