- This is a bike check and kit list
for that summer solstice longest day ride that I did.
So I'll let you know how I set the bike up for comfort
for those 15 hours I was on it for,
but also the kit I took and if I would change anything.
(electronics whoosh)
Let's start with the bike, and this is my Canyon Exceed,
the bike I've been riding actually quite a bit recently.
You might have seen it in the video
where we did race bike versus real bike with Blake.
So it's a carbon fiber 29er cross country bike.
I do feel like I wanted a super light, fast bike
for this challenge.
It's 100 miles off-road.
I've done 100 miles on-road fairly regularly,
probably did it 1/2 dozen times last year,
but I've never done it off-road.
I've got to say, it is actually quite a bit harder.
So I wanted to make sure the bike was gonna
be super fast, super lightweight.
So let's start with the things I've changed on this bike.
So I normally have some Cross Kings on here, the Conti's.
Got a fair bit of grip and they're fast,
but I thought I would go for the fastest rollin' tire.
That is the Race King, it's renowned for being super fast.
Obviously not as much grip as Cross King,
but it was absolutely fine for this ride.
Really glad I chose those.
I should pump them up quite hard as well,
'cause the route I rode is the South Downs Way.
It's pretty mellow, but there is a bit of flint in there,
there's a little bit of rock, so I didn't want
to risk pinch puncturing, so I put 'em up to about 40 PSI.
Again, that was absolutely fine.
Another thing I changed was the seatpost,
so I normally have a layback seatpost
and I've put a straight-up one on.
This is the Crankbrothers Cobalt 11 carbon post.
I just felt like I wanted to be as comfortable as possible,
so I didn't want to be stretched out,
so I just reduced my cockpit length a little bit.
Bar and stem's exactly the same.
Got a 90 mil stem on there and I've got
those cross-country bars, so that didn't change at all,
and to be honest, it's really just the tires
and the post that I changed for this ride.
You will see that I've added a few options as well.
So the actual additional things I added to the bike,
obviously you see the bags, things like lights, computer.
I was gonna ride 100 miles, I was hoping to keep
an average of about 10 miles an hour
so it would take me 10 hours,
so I'd need loads of stuff to buy for that long.
Actually it took me longer than that,
so I'm glad I took loads of stuff.
Two 500 mil bottles on this bike,
obviously I've got the mounts for two bottle cages.
I did drink a load through the day.
I filled them up as often as possible,
and actually, during the planning for the ride,
there's some good information about where
you could fill up on route, so I actually printed it out
and I put it on my top tube so I could just
keep an eye on my miles on my computer
and then refer back to this.
'Cause some of those places were a little bit hard to find.
I didn't want to miss one, 'cause sometimes it could be
an hour or two between those fill-ups,
so I made sure I kept on top of that.
You see one of these Topeak bottle cages has
also got a multi-tool mount on it.
So, that multi-tool has got everything I need pretty much
to save most occasions, so Allen keys up to an eight mil
in case cranks came loose or anything like that
and a chainsaw, super important.
I did put a really decent service in
on the bike before I went on this ride,
so I checked things like brake pads.
All those things were alright so I knew
that I shouldn't have too much to repair hopefully.
As long as everything went to plan.
And then also, on this other bottle cage,
'round this side of the bike, you see how
I've actually mounted my mini pump on there.
Again, just so I didn't have to carry anything
on my body, any backpacks, things like that.
Then you can see these two Topeak saddle bags,
pretty normal thing you see on a lot of bikes,
but also this is a bikepacking bag
underneath that top tube.
The bags, that's a Topeak Midloader.
They come in different sizes,
but that's the biggest one, a six liter.
It is kind of wedged in there,
it's probably a tiny bit too big,
but to be honest I wanted to get the biggest one,
just so I could chuck loads of stuff in there.
And that is the Wedge Drybag on the back,
so in the saddle bag I had a spare tube.
I had one of the Topeak Rescue Boxes,
so it's just got patches in there
just in case I have to put a tube in and then
that gets ruined.
And then in that Midloader I just had loads of stuff.
