Ultracycling

ELEVATION: 28,000 m

Bloody hell, not much flat then

good work mate! looking good.

Thanks all.

And thought it might @Samuli

+frank9755 I am glad I spend a lot of time on them, building them from scratch rather then copying tcrs like every else has. There is much room to grow. Just look at the rules of some of the events we've discussed recently, they're a joke.

Agree. It's a young sport, there's plenty of scope for innovation.

What I will do now is look up the rules for the events I'm thinking of and see which ones rule themselves out...

Film about TransOst (costs €5). I've just watched the trailer
https://www.biking-movie-night.com/en/home.html

@rj

Coming here.

So I want to host a bikepacking chat hour once a week Monday evenings. That anyone can drop into ask questions and get infomation, an informal and accesable podcast. Would discord be right for this? It seems that their is a limit on viewing numbers? I find the website quite hard to find infomation I need. The alternative was zoom. This would limit me at 100 but thag might be OK.

In some respects it would be, it would do well on the asking questions community side of what you want to do. But yes, there is a limit of 25 people on a group video call.

I'm not sure how inviting people to Teams outside of their own organisation works, but it would let you have channels for discussion and schedule 250 person video calls.

Twitch stream? Less video conference call, more just yourself streamed but people can ask questions in the chat

Or YouTube live

Thanks both will look at those options

Jit.si I think is free without any limit on numbers.

OnlyFans would work for you, @skinny.

Ha!

Lol @ https://instagram.com/ultracyclingmemes?utm_medium=copy_link

Seeing so many races sell out in minutes makes me want to do more DIY events or audax's next year, something completely different to this year though...

I've signed up to Further East again because it's close, I want to do one race abroad next year and I'm keen on @skinny 's one but this depends on getting a hardtail in time. I'm keen to do a 1000 - 2000km road one in August but this could be DIY. I want to do London - Anglesey - London too, mainly because I spent a lot of time there over the years so it'll be pretty cool to ride there instead of the train.

Strong views: I dislike anything with a ferry or public transport as it can ruin the race result..

So for those who don't race at the sharp end of the ultra races, what's the motivation compared to just going and riding at a later date? Is it the competition with others, comparison with others riding in the same conditions etc? Other than XC races years ago, I've not got the interest in racing, so riding is fine for me so genuinely interested.

My motivation is the competition with myself. I won't be at the sharp end as you say but "my" sharp end can be the 30th or 50th place for example. Or to try it in X amount of days and the place in the ranking will be what it is. Only interesting to me and people close to me but that's fine. I just like to push myself and see what I'm capable of.

I'd also not been particularly bothered about the actual racing part until I competed in two events this year. I'd say competing with myself is the biggest motivator but there were often times where I felt I was very much 'in the race' and would enjoy the competitiveness with other people. There's also something about being in the confines of a race which I seemed to really enjoy, kind of difficult to explain.

Also, should say I'm not at the pointy end either but keen to see how far I can push it and improve.

So for those who don't race at the sharp end of the ultra races, what's the motivation compared to just going and riding at a later date? Is it the competition with others, comparison with others riding in the same conditions etc? Other than XC races years ago, I've not got the interest in racing, so riding is fine for me so genuinely interested.

For me it's two-fold.

First, racing against the clock to see if I can beat the time that I expected I would / cover the daily distance I had hoped for. That's exactly the same as when I was time trialling.

But also racing against others who are racing back is really exciting. You might know some people before the race who you have a rivalry with. Then, in the course of a long event you will bump into people who are about your speed, so there is then an edge in trying to get / stay ahead of them.

Then, when you do meet them after the race, it's the best conversation because - while you might have hardly seen them at all, maybe for 3x 10 minutes in a fortnight - you will have so many shared experiences and some unique ones as well. It's just a massive buzz, and you wouldn't get it if you hadn't raced yourself inside out for days on end!

There are other factors too. For me at the moment with a young child, or others who have time constraints, I simply wouldn't do the rides if it wasn't a race, so I wouldn't get to go to the places it goes through.

There's racing and there's being in a race.

Racing is a great motivator. It makes the event very different to doing the same route as a hasty tour. There's an external pressure you don't get, even when you've told yourself you're going to 'do this route as fast as I can', the exception being maybe going for an actual time - RRA record, beating an existing FKT.

Being in a race still provides a higher level of motivation - it's less of a solo pursuit, being 'watched' in any activity makes people perform better (generally, there's actual science on this, it's why things like 1to1 coaches in gyms are more effective than doing a program off a phone app).

So for those who don't race at the sharp end of the ultra races, what's the motivation compared to just going and riding at a later date?

For me and Cycliste, when we did TPBR, beating the couple who blatantly tried drafting us heading south from Bormio. And making the cut off time.

I've entered Three Peaks.
I think TCR places are unlikely and don't want to be left without anything.
Vienna to Nice. First parcours finishes at the Giau, then a couple of crosses of the Alps and a finish parcours from Ventoux to Nice.
Nearly all new for me, loads of climbing so need to get in better shape (and thinner shape!).
Let's hope it can run.

Thanks for the reminder, just did the same. Early bird registration closes at the 30th and looks like there are 17 spots left.
Lovely views when the weather is nice.

Lovely views when the weather is nice.

The second time I rode up the hellishly steep climb to the Tre Cime, the cloud descended and you could barely see your hand in front of your face at the refuge which the road goes up to. Thankfully it was a beautiful, clear day the first time I did it.

That's saved me some effort. Going to steal the bit to Nice and ride a load of it in reverse as I'm planning to finish the TNR route in France by riding to Orange or somewhere like that to get the train.

Cool.
I'd been watching the numbers of spaces click down, from 46 a couple of weeks ago, until Fomo kicked in.
The pictures look wonderful. Shame it will most likely be the middle of the night when I get there.