Has anyone done bearing replacement themselves? If so what bearings do you need and are there diagrams/instructions somewhere?

Mine has developed slight play and I would like to get it sorted before the HT550. I don't want to be without the wheel for a few weeks while it is sent away.

As Zippy says it's very hard work in places and may well take a lot more time than you bargain for. I set off at 6am to do a southbound attempt with two friends a few years ago. Made it to the centre of Glasgow at 1.30 the next morning. We skipped out Chronic Hill given how late it was getting. Ther...

I can pick my flint out of a puddle, wipe it on my t-shirt and it will still work perfectly. The same cannot be said for lighters. That is the advantage for me. Also they never run out of gas.

I use a Light My Fire Scout thing to make sparks. Can easily light my MSR with this. It's burning liquid coleman fuel. I think meths may be less volatile and therefore harder to light, but gas should be easy.

I'll be using the same setup again this year, so can't have been that bad!

I rode it on a fully rigid steel 29er last year. It wasn't always super comfortable, but worked fine for me. If you're used to riding a rigid bike off road you should be fine.

I would recommend high volume tyres for improved comfort.

Are you sharing your route or keeping it to yourself? If you're sharing I'd be very interested to have a look. Keen on doing a big bikepacking ride in the borders.... My strategy for big days is try to eat something every hour. Keep looking at the time and if it's over an hour or nearly an hour sinc...

Yeah the event website states 4,233 miles and Mike's dot is now saying route mile 4,143 so should be less than 100 miles to go according to that. Looking at the map and the elevation plot there are more than 200 miles to go. Guess that will take Mike about 12 - 14 hours if all goes well so he should...

Looks like Mike stopped for the night at the Sugar Tree Inn near Vesuvius. Still 250 miles to go by the look of the elevation plot.

deejayen wrote:There's another great write-up (by NewRetro Tom) here http://newretrotom.blogspot.fr/2014/06/ ... l-550.html

Cheers for linking!

A most enjoyable race!