More BB200 thanks

[Dave42w]

Thought I would start a separate thread for thanks.

This was my first BB200 (in a year which included my first Winter Event and first WRT).

Stu and Dee: Brilliant organisation and great hospitality. Many many thanks for all your hard work.

Stu. What an vaguely exciting route! I knew it was always going to be a challenge beyond anything else I have done. When I saw the elevation profile I realised that I might well not be able to finish and in the end I chose not to because it would have meant such a late finish. But that didn't matter at all. I rode stuff far outside my comfort zone and beyond my skill level. I rode stuff I would never have found on my own. It was just brilliant. Oh and I had a great nights sleep in my bivy, comfortable and warm.

All the riders who I saw/chatted to/rode with. Thanks for being so friendly and encouraging. Great to meet you and spend time with you. Special thanks to the group who led me through my first session of off-road bikepacking in the dark

Also thanks to Shand. Again no problems at all with my bike (apart from losing an Exposure Joystick light on the descent to Llandrillo). Given than 700cx40 tyres are rather skinny for this kind of ride I am very impressed that both wheels are still true despite some big bangs (not had to adjust them at all in 9,000 miles).

I think I only crashed/came off about 5 times and no damage done, The descent to Llangynog was incredible, never been down anything that steep before and only decked it about 3 times - once both wheels are locked and still sliding it seemed a sensible choice ;-) Very impressed that despite being cautious on descents and so working my Hope disc brakes really hard there was no fade or any issue at all.

Thanks to Stu for making sure I properly tested my SealSkinz socks with that wide ford. They worked

Will I be back? Well the people and the challenging fun make it a tempting prospect.

[Richard G]

[gairym]

I'd like to offer my thanks to Stu and Dee for another successful helping of Bear Bones silliness!

Not enough credit is given to Stu for just how much time and effort he puts in to supplying idiots like us with perfectly organised and planned reasons to hurt ourselves in the hills.

I just had to eat a banana at the bottom of the stairs as I needed both hands to help me up.

Also, as 2 year winner of the coveted 'Bear Bones Tattered Arse' award (I'll be hoping to make it 3 next year!) I took what I'm pretty sure is the 'most horrific selfie in history this morning in an attempt to get a handle on what exactly is going on with my undercarriage - it's not good!

On to less unpleasant subjects, it was über nice to meet ever more like-minded idiots to talk bikes and rubbish!

Ok, enough waffle, thanks everyone for a great weekend and especially Rich and Jason (gate fairy) for being my support-team on the final stretch, there's no way I'd have made it on my own.

Right, I've got somehow get my crap together and drive for 5 hours.

Cheers and see you all next year, Gairy.

[Gari]

^
I take it you won't be posting that to Instagram et al?!

[paramart]

big thanx to stu for his time to organise such a varied route,can only imagine the time and effort it must have took, and to dee for the bacon butty, very welcome (stu managed to give us a demo of the fire alarm)
thanx to jay for transport and making me decide on ss, think gears are in order to fully enjoy the ups, fantastic decents all fliers even at night, my only wobble came at 10.30hrs on sun when someone was suffering and I could have binned it with him gladly, but many thanx to hue ss tank rider who made it sound like that clip from escape to victory, when the player says we can beat the germans so they reappear on the pitch for the second half, great morale booster and we made it,many thanx for that, just thought it was going to take too long to get around as I didn,t doubt my fitness,
never fell asleep on a bike before but absolutely crapped my self when the m/bikes over took us, but to near the end then to stop, when I looked fleetingly at the route I wished I had a cyclo cross bike but after seeing the route and wilf pummelling himself to death on the rocky descents no thanx well done mate,
bikewise i know i could have been quicker on a geared bike but by how much i don,t know, yes i had to push up some of the climbs,well all of them really
we had planned to hit the chippy town by 1800-2000hrs, reality hit home how slow progress was when much to our dismay it was shut at 03.15hrs,
to sum my ride up was it an endurance test YES, was it fun yes, will i do it again yes, we were trying to sum up the ride in 3 words and hypothermia, trenchfoot, and exhaustion,cropped up,THANX AGAIN TO ALL INVOLVED

[Zippy]

Thanks Stu and Dee for organising and sorting the event. Here's a snapshot/comments of my ride:

