Where did you get the 9 speed chain from? There are apparently quite a lot of fake shimano chains out there...

1) Favourite outing (not necessarily by bike) Chablais 300 was a hoot - fun trails and stunning scenery and a nice pint waiting at the end. HT550 was great, as always, but I had a strange feeling like I'd sleepwalked around most of it. Getting pretty ill on day 4 was not a highlight but at least I f...

suffering from Rhabdomyolysis That's the same thing that caused Miron Golfman to collapse just before the finish of the Highland Trail a few weeks ago! Sounded nasty. These guys have incredible willpower to defy the messages their body is sending them. I guess it's a fine line between managing your...

The whole thing about trains taking/not taking bikes is a bit of a red herring. Yes it's nice if the train allows your bike to be wheeled on in one piece, but if you can quickly whip the wheels off and put it in a (thin) bag then it just becomes a normal piece of luggage. When I did Paris-Brest-Pari...

The start date seems to be creeping up quickly now... it's next month! How is everone feeling? I'm not too bad, although bruised some ribs crashing on an icy tree root a while back and have had a persistent cough which won't let them heal. Can't complain in general though. The lack of snow in the al...

What I do is just put sleeping bag and therm-a-rest inside my bivvy bag, then roll it all up. So when I want to deploy it I just unroll it, inflate the therm-a-rest and I'm ready to climb into bed.

Yep, it's Andrew's fault I'm in! He emailed me on the morning that entries opened to remind me - otherwise I would have forgotten. Planning to use the ancient Shand (got it in April 2009, so it will be 15 years old by the time of the HT550), but not yet decided whether to use it SS again or geared (...

Yep, as a couple have spotted up thread I'm in! Big excitement, as it's 10 years since my last attempt! I had a place for 2020 (we all know what happened then). That got transferred to 2021 but as I had a 6 month old son and a daughter on chemo I wasn't able to take up my place :sad: Let's hope the ...

Has anyone tried using Fatmap for navigating? I see that the "Explorer" version has OS maps as a layer (as well as lots of other national Topo maps like IGN). I've just signed up for the 7 day free trial, so will see how I get on. If it works well €30 per year seems like reasonable value.

I did a few in 2019 in order to qualify for PBP and then did that. I was kind of astonished how many folks are out there doing this kind of thing all the time and not making any fuss about it. Makes you realise that the old geezer who trundles past might be on a 600km ride rather than just a local 2...

Great job Steve!

Some sticky mud from the Old Bannack Road. There weren't even any trees to borrow sticks from to clean the bike - I ended up using a gnarled old bit of sage.

Invite her to write an article for the site on the legalities of wild camping?

Happy new year!
My daughter's chemotherapy is due to finish this year (though not until October). It's going to be a better one than 2020 and 2021 I'm sure!

I have the same requirement for my daughter who I take to school on a mac ride.

I was planning to make a pair from an old softshell jacket by cutting the sleeves up and stitching some velcro on so they can easily be attached and removed. Haven't got round to it yet though... Will post pics when I do.

I wonder what that birch sap wine tastes like...

Did he say he had 60 gallons of it?!

Some dude did Melbourne to Cairns by skateboard this year. 3,600km in couch surfing style. Good effort.

https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/skateb ... ause-62936

mattpage wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:12 pm

NewRetroTom wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:08 am Looks reasonably bumpy, but not too bad. I did a 230km race in July with 10,600m of climbing.

Probably not in the UK.

Correct. https://mb-race.com/en/mb-ultime-2/

Write-up here if anyone is interested. https://newretrotom.blogspot.com/2021/0 ... -race.html

Looks reasonably bumpy, but not too bad. I did a 230km race in July with 10,600m of climbing.

arkay wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:21 am Nice of them to quote it to the nearest micrometre - I had no idea the OS were that accurate!

{pedant mode} accurate vs precise.

They were very precise, but wildly inaccurate - as ScotRoutes says they were a few km out based on the definition of a paved road being one with tarmac on it.

arkay wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:22 am Inspired by Geowizard’s YouTube videos?

Seems to have been inspired by a blog post on the Ordnance Survey website:
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/newsro ... ing-a-road

Interesting - Mike Hall had major breathing issues in 2013 when he finished in 14 days 12 hours. There is definitely something going on with ultra racing affecting the body's ability to repair the lungs. Josh Kato has also complained of this. From a 2016 interview with Mike Hall: In the past, you ha...

She seems to be behind her own record pace now and quite a way off Mike's pace. Will she keep going once it's clear any chance of a record is gone?

Stopped again at the post office in Whitefish. Let's hope she has posted herself some new batteries for the tracker.

However a number of routes are springing up with the Divide tag which don't seem to follow this requirement. They should really call them "Diagonals" instead of Divides. It's an established concept here in France (joining the corners of the hexagone) where they already have their own orga...