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Hi everyone, new here.
Don't take a freeride/enduro bike with a 38T chainring/guide setup like I did in 2011. The heckles of "ride it!!" from the campsites aren't fun when you walk the climbs. And also don't pin it on the descents during a Saturday morning practice/recon lap and end up with a big haematoma on your hip.
Surely if you "pinned it" you'd be fine, what you mean is "don't try to pin it but crash"... 😉
Welcome.
[i]...and 'when you're ready' often means minutes being lost! [/i]
I use different calls for different situations, depending on the rider you're trying to overtake. You can tell someone's ability by how quickly you close the gap and how they're riding. "Hiya - when you're ready. Thanks!" is a nice call when you're overtaking someone who you reckon is experienced, but are going slower than you (eg soloists) or passing someone only a bit slower than you, as they will make a predictable move to allow a smooth pass ASAP. You give them an opportunity to control the pass that's efficient for both and low risk.
Overtaking a less experienced rider, I tend to be more direct - "Hiya-just coming up... passing on your left... Thanks!" You take control of the pass.
Sunburn territory today. Woods perfect. Forecast is good....
Sunburn territory today
Tis true. I rode locally today & then later whilst in the shower the skin fell off my balding head 😯
Not dusty, not muddy, i'd say that the drying mud offers a nice amount of bite for your tyres whilst not hindering progress. Off camber roots grippable but still slippable.
Forecast looking favourable, enjoy, i'll be somewhere in Wales.
Tang - cheers for the update!
Any chance of a daily course/condition update to the thread?
Good weather guaranteed - I'm not going.
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Too soon to put the wellies away?
I've already got the mud tyres on the spare wheels 😀
I'm still taking CX tyres, just in case.
too much negativity. I'm leaving the SB8 on and not looking again at the weather .....
More sunburn and I'm literally full of dust today from strimming and blowing in the woods. Lovely.
Nice one - cheers Tang!
Getting excited now.......
😯blowing in the woods.
10hrs in the woods today with Vin Cox. Trails are in lovely condition. Poss a bit of rain to come...got some great pics of the trails but too knackered to post up!
Cheers Tang!
Saw the forecast - hopefully it'll change though! Good to hear trails are in good condition!
....lots of horse fly.
Just pedalled past (but not in). It's warm and muggy now so if there's a bit of rain that'll reduce the mugginess, might be a bit greasy afterwards though.
Forecast taken a turn for the worst. BBC and Met Office have thunder and lightening on Saturday afternoon, who got me into this???
Not there this year unfortunately but I did my first solo last year and after my first stop to refuel I got my wife (who was my pit bitch) to write solo down the back of each leg with eye liner. Seemed to help a lot as I was passed,and passed,and passed......had seen it in 2012 ( sorry to mention it) and thought it was a good idea.
A fire pit.
2012? I thought there was a general agreement we'd never mention the 2012 MM again. The horror, the horror!
*Twitch, gibber*
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Well if you will ride a fat bike... 😉
That photo isn't me I just google image searched '2012 Mountain Mayhem" and too my pick from the avalanche of misery that came back.
Looks like Terrahawk in that pic. At one point I was descending back to arena and Terrahawk was pushing that monster [i]and[/i] another bike up the un-rideable mudfest hill. 2 bike hill push...grrrr!
2012 - the year I officially retired from racing...
[url= https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7113/7432114968_07c312359a_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7113/7432114968_07c312359a_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/cjKwRf ]Mountain Mayhem 2012 - Race Days[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexleigh/ ]Alex Leigh[/url], on Flickr
I wrote about it here: http://pickled-hedgehog.com/?p=2694 - I didn't actually ride my bike for about a month afterwards. People talk about it but if you weren't there, you just cannot imagine the horror!
Forecast looks better this weekend!
That was my favourite mayhem.
Riding the moving river of mud back down towards the arena was the funniest thing I've ever experienced on a bike.
.
I rode 2012 with 1.3'' mud tyres and even they clogged.
The changeover area IORC ws about 4'' deep in slop.
Makes me twitch thinking about it.
Still not taking my SB8 off as we've gone passed the point of me getting anything to replace it 🙁
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It won't.
😉
Rode/ran/carried/walked all of 2012 using 1.5" Mud Sharks and a Lefty fork, still clogged a fair bit. Carried the bike to transition to save it getting too bad on the way, gears started skipping 200yds into the lap. Happy days 😕 😆
Well since we're talking about bad MMs, it was 2004 which was started in a deluge and then dried which sounds good but meant that the mud turned to plasticine for a few laps. Or 2007 which rained though the whole race. Last one I did...
it was 2004 which was started in a deluge and then dried which sounds good but meant that the mud turned to plasticine
I've got a feeling that was the one that put me off MM completely. I've done 24/12 ever since because they have the advantage of an all-weather course. The thing about that race at Eastnor is that the deluge didn't actually last for very long. In fact, here in Wales we wouldn't even consider it a deluge. 😆 But it made the course 50%+ unrideable.
We gave up some time in the dark preferring to drink beer rather than push our bikes around the hills. Even knowing that he was on his last lap of the night (possibly weekend) Ed, a very decent rider, launched his bike into the undergrowth in a temper tantrum about the crap course.
In the dark I may have chatted (or rather whinged and bitched) to Mark Webber of F1 fame. It was difficult to tell, being dark and both covered head to toe in mud from numerous slides. And I was too busy swearing to ask.
(I'm thinking that 2004 isn't what I'm describing up there. Were there a couple of years of bad weather around then? Did I do a couple of MMs at Eastnor?)
In 2012 during an early morning lap I was halted on the trail buy a family (?) of Stoats or Weasels crossing the trail.
There was no one around to confirm or deny whether I was tired and imagining it or if they were there.
Weird.
2004 was the first one at Eastnor and featured the 'deluge'. 2005 was also bad as was 2007. IIRC 2006 was lovely and dry (but dusty...)
Well since we're talking about bad MMs, it was 2004 which was started in a deluge and then dried which sounds good but meant that the mud turned to plasticine for a few laps. Or 2007 which rained though the whole race. Last one I did...
The only one we dnf'd. We ran out of derailleurs.
It's very very humid today on course, but fantastic.
2001 - heatwave
2003 - heatwave. Marshals set fire to the course.
2004/5 - mudfest but dried. 2004 was worse as the first year we were at eastnor there was a lot of cut grass and field edge. Remember Land Rover hill and the field of doom?
2006 - nice. The year I solo'd. Lucky!
2007 - mudfest
2008 - muddy at the start but dried
2009 - ok
2010 - cold overnight but ok
2011 - ok
2012 - horrendous flooding
2013 - rained intermittently, course slippy but rideable. Not like eastnor.
2014 - heatwave
Yes I've done all of those... 2012 was the only DNF as it was just silly. The most fun was using a 350bhp V8 4WD S4 to get out of the field at about 5pm Saturday... Reverse onto the good grass and.... Speed! It worked.
2004/5 - mudfest but dried. 2004 was worse as the first year we were at eastnor there was a lot of cut grass and field edge. Remember Land Rover hill and the field of doom?
My 2 years of MM - still have the bikemagic photos, it's what convinced me to get an alfine all weather hardtail.
Land rover hill, "oh, do I take the left hand rut of slurry or the right hand rut of slurry", followed by skirting a badly chopped corn field which delighted in eating mech hangers/derailuers and then the trek through the strimmed bracken of doom.. There was that little jump thing with the lads from mtbwales? cheering everyone, which was nice.
Trail dried right out and gave you a racing line on the 2nd day but by then I was shattered.
Would do 24/12 more often (just the once so far), but it's a bugger to get to from ireland.