Thats a shame guys. better luck next time for all.

Yes, Hope Fatsno. Not the sort of kit you expect to fail in the middle of nowhere

Hope service is usually exceptional. Worth telling them it ruined months of planning, they might be even more generous

That's a real shame. Looks like you were going great up until that point.

Yeah, tell me about it...

Bummer. Hope's been the only hubs so far that never failed on me. I hope you had your full life time Hope failure allotment covered with that issue.

So you went huffin' with Puffin?

Here's a write up of my Cairngorms Loop ride: http://ianbarrington.com/2014/05/07/not ... orms-loop/

Here's a write up of my Cairngorms Loop ride: http://ianbarrington.com/2014/05/07/not ... orms-loop/

What is it they say about things that don't kill you?

s8tannorm wrote:

Here's a write up of my Cairngorms Loop ride: http://ianbarrington.com/2014/05/07/not ... orms-loop/

What is it they say about things that don't kill you?

They get you the next time?

Bad luck, especially considering the effort and cost to get to the start, let alone the riding effort.

Before it all went horribly wrong, and considering it wasn't your first choice, was the Puffin a big disadvantage over the Pegasus?

/apologies if that's covered in your blog!

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the Puffin. Obviously it was harder work on the gentle tarmac and gravel drags, but I reckon it was easier to ride with less getting on and off on the technical stuff. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to ride much of the technical stuff before the hub broke. I'm not sure what I'd ride if I did it again. Whilst the 50km bail out was easier on the legs than racing, I still put down 150km on the Puffin in a reasonable time, which was something of a venture into the unknown for that sort of bike.

From your blog I see it was a group start again, did anyone complete it.

Via email from Alan Goldsmith:

We started at 9.33 on Saturday morning. Here are the unofficial finishing times (i.e. the time on Sunday that they finished).

Stefan Maertens 18.16
Nik Kinlock 18.57
Phil Richmond 18.57
Chris Purt 18.57
Alan Goldsmith 18.57
Alasdair Mclean 22.49

DNF
Ed Procter
James Cran
Ian Barrington
Keith Bremner
Bryan Dawson

dosnt look like much bivi'ing went on then

34hrs without a kip?

Nah, they all stopped in the bothy in before Feshiebridge...

Think they were away by 5am though, so a full second day.

sorry, I mistook the time of day finish for hours. I think I had aidens 19hr something in my mind from 2 years ago

Ian wrote:Nah, they all stopped in the bothy in before Feshiebridge...

Think they were away by 5am though, so a full second day.

Most of them were...

Bryan and I left about 6:30 - I had to swap a tube in as I split the sidewall. I got into Blair Atholl at 22:49, and while not setting the record books alight was 2.5hrs lower than my time in 2013.

It definitely set me up for the HTR - I feel a lot more confident this year than last. Famous last words though...