nice work sir!

will be keeping an eye on your progress.

good luck.

Thanks Gairy. It'll be a great motivator to know at least one or two people might be keeping an eye on my progress!

Best of luck Mark, be interested to know conditions. I am considering an attempt next week but may just ride a different route in Englandshire instead. Too many choices.

Will keep an eye on your progress.

Excellent, you're committed now Kevin :D

I'll let you know what the conditions are like. I'm expecting the usual snow in April so thought I'd make the best of what should be (I hope) a mostly try trail!

Pedalhead,
I would try to start an hour earlier - the first hour or so can be ridden without (decent) lights, and to do the ride 1 way in 12 hours will be doing extremely well. Not sure how wet it all is over there at the moment, but where it's wet, it will slow you down.

Good luck with it - the nav is not that hard, but if you have a GPS route it will help to keep you on the right track (literally).

Thanks slarge.. I see there are now some showers forecast for Saturday, which is a bummer. Oh well, I'm committed now so no turning back. Point taken on the early start, but I already have a 4am alarm to make a 7am start and I reckon that's my limit!

Can you go the night before and kip in the car? Your 4am start could become 5am, and you could still be off earlier......

The Visitor Centre in Knighton has bogs open all night, kids drinking in the field until the early hours, and a car park to leave your car. They don't mind people leaving cars there either.

I think even the odd shower won't slow the ground up too much ... I can't actually remember the last time it rained, so everything is all dry and dusty. A little dampness might even improve the going.

I'm looking forward to adding something to the TCW site Turns out I'm now not working Sunday so I might come and wave at you (Foel Fadian way).

s8tannorm wrote: Turns out I'm now not working Sunday so I might come and wave at you (Foel Fadian way).

That'd be ace! I'm sure I'll need a bit of encouragement by then! Certainly, if the conditions on the Beacons this week are anything to go by, I agree the ground should be able to cope with a shower or two without turning too draggy (famous last words).

Slarge, you have full permission to say "I told you so" if I'm still riding at 9pm in the dark with just my Joystick light!

Today's TCW trail surface report from the "Day 1" section is as follows:

Knighton to Llanbadarn Fynych - dirt sections generally firm, light dust but not too loose. Mud ruts had a crisp edge to them that made for some interesting line-changes mid-descent. Grassy sections had a light wash-board surface resulting from tractor tyres. The odd wet hole that can either be ridden through or around the soft edges will deny you of an entirely clean ride.

Llanbadarn Fynych to Rhayader - the ford was quite low, possible to get through with dry feet. A section of hideously energy sapping grass followed which I was glad to see the back of. The forest sections that followed were generally OK - mostly grass or hard dirt. One long climbing section of bridleway through the forest before Bwlch-y-sarnau was quite hard work, but entirely rideable.

1370m ascent for this section and it certainly felt like it

very useful, thanks Ian. Sounds consistent with my Beacons ride last week, likely to be quite rough on the rigid but I'm not gonna complain about hard dry trails! Good to know the ford is low enough so I don't have to lose a bit of time going around.. I'll check out the map again later on with your comments in mind so I have an idea of what to expect early on, cheers!

Marks going well from the look of things, superb weather for it so fingers crossed for a good time.

http://pedalhead.net/satellite-tracking/

good stuff!

will keep watching.....

Judging by the position of the first spot, I'd say Mark left Knighton at 7am. Rhayader in 3:30 is good going. Hope he can keep up this pace.

that's 50km out of 175km in 3.5 hours.

by my calculations that's 28.5% of the route in 29% of the time.

so pretty much on target.

my legs hurt just thinking about it!

When looking at the route on a map, has anyone else thought ... that's a really stupid way of getting from Knighton to Mach'?

I'll pop out and meet Mark later on, so we'll see what sort of state he's in ... hopefully he'll be in good fettle!

nerdy numbers update:

120km (Knighton to Llangurig ) out of 175km in 8 hours (from 07:00 to 15:08).

by my calculations that's 68.5% of the route done in 66.6% of the time.

it's certainly still on!

It's definitely going to close, hope he still has the legs for the last section...

Just seen Mark at the top of Foel Fadian (5pm) which leaves about 10 miles and 2 hours for a sub 12 ... he was certainly looking fresh enough to knock out the remaining distance Said he was hoping for <11 hours!

Nail biting stuff. Sub 11 has gone, but surely the first sub 12 hour passage is on cards?

would seem to be a done deal.

although i keep refreshing the page and it's stuck on the last 'spot' half an hour old.

has he stopped?

finished?

it sure is a nail-biter!

Don't know what's happened there ... Mark did say his batteries in his gps were getting low, hope it hasn't knackered his chances. Fingers crossed he's finished already and his spot is playing up.

Its looking like a great ride. Been following for a few hours now. Just the run in to the station.

Just tweeted a couple of pics, he did it with 13 minutes to spare. Could he have done it without us?

Check in at 18:50, so 11 hours 50 or thereabouts.

Well done Mark, superb ride :D