Capital Trail Entries open Fri 20 March

[Richpips]

Markus is taking entries for the Capital Trail from Friday.

http://www.edfoc.org.uk/events/event/capital-trail-220/

[Taylor]

Surely that would be Friday 20th March?

[Richpips]

Surely that would be Friday 20th March?

Sorted :)

[jamiep]

I am going to sign up although it does look very, very tough, much tougher than I have ever contemplated before. There are a lot of big hills to climb.

There is a real mixture of trails: national cycle paths, CX, canal paths, moorland, farm track, trail centres, natural trails.

[Chew]

There are a lot of big hills to climb

I just looked at that.
30m/km is huge

[Ray Young]

Big quandary now, do this as I live in Edinburgh or do Loch Etive and Glen Kinglass the following week end over the summer solstice which I posted in anyone playing out. Can't do both i'm afraid.

[Alpinum]

Big quandary now, do this as I live in Edinburgh or do Loch Etive and Glen Kinglass the following week end over the summer solstice which I posted in anyone playing out. Can't do both i'm afraid.

I'd do both. Regeneration wise a week is a lot.
We've just booked flights back home on the 13th, only hours before I saw this. Might give it a shot a couple of days before the group start.

Looks like nice that route

[Ray Young]

Big quandary now, do this as I live in Edinburgh or do Loch Etive and Glen Kinglass the following week end over the summer solstice which I posted in anyone playing out. Can't do both i'm afraid.

I'd do both. Regeneration wise a week is a lot.

The reason I can't do both is that on one of those weekends I'll be on the Isle of Lewis camping with my wife.

[jamiep]

Ray, I'll do the CT again with you another weekend later in the summer if you wish

[Richpips]

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/edinburg ... 6191368820

Hopefully this link works.

[fatbikephil]

I'm in subject to approval by Markus. Will be interesting to see who turns up - should be a quite a few non-usual suspects?

[Ray Young]

I'm in subject to approval by Markus.

As am I. Just need to get fit now after a winter of back problem related inactivity .

[Chicken Legs]

I am in, also waiting for approval

[Richpips]

Markus says that the Scpttish premier of "Inspired To Ride" is the night before the race.

[AlasdairMc]

Confirmations are coming out, I've just had mine through.

[Ray Young]

Confirmed in .

[jamiep]

Had today off so went for a CX blast including the first 26m of the route. Then the big hills started and so I looped back home for my tea. It is worth saying again, this route will have an awful lot of climbing

[flat_4]

I'm confirmed!

[Blackhound]

The climbing looks monstrous at 6,000+m in 230km. I did wonder if he had his metres / feet confused but being German this is rather unlikely;-).

Decided to give it a miss as my climbing is rubbish though route does sound nice enough. I have entered a 600km audax the weekend before which is twice as far as I have previously ridden so unlikely I will be fully recovered anyway.

[ianfitz]

memorymap says 5770m and bike hike says 4315m for the gpx on the website. I find that MM tends to over count altitude gain. so maybe its not too bad after all...

[Justchris]

i took a long way round home the other day. Peddled out to Innerleithen then took the route home. Which is roughly a third of the route. Bailing out at balerno. Dont know the exact accent for the route. But it was 1375m in total, ie out and back in.

I hope to do something similar this week. But i will reset my gps. So i will let people know. For what its worth the last 12 miles are all downhill!

Cc

[AlasdairMc]

I did about 95% of the route over the weekend. The thought of a climb up into the Pentlands in the wind and snow was enough to make me decide to take the road home instead.

I managed just over 6000m ascent over 238km, 35:30 elapsed and 21hrs moving (I slept last night in Minch Moor bothy without an alarm clock).

I think the 40hr deadline is ambitious, and I also think the route itself is ambitious - it's pretty tough going. The push up onto Dun bicycle was horrible, and it's a bog up top so I don't want to see it after 100 bikers...

https://www.strava.com/activities/276057461

[Justchris]

Al. Just looked at your strava. Wow. Some training ride!

Chris

[fatbikephil]

That a good ride for a weekend - sounds like the route is maybe a wee bit at odds with the 'social' flavour of the blurb on the website...

[Ray Young]

Spent the last 2 1/2 days riding most of this. All I can say is "relentless". I mised out the Traquair, Dun bicycle, Gypsy Glen bit and the Glentress bit. My Garmin said I did 135 miles but I think it must be over reading. My average overall speed not including the time stopped to camp/sleep was 5.5 mph. At my current fitness level that would mean two 13 1/2 hour days. Over christmas I was off the bike for nearly fours months though due to back problems so here's hoping my fitness will improve over the next eight weeks. I was also carrying a lot more gear than I intend to use on the day and I was still running my winter tyres. Given the dry winter we have had the trails out there are remarkably dry so I wil be running hardpack tyres for the event. Just need to get the miles in now .

I stayed the second night in Minch Moor bothy and unbelievably the coal, kindling and fire lighters I had left after the winter bivy four months ago were still there. That could mean only one thing, cycle to Innerleithan to buy food and a bottle of wine to consume whilst I had a merry blaze .