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

It was a little wonky, calliper bolts were not as tight as they should have been.

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Thinking of entering this with a few friends, worth doing if we all ride pretty old hardtails? Looking at the trails on youtube they seem fine

Mark Drakeford is a wank stain!

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Can you still ride, but no uplift, or is that cancelling the whole thing?

I've never been to QECP but I've heard it's fun rather than tech. There are normally a few older hardtails at these local races. Do it :-)

Nope, parked closed

Got these leftover if anyone wants them? These are the quality expensive slik graphics ones. I tried the £5 ebay ones first but they're dog shit as the colour washes straight off so don't bother with them👎

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2 X rock shox = 1 X cock suck with a bit of help from a knife. Never done it in that font though.

Good to know 👍

2 X rock shox = 1 X cock suck

Are you suggesting a trade?

Looking for suggestions: recently bought myself a lovely Santa Cruz Chameleon in med with 27.5 inch wheels and 140mm fox 34s instead of the usual 120mm. Bike came with a 60mm stem and a 72cm bar. I'm about 5.9 and a half. The med fits fine, although I definitely feel I could tweak the fit. It feels slightly short and twitchy at the front end so am looking at either a slightly longer stem, or wider bars. I also want to counteract the slacker angle from the longer fork so it isn't harder uphill etc. I'm tempted to try 29 at some point, until I do I'm wondering about increasing tyre size. ATM I've got some nice maxxis 2.3inch skinwalls on, tempted to try bigger possibly plus. Any advice on any of this? Are plus size tyres good? Looking to make the bike a bit less twitchy, and faster

I'll take 1 pike ultimate, I can manage full travel.

Yeah I'd be up for those. Only really interested in 1 x Rock Shox and the Pike one if someone else wanted the rest.

I can stick them in the post to you as I'm in Brighton and you can dish out what you don't need to any others if they're local. Does that work?

Yeah PM on it's way

went out on the MTB yesterday for an old fashioned XC/gravel type ride with me on my steel framed 26" MTB chasing my faster, fitter mate on his carbon gravel whip.

Epsom > Ashtead > Leatherhead > Ranmore Common > Holmbury hill > Leith hill > back up Ranmore Common.

I rode this last year a couple of times in the summer once even riding my YT Capra. I don't know if its cos its early in the season and with the recent rain the trails were sticky and heavy all the way to Ranmore, if I'm just lacking fitness or whether it was cos I had my Covid vaccine on Monday but I felt like a dog all day.

Normally a coffee and a bit of cake is all the fuel I need but I was chucking back the protein bars and gels all day on top of coffee and cake with no noticeable improvement.

I made my way back up Ranmore the second time and my legs were toast. The thought of dropping down the next valley then up and over Boxhill was enough for me and I headed back into Dorking for the train of shame with a measly 50km in my legs while my mate cracked on and covered 80km for a very good day out.

Despite the sun it was also really chilly too although I grabbed a few nice shots from the footage on my GoPro

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Blame wind and clag. You remain a cycling tyrannosaurus.

haha, cheers. Short arms?

Sounds like you did more than alright. No shame in knowing when you’ve had enough! Weather seems to have been nice too, even if cold.

This sounds like a fun route, do you mind sharing the gpx?

for the train

Are we allowed to travel by train for exercise now? I've lost track of the rules and can't wait to get out of London.

no idea re the train and frankly don't care. An empty train was there so i got on it :-)

A couple of GPS below with slightly different routes.

The full route I rode last summer and,
the shorter version I rode yesterday

Blimey! 15k of MTB and I am toast!

Nice! Thanks :)

NP: its a great route. Much more fun when it is warm and dry.

Here are some highlights from when a socially distanced group of 6 of us rode it in June 2020 (the full route GPS above) which includes a lot of the fun singletrack trails I cut out on Saturday cos I was doing everything I could to get home as soon as possible and in one piece

Fortress

EDIT: (re-watches video) oh yeah, this was the time I was on my YT Capra too

it is a good route to get to know, at least the first half up to the viewpoint at Holmbury hill.

From there, instead of turning left to Leith Hill you can carry on down BKB, up Pitch Hill down into Cranleigh and join the Downs link which takes you to the South Downs.

Up and over them (that is tough) and drop down into Brighton. A nice 100 km / 7 hours or so in the saddle

Epsom to Brighton off-road