Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

We've all done that...

Thetford Sunday looking damp...
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/u126q383v#?fcTime=1484438400

One of the trickier sections at Thetford.

where is said bargain thread?

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/141129/?offset=1700#comment13408932

Well, it was certainly damp. Very damp. One might almost say wet. And muddy.

I think I may have killed my 29er frame due to 3 hours of grinding chainsuck. Hey ho.

Were you there?

It was exactly like I expected an English MTB race to be - fucking cold, wet, muddy, slippery, slow. :)

Of course the lap we did Saturday was lovely. If the race was on Sat it would've been much better. As it was I was overgeared on Sunday given the lack of traction. Probably running too much pressure in my tyres and generally being shit on an MTB doesn't help.

Yep. 6 laps. Mwahahahaha.

Yeah, I was out playing in Thetford on Saturday morning too. Nice, sunny and dry if cold. And no sign of the chainsuck which struck so catastrophically on Sunday's race. Were you running singlespeed then, if you were overgeared?

I only did 5 but I was watching the time and making sure I didn't come in early enough to start a 6th.

Yeah, I was on the Inbred. It was sub-optimal in the wet. Not enough grip, too high a gear, crashed a couple of times which filled up the rear end with mud and so ground away my brakes and kept throwing the chain. I was riding with flats/sneakers which didn't help keep the drive even so wheelspin was a problem. Basically a shitstorm of errors :)

But I did get a lot of respect for grovelling around on the SS from other peeps. I'm sure I had the cheapest setup in the field. :)

You did win though, right?

I think I may have killed my 29er frame due to 3 hours of grinding chainsuck.

Let's 'ave some photos

Only if there was a special class for 90kg+, singlespeed riders w/ skate shoes and Camelbak.

I'm pretty sure some guys out there had clothing ensembles worth more than my bike.

I'll take some tonight. Yesterday it was all I could bring myself to do to wash the worst of the vast piles of crud off the bike. And my shoes. And my clothes. And myself. Impressively, I thought, I had dark brown stains all down both calves, despite having worn tights.

I waited for the nice Muc-Off guy to clean some of the mud off, then hit it again this morning and decided to leave it locked outside until I have yet another go at removing the mud. The driveline and brakes sound terrible and I know what you mean by leg stains - I scrubbed my legs with a brush last night and I was wearing full tights too.

I wish I'd taken the other bike as well, as I could've left the Inbred in the pits with our 'crew' to clean and taken the Kona out for a lap, swapping back once all the gunk was washed off it. This might've saved my brakes and stopped all the derailments. If I ever do another one, I'll use bottles and not a Camelbak - bottles would allow me to clean the bike and wash my eyes out on the trail. Ah well it was only meant to be a laugh and I got to chuckle at the hangovers inflicted on the others :)

Oh, I left my shoes outside again today - they're just too caked in mud to bring indoors.

Need to find a midfoot MTB option if I do this again.

Need to find a midfoot MTB option if I do this again.

And so it starts!

Speaking of your crew, you and they weren't in a red van by any chance, were you/they? I saw somebody with a single speed bike emerging from a red van, but it didn't look like an Inbred.

Well the only reason I was at this race was because of some work banter about racing Strathpuffer and this was a little tester for us.

Nope, none of our lot had red cars. There was another Inbred there but with suspension and shiny bits on it and there was another grey singlespeed of some sort and a black one too who was quite excited about me riding SS when he passed me. :)

Ouch...

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That's not good. how much material do you reckon's gone?

Oooooo, quite a bit. That's a 5mm allen key, and the bottom bit is resting against one of the worn bits...

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