A good effort on a mountain bike

[Pale Rider]

I did some informal volunteering at the Durham Beast sportive at the weekend.

The ride is 52 miles and hilly.

Among the first riders to finish was a guy on a 29er mountain bike.

His time was about 2hrs 50m at an average speed of 18.6mph, which I reckon is a good effort on a mountain bike with knobbly tyres.

I offered a few words of congratulations and ventured he would be even faster on a road bike.

He said he is generally about 10 or 15 percent faster on a road bike, so would hope to crack 20mph doing the Beast on one.

Incidentally, 20mph would have made him first home because the guy who came in first averaged under 19mph.

I'm interested to read what others think of his time, particularly the hill monsters on here such as @Sea of vapours.

This strava link to the ride is a couple of years old, but it's the same route that was used at the weekend.

https://www.strava.com/routes/794299

 

[Globalti]

Did you drug test him?

 

[Pale Rider]

Did you drug test him?

No, but I can confirm there was no mechanical doping - he used a standard Marin 29er mountain bike.

 

[Sea of vapours]

That looks pretty quick to me. Based purely on elevation gain per distance, I'd average only about 15-16mph over that route (assumes that it's mostly 10% or so and not all 20% or something silly, which my limited knowledge of some of those roads suggests is true). The route's not overly far, so I /might/ get to 18mph if trying hard, though that's on a road bike. So, by my limited standards, yes, that's really rather rapid on a mountain bike!

 

[Big Dave laaa]

Hats off! Thats a ridiculous speed on a MTB on knobblies

 

[S-Express]

No, but I can confirm there was no mechanical doping - he used a standard Marin 29er mountain bike.

So you scanned his bike with a thermal imager?

 

[si_c]

Damn, that's really quite rapid.

 

[Pale Rider]

That looks pretty quick to me. Based purely on elevation gain per distance, I'd average only about 15-16mph over that route (assumes that it's mostly 10% or so and not all 20% or something silly, which my limited knowledge of some of those roads suggests is true). The route's not overly far, so I /might/ get to 18mph if trying hard, though that's on a road bike. So, by my limited standards, yes, that's really rather rapid on a mountain bike!

I've only ridden about half of the route, but I agree with your summary of it.

The nastiest climb is Iveston Bank, it's only about 450m long, but averages 10 per cent and peaks at more than 15.

Typically for that type of climb, it also has a couple of sharp turns with the left hander being the hardest because it pushes you towards the steepest bit unless you want to risk a collision with oncoming traffic.

You could have a go at it if we get to ride together on my patch.

Come to that we could have a go at the Beast.

On second thoughts, perhaps we couldn't, particularly if you are out to crack 18mph.

 

[Sea of vapours]

You could have a go at it if we get to ride together on my patch.

Come to that we could have a go at the Beast.

On second thoughts, perhaps we couldn't, particularly if you are out to crack 18mph.

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that I'd be out to crack 18mph! 'Maybe I could' and 'I want to try to' are very, very far apart. Pootling around that in about four hours seems considerably more appealing :-)

 

[Pale Rider]

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that I'd be out to crack 18mph! 'Maybe I could' and 'I want to try to' are very, very far apart. Pootling around that in about four hours seems considerably more appealing :-)

The Beast could be an option on those terms, although I think it would need to be car assisted to Durham because doing it direct from Sunderland/Washington would add about 30 miles.

Easy enough to incorporate Iveston on my suggested ride up the C2C: cut across to Iveston off the path, then down Lanchester Valley to Durham City and home.

That would be about 50 miles.

 

[Globalti]

I've just looked at the Strava thingy - that's 5,300 feet of climb!

Sorry to cast doubt but the route offers shortcuts in 7 or 8 places and it might just be possible that he, er, missed the route.

 

[Sea of vapours]

That latter option sounds better than having to get to Durham. Duly noted :-)

 

[Pale Rider]

I've just looked at the Strava thingy - that's 5,300 feet of climb!

Sorry to cast doubt but the route offers shortcuts in 7 or 8 places and it might just be possible that he, er, missed the route.

Fair point, although he arrived all but with the lead roadies, so I reckon one of them might have noticed him peel off on the route or appear later out of nowhere.

They were chatting in admiring tones about his ride at the end, and I heard no mention of underhand tactics.

There was some grumbling about the 'winner' for refusing to do his turn on the road then blasting off into the distance with a couple of miles to go.

 

[ColinJ]

That does sound ridiculously fast on a mountain bike with knobblies!

I once rode from Hebden Bridge on the A646 to a bike shop in Padiham on my mountain bike and back again afterwards. That is a round trip of about 35 miles on an ok-ish road surface and with only modest hills. It felt about as hard as 60-70 miles on my road bike and I was going at 2/3 the speed.

I was feeling good doing 20 mph on my road bike once when a woman on a knobbly-tyred mountain bike overtook me doing about 30 mph! I felt a bit better about it when I found out that it was local Olympian Deb Murrell ...

 

[screenman]

I always average over 16mph on the 29er I would say it is about 1mph faster than the MTB and about 2mph slower than the road bike.