Is there a Mr Pie in the building? Paging Mr Pie. Reg I've asked you not to page me while I'm shirking from home. I have enough distractions with the slugs on my beans and the dog barking at every sound in the street. How can I help you? Oh, right ... that odd thing. Yeah, nah,yeah ... looks great ...

https://i.ibb.co/BqCrqry/20210717-173416.jpg This is how I get a drop bar bike comfy for distance - flats 1" higher than the seat. On it for 10 hours on Sunday without too much problems although my neck was a bit achy. Annoyingly I ended up your way but it was all a bit impromptu so didn't thi...

Stove here too - anyone set fire to themselves yet?
Cheers Stu

And looks like Tom Pidcock is doing the vuelta :-bd Any info on what his plans are for the XCO world cups? I wouldn't mind seeing more of him in this field and he once said he's a mtb'er at heart. Also if it means that the Swiss riders see less gold. May the better rider win. No but my info source ...

Got woken up by the sounds of fox mating, then later on an inquisitive badger sniffing around my tarp. The whole trip has definitely motivated me and my mate to get out more and enjoy more trips, as this one was full of laughs, a bit of swearing, and some beautiful landscapes. That sounds like a to...

It would work in my wildcat bag with a horizontal divider but in a big single compartment bag as you drink; stuff in the bag will sink. Guess it depends on what you carry in yr frame bag. I use a normal bladder in the front compartment of my other wildcat bag and it works fine.

More cycling mayhem Vid of what Alpinum was talking about - https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/jolanda-neff-criticises-rivals-riding-after-tokyo-2020-olympic-mountain-bike-incident Defo got full travel there And on the BMX track - https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/bmx-rider-crashes-after-official-w...

It's a cracking sales job on that website though. I got quite sucked in to it. Then I thought that we could just turn up and do it anyway, stop in a bivvy bag in a ditch and dine on discarded Michelin star foodscraps Good call It gives quite a lot of the route details so we could easily gate crash ...

Thats quite a good idea. Not totally sure about the roll top closure mind.

I suspect all of us on here are considerably fitter than yer average person. I wouldn't fret, if you are struggling on a day rest and eat more As Sean says its all about enjoying yourself

K1100T wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:36 am What's with all the flipping whistling by the marshalls...!?!

To avoid spectators jumping into the track showing signs with 'Hello Mum' etc to the camera, and taking out half the field
Takes me back to DH days when your progress was proceeded by a mexican wave of whistle blowing

Ah. From the vague description I thought they were new models..... The Z5's were a dirt jumper fork with chromo stanchions - they weighed an absolute ton but were nigh on indestructible. I note these have the one year only QR20 drop outs :???: The Z3's and 4's were budget variants of the Z1's. Oh fo...

Seems a bit of an odd thing to do. Are there really that many people doing 'retro build's wishing to buy a new fork? I've got a pair of Mark 2 Z1's if anyone is interested, in similar nick to K1100's
Wonder if they are open damping or a stupid cartridge.....

Thats one of these features that are fine as long as you can hit them with enough speed. The thought of doing it with others in the way doesn't appeal.....

Comfort for sure as per what others have said. YD roads, particularly the single trackers, can be pretty rough.

I hadn't realised how short XC races are. I knew stuff like the SXC series were all around the 30k mark but I thought something like this would be 50 plus. Why aren't they 100k+?! There is. It's called XCM - cross country marathon racing. Races used to be 3hrs ish - they were terrible to watch, bor...

OS base maps are probably your best bet but Garmin rip you off for map cards. Knock off ones are available...
Free mapping is another option like 'talky toaster' I think you can find it from the Openstreetmap website. The standard garmin topo has too little detail to be of much use.

Ouch
That's a fair old step down for an xc race. According to cycling weekly he had been told the ramp was gone.....

I hadn't realised how short XC races are. I knew stuff like the SXC series were all around the 30k mark but I thought something like this would be 50 plus. Why aren't they 100k+?!

https://bikepacking.com/news/ride-buddies-episode-1/
Quite interesting insight into two very different approaches to long distance ITT's.

I guess that (sadly) there is a market for men with an excess of cash to do something mildly difficult whilst been fawned over by servants and trying to out-pi** some similar types. Maybe its a scam. On the first day (after they have all paid up) they get abandoned in the middle of nowhere and all t...

Well another roaster today so set off on the Straggler to make the most of it. North a bit then west took me onto a new trail I've been meaning to do for a while - up the Braes of Doune! Gravel tastic in the main with just a few chunky bits. https://i.ibb.co/hFqqvJC/20210725-120532.jpg About 7 miles...

Great trip tale and well done for cashing on the fab weather

'pends on the weather dunnit.
Thinking just a bivvy bag, 2/3rds mat and a base layer for next weekend.
Jan 20 I had bivvy bag, petrol stove, food, cake, winter bag, ground sheet / wind break, 4 cans and a hip flask

Update on my attempts to deal with it. Cleaning ears with warm olive oil didn't make any difference. Phoned the doctor who booked me into the practice nurse for a proper syringing. Very disappointed that she didn't find any lost Japanese soldiers down there, in fact they were reasonably clean. No c...