I remember struggling to eat first thing in the morning, but ate what I could, said hello to everyone about and set off. About an hour in and I thought "hmm, my feet are still dry", then at literally 1 hour 1 minute in on the Garmin, soaking wet feet! This was closely followed by meeting a rider going the other way on the muddy track down, because we were off the precise GPS line, so we pushed back, and followed the line literally through a non existent path and through trees - should have just carried on down the muddy slog!
I tried to keep eating, but felt like I was running on empty the whole time, er next memory is catching singlespeed george, then promptly stacking it on the steep descent thing on the zig-zags - mostly because I was in the back of my mind trying to take it easy - should have just gone for it and be fine. No damage done, just had to be careful as left leg and both ankles were a bit tender.
Then passed about 10 riders, Burty and FantasticmrMatt gave some welcome banter as I passed them whist being shot at by a firing squad! Sometime after that was some overgrown bit of forcing through vegetation, some tussocks and then onto some rocky up's and down's - my mental state was getting a bit close to thinking about bailing...but kept plodding on - eventually caught up Chew and Rob whilst walking up the rocks, Rode with Chew for a few hours and started to perk up and my force feeding scheme seemed to be working and got a bit of energy back. There was some very deep puddles and it was getting dark - front wheel got swallowed in a boggy puddle that was avoiding the main puddle/lake...eventually we made it to the fish and chip shop with 7 minutes to spare! This made me very happy (simple things!). A fair few riders turned up about 10 seconds after the chippy closed - but they were nice enough to serve them!
Set off from the Chippy with Chew, then er lost Chew and ended up riding with John Russel, who I cycled with for the rest of the ride (something like the last 8 hours I think!). We chatted and just got on with the ride, nothing too dramatic from there, there was a river crossing which was easy having done a few in the Caingorms, a puncture which was caused by a big thorn - but we'd stopped in a community centre to grab water anyway, and then just fighting sleep monsters from about 2am to 0545 when we rolled up at the finish. Big help mentally riding together through the night, that worked well and we were both pretty much the same pace.
20 hours 25 mins my GPS says, pleased with that - felt fit enough to ride the single-ring rigid bike, pleased with my kit decisions. Everyone I saw was friendly, thankyou :). I had a dark spell mentally - I dread to think what that would have been like if the weather was bad, but fortunately the weather forecast was pretty accurate with the high pressure zone over the UK, and I suspect my expectations / kit etc. would have been geared to the weather..so dunno!

Anyway, thanks everyone, 1.5 hours kip in the car and then a 250 mile drive was quite tough, was a bit useless when I got home and just about managed to get kit out of the car...promptly fell asleep at about 1830 Sunday and didn't wake up again until 0700 Monday morning. Bit achey, but mentally my head is working again which is good, but it's a bit of a drag being back in the office this morning...

Strava here: https://www.strava.com/activities/411389172

[lionelrik]

More of the same from me. Thanks again to Stu, Dee and everyone else who helped put on this epic event. A little disappointed in myself for not Improving my colour of badge from last year. But if you don't train, I guess you don't get any better!

Big thanks go to Gairy and his battered ass! If he hadn't slowed down to repair the damage, I would never have caught him up again and as my Garmin/Dynamo combo failed me, I really would have been up the old proverbial dirty creek without a way of propelling myself. Cheers Buddy! Shout out to Jason (Wotsits on here I think) for cajoling us through the last few Kms before promptly ditching us for "tea".

See you all next year!

[notinabox]

I'd like to offer my thanks to Stu and Dee for another successful helping of Bear Bones silliness!

Not enough credit is given to Stu for just how much time and effort he puts in to supplying idiots like us with perfectly organised and planned reasons to hurt ourselves in the hills.

I just had to eat a banana at the bottom of the stairs as I needed both hands to help me up.

Also, as 2 year winner of the coveted 'Bear Bones Tattered Arse' award (I'll be hoping to make it 3 next year!) I took what I'm pretty sure is the 'most horrific selfie in history this morning in an attempt to get a handle on what exactly is going on with my undercarriage - it's not good!

On to less unpleasant subjects, it was über nice to meet ever more like-minded idiots to talk bikes and rubbish!

Ok, enough waffle, thanks everyone for a great weekend and especially Rich and Jason (gate fairy) for being my support-team on the final stretch, there's no way I'd have made it on my own.

Right, I've got somehow get my crap together and drive for 5 hours.

Cheers and see you all next year, Gairy.

Also, as 2 year winner of the coveted 'Bear Bones Tattered Arse' award (I'll be hoping to make it 3 next year!) I took what I'm pretty sure is the 'most horrific selfie in history this morning in an attempt to get a handle on what exactly is going on with my undercarriage - it's not good!

PMSL it hurt at the thought.