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

a bit shite at bikes

There's really no need to flatter our abilities

I accompanied my youngest on the junior race last year at gravelfoyle. A fairly ghastly competitive dad vibe. A lot of club lycra.

Marshalling gravelfoyle was much better than racing it seemed to be. Drove up with a friend the day before, rode the whole course, spectacular, then got to stand around and eat haribos at my marshal point on the day of :)

I raved the southern enduro series in’22, it was fun. I found I got 3 seconds quicker per run- which, by my calculations meant I needed 30 practice runs to place well.

Just turn up and have a go would be my advice- what I really liked was it made me commit to riding stuff I wouldn’t normally ride, at pace.

Make sure the bike is well serviced and take a spare mech hanger- I had to change one during one race.

Sounds fun! The first race is in april so enough time to work on my skills and hit the gym.

Enduro racing is great (actually all bike racing is great apart from road TTs). Generally a friendly vibe from local series with novice categories right up to national series events. There's something about putting a number on that encourages you to go faster than you ever would just riding with mates and they can be at locations where you might not ride normally which is cool.

Sounds perfect! Thanks:) I also like to have a goal to train for

I've been told the Milland stage is a good one to start with, from mates who've raced the whole series. Very tempted to sign up myself this year and find out exactly how shit I really am

Now that I'm not on a phone I'll expand slightly on what I posted before:

First of all - do it, it's great fun, even when it's not (it'll be fun afterwards).

The Southern Enduro Series which I raced has two main formats for it's races - a Mash-Up, where you race each stage as many times as you can/want to within the time, and they average your two fastest times, and a traditional Enduro where they have practice in the morning, then you go off at 30 second intervals according to your number.

I enjoyed both formats, but as I mentioned previously rather than being "fast for Dammit" after a sighting lap I take (ages!) to feel comfortable with a track, so the Mash-Up suited me as I could just session a track, getting faster each time.

With the traditional Enduro format you're either fast or last on your race run - no room to improve.

I need to be much, much better at riding a track fast after a single practice run than I am currently in order to get results that I'd be happy with.

With that said racing does make you go faster than you would and/or try for a line/gap/drop/feature that you wouldn't normally, which is fun.

I crashed 4, maybe 5 times on one corner of one track - I just kept pushing back up and doing it again until I worked out how to get round it (off camber, rooty, wet, S bend to tight left that I would normally have picked my way through or maybe even around), and this is a huge part of the value for me - you are pushed to ride stuff you would normally avoid, at a committed pace, and you learn really fast.

In terms of fitness on the Mash-Ups it really helps to be able to ride back up to the top fast so you get more runs in, on the stages themselves it's largely about being dynamic on the bike, although Milland has entertainingly long sprints on the run out of most stages that can make a massive difference to your overall time.

Speaking of which, Milland is good - but, character of each stage is incredibly weather dependent.

When it's best is a few days after a decent rain, but without it being a wet period - when it's baked by the sun it gets super soft, when it's very wet it's very treacherous.

Longer, flatter ride on the Stanton yesterday after a while off it and have a nice pain between the shoulder blades now. #oldandbrokenthread

I've ordered some Stamp 7 pedals for their serviceability. Anyone pulled down a set of Stamp 1 pedals or relubed them somehow?

Answering my own question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymbLe0j8YVM

I need a new bite valve for my hydration pack, anyone got any recommendations?

Hydrapak sell the whole thing (Blaster they're called) and also just the rubber bite bits

https://hydrapak.com/products/blaster-bite-valve
https://hydrapak.com/products/bite-valve-sheath

I acutally bought a 3-pack of Osprey Hydraulics as they also fit

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01BD5HSLE/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item

Strathpuffer this weekend and feeling pretty underprepared.... At least the forecast looks kind of OK and I'm not riding solo but I'm still expecting it to be pretty grim type 2 fun

Also, first ride yesterday on my new frame, and HAHAHAHAHATHISISFUCKINGHILARIOUSWHYHAVEINOTRIDDENFULLSUSBEFOREOHMYGODIT'SLIKEAMAGICCARPET!!!

m8

was that Jeht I saw on insta yours? strong choice.

If it was this pic, then yes.

1 Attachment

That's the one. Sweet. Don't tease, where's the full bike pic?

Not taken any proper ones yet. Just picture a matt gritstone Jeht with all black parts, Stooge moto bars, and green pedals.

Hang on, you've owned this bike for how long and you've not taken pictures of it yet? Are you sure you are on the right forum?

Oh, I've taken a (singular) picture, but there's no way I'm showing you lot how untidy the house is.

Internal or external?

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Sorry wrong thread