I had another spare tube and then I pretty much
just stuffed it full of bars, gels,
and actually as much normal food as I could carry,
so things like sausage rolls, beef jerky,
cereal bars to keep me goin'.
I wanted to be self-supported on this ride,
so everything I needed pretty much went in those bags.
I also carried a spare battery pack and some leads
in that Midloader so that I could recharge things
on my computer and my phone.
My computer is supposed to last 15 hours,
so I knew it would be (mumbles),
but I brought it along just to top things up.
I also had a selfie cam set up
that I could slide into there,
so when I was out in the middle of nowhere,
I could film myself doing stuff.
That's pretty much it.
That is a really good bag to be honest,
and I couldn't have lived without it for this ride.
I had lights on my bike from the start of the ride,
I actually had that Exposure TraceR on the rear,
and I left that on for the full ride, to be honest.
On the front, I've got an Exposure Diablo.
It's a pretty reasonable light, to be fair,
it's pretty bright, but I didn't actually need
that for seeing where I was going.
It was just a case of traffic,
'cause the first part of the ride was on-road,
but actually I took that off pretty quickly
and put it away in my bag just so I reduced
any risk of knocking it off the bars.
Then I've got a Wahoo ELEMNT,
so I used that for navigatin'.
I uploaded the GPX file to the screen,
and I had a couple of choices of screens on there,
so I can look at all my data,
things like heart rate, time of day, how far I've gone,
my power 'cause I've also got a power meter on this bike,
but to be honest, 99% of the ride I just had it
in the map screen, so all it told me was time of day,
how far I'd been, and then it just gave me
a row of arrows to follow, and to be honest,
I didn't really need the power and all that stuff so much.
I do have LEDs on the side of here
that show me if I'm goin' super high in the power,
so I just kept those LEDs quite low
just so it didn't burn out my legs.
But pretty simple.
Didn't really need the maps very much.
I did go off track a little bit a couple of times,
and if I didn't have that I would have had
to retrace a little bit, but to be honest,
it's pretty well signposted, that route.
I think for this sort of ride,
I think I've said it already actually,
but it's super important to be comfortable,
so I would definitely try and get out on your bike
with the setup you're gonna use,
and actually do some decent three, four hour rides
if you're lookin' at doin' a big day out.
I know this works for me, I've got the Ergon SME3 Saddle.
It's their Enduro Saddle but it just suits me,
and that's actually fine for me.
I've also got the GA1 Grips.
I would say possibly, if I was to do this again,
I'd go for the GA3s.
You know they've got that big pad on it
to rest your hand on there.
I did find that I was movin' my hands around a little bit
after six or eight hours of trying to get comfortable.
As far as back, shoulders, things like that,
I felt absolutely fine in this position on this bike.
I ride this bike as a two-by setup with a DI2.
I absolutely love it, especially for this ride.
It's lovely just having that one shifter
so I can just go around.
I definitely got my moneys worth
out of that front (mumbles) ride
I was in my lowest gears quite a lot.
Yes you could do this ride on a one by 12,
I'm not sure I'd want to do it on a one by 11,
but with an Eagle setup, you would
actually have a lower gear.
So at the moment, I've got a 38:40 on the rear,
so that gives me a gear ratio of 0.68,
whereas if I had a 32:50, an Eagle setup,
it's actually 0.64, so it is a lower gear,
of course you do have much bigger jumps between the gears.
However, on this two-by system,
I have a larger higher gear and I did actually use it.
I got up to 39 miles an hour on this bike on this ride,
so it's quite nice having a bigger gear.
If I was to change anything, well,
I'd be really picky about it to be honest,
but I really wouldn't, the bike's fine.
Yes, I could have updated the fork to a 32 Step-Cast,
but that's pretty unrealistic.
The bike is absolutely fine.
I did half think, if I repeat it would I do it
on a full-suspension bike?
Some of these cross country marathon full-suspension bikes
are super good, they're super efficient,
so I'd possibly do that, but to be honest,
it wasn't very uncomfortable.
Yeah, it was a little bit rough in places,
but a hard tail was absolutely fine.
But what about the kit that I wore?
(fingers snap)
Here it is, my normal cross country setup with a few tweaks.
Right, so starting off at the top,
the helmet is a POC Octal-X.
