Stone King Rally Touring Club 2024. Bike choice, training ideas and any advice.

The downtime podcast guy did it last year and spoke about his experience at length in one of his podcast episodes, gave a lot of honest feedback as it didn't exactly go to plan for him and he did put a decent amount of preparation in.

get used to carrying your bike, maybe spend the lunchtime hour going up down a hill three times a week, you might get some strange looks though .....

I'm no expert but a general circuit with press ups, kettle bell swings, pull ups, etc certainly helps personally with upper body strength for the MTB.

Thanks for the comments. Listening to the pod cast now. The guys doing the proper race are pushing hard. I hope the tour will be a bit more relaxed.

Tempted by one of these for carrying

https://pushcomponents.com/produkt/hookabike/?lang=en

I'm doing it the week before you.
I've not ridden SKR, but I've worked on it and Transprovence since 2014, so I've plenty of allied experience.

The bike will be fine. There's such a variety of trails. Some might might be hard work, others a shorter lighter bike will be better for. You'll also be burying yourself less on the uphills on a lighter bike so will be fresher for the descents. (one of the course markout guys, who rides the route a day or 2 in advance of the race, rides a Stanton Ti hardtail). Tough tyres and rims, the biggest brakes you can fit and some kind of bash/sumpguard will be the way forward, plus well setup and looked after suspension. You're not racing, and it is a holiday so you won't "need" to dish out the same kind of abuse that the racers do because "race".
(I'll be taking my 29" Rocket Max and am expecting to be fighting it on some of the flatter traversey stuff, but it'll monster the steeper rougher sections)

I believe the club weeks are a bit less arduous than the race - there's more options for shuttles when you only have to get 1 vehicle to a location, not 20. When I did the equivalent TP tour week in 2014, I was actually slightly surprised how little climbing there was, but its a bit of a different thing now.

Its less of a problem in Sept, but take a floppy hat for the big climbs out in the open - not getting fried to a crisp is a good thing. Eat and drink plenty (food availability isn't usually a problem - just make full use of it).

Training wise - all riding is good riding, but I'd be aiming to do a good few full day, proper long time in the saddle efforts - 7 or 8 hrs plus. Mental toughness is a large part of it - the fittest I've been is when I was doing a gym session the other side of town with 350m of climbing in the commute. Riding home from it after a heavy weights session was just hideous, but it got easier, and in comparison nothing outside of that felt near as hard.
(there's always a rider or 2 in the races who struggle/pull out because they crack mentally. Equally there's always 1 or 2 who suffer like a dog physically, but you know they'll finish because they've got a bombproof head game)

Arm pump. Gym stuff/core work/pressups; (indoor) climbing/bouldering; uplift days; w*nk more; big brakes; don't carry excess weight around on yourself. Just riding lots will help too.

Hike a bike. Ash is a bastard for that. But it never fails to be worth it. No one enjoys it, its never easy, you just have to crack on and get it done. Can you spend some time up in the Lakes before hand - do a lap of The 4 Passes and/or whip up Hellvellyn? mostly its just a question of knowing how to carry the bike least uncomfortably.

I did this last Sept for my 50th birthday present to myself. It was the best biking holiday I've been on. Absolutely amazing trails, really really well organised and great company. Met lots of new friends from around the globe. For me, I'm not satisfied with a biking holiday unless I'm knackered at the end of each day! And this one provided! There are plenty of uplifts, but of course and as you know, there is a shed load of climbing too.

The first day for example you will climb 5000ft in 18miles - thats just the morning! Afternoon however is all DH 🙂

The third day had I reckon the toughest climb - 3600ft straight up, in less than 6miles. Took forever and 60% was hike a bike.

But the descents! The descents were sheer joy! You get all the different types of terrain. Alpine meadow, loose rock, forest pine, and dust+slabs nearer the coast.

The food was varied and the amount of courses varied a lot too. But all good. Accom was a mix of hotel and apartments. Oh man, I wish I was back there!

I did just a couple of longer rides for prep, but then I consider myself fit doing lots of workouts a week. I would say the majority of people on the tour were less fit and everyone managed it just fine. There were no escape routes taken by anyone. If you can handle a 30-40mile South Downs ride with no fitness issues and could do that daily for a week, you'll be good. You have the whole day to do these rides.

As for mechanicals - believe it or not, there wasnt a single puncture in our group! No major mechanicals either, just the odd broken spoke. I ran EXO+ front and back, which I usually ride in Alps. Went through 2 sets of Galfer pads on rear (purple I think).

That podcast just scares you. Leading up to my trip I was listening to that and it was sounding like I wasnt prepared enough. But speaking to the guys out there, the chap on podcast is a bit of a worrier, and you shouldnt read too much into it.

Here a load of pics