This is their full-on cross country helmet.
It's much like their road helmet, actually,
it's just more reinforced.
It's got loads of insulation, actually.
You can really feel it.
So it was a hot day I rode on, very nice to have that.
A lovely little bonus is for the sunglasses,
they're also POC's Crave.
But it's got this eye garage,
so these nice sticky sort of patches here.
So you can take your glasses off, turn 'em upside down,
and they'll sit in there and they're super secure.
So that's really handy, for when I started,
I was in the dark, but also there's loads
of tree sections on the road,
so my glasses were on and off all day.
I didn't feel them at all when they were off.
So, it was great to have eyewear.
Again, nice sunny day, definitely needed these on
also for bugs, things like that.
So the top is my GMBN soft cross country race top.
It's not super tight, it's nice and airy.
Had a base layer underneath
and I've got my heart rate monitor strap.
Again, it was pretty cold when I started off
first thing in the morning, so it was nice
to have that base layer and then I took it off midday.
I've got the nice little zip pocket on the back.
I actually kept a bar and a gel in that one.
Then I stuffed my pockets with my phone in one side,
a bar and a gel again, just so I can get
to them on the move.
Then in the other pocket, I had a card and some cash.
Underneath my baggies, I've got some really good bib shorts.
Now I know I banged on about these
in that video I did with Martin the other week,
about gettin' some really good quality ones,
but I've got some GCN Assos shorts,
so perk of the job there.
I absolutely love them.
I definitely wouldn't do anything
over four hour rides in cheap padded shorts.
Get some good ones, it makes a big difference.
Also thumbs up to Shammy Cream, so Sudocrem.
If you don't know what that is, Google that.
For a big ride, I can't recommend it enough.
Shoes, I've got these Northwave Outcross Knits.
So the great thing about these, is they're lace-up,
they're super comfortable, and they're really airy,
so all that knit, the air can just flow through them.
So in that midday sun, they were nice and cool,
absolutely love them, super comfortable.
Sun cream, now I was puttin' on sun cream
on my arms and legs at four o' clock in the morning,
in a multistory car park.
It wasn't very glamorous, but I would have been
absolutely burnt to crisps without it,
because in fact, I forgot my face and neck,
and I did get burnt, so definitely take some of that
if you've got a big ride in the sun.
I really wanted to do this ride
as an unsupported ride, however I had Liam filming.
That's not Liam (mumbles), that's Jack.
But Liam came with me with a van and an e-bike.
So he would sort of drive ahead and ride back in
to try and get some shots of me,
but also in the van, I kept a bag with things
I might need in case something went wrong,
like a spare tire, more spare tubes,
a bigger set of tools.
Luckily I didn't need any of those,
but I would say, if you're planning a big day out,
think about those emergency situations
where you might need someone to come and help.
So if someone's gonna meet you somewhere
with a bit of food and water or are you gonna rely
on having your phone to do that,
and then of course, make sure your phone
is gonna last the day.
There you go, that's the kit that I took.
Would I do anything differently?
Well nothing went wrong for me,
it was all good.
I could probably pack it a little bit lighter,
but I really liked having loads of food
stuffed in this thing, so I could just take my time,
and knew that I wasn't gonna get in a situation
where I was really tired, so I could just munch away.
Definitely preparation helps,
so I made sure I charged everything.
So computer, lights, gears, obviously I've got
a DI2 bike, they do last forever,
but I just charged everythin',
phone, spare battery pack for computer and phone.
A bit of preparation, checking the bike over.
Definitely helps.
I'd like to take someone with me next time.
I need to convince Blake to do a big ride with me,
I'm sure he's keen for it.
Although having said that, I do like doin' big solo rides,
to be honest, it's a nice big challenge,
but maybe a two day thing I'd drag Blake along.
That'd be a load of fun.
Leave your comments down below,
I'd love to hear about your longest rides, big days out.
I love a challenge myself, and this is probably
well, it is definitely the biggest day I've done
on a mountain bike.
So let us know.
I'd love to hear your stories.
If you wanna see the video about me doing this longest ride,
click up there for that one.
Give a thumbs up if you like these epic rides.