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Video: Dirty Reiver 2017

A long day out in the wilderness. Longer for some of us than others...

It's a long way from Bath, but four of the soft southerners from road.cc hot-footed it to Northumberland over the weekend to have a crack at the Dirty Reiver 200km gravel ride, starting from Kielder Castle.

And how did we get on? Well, you'll have to watch the video to find out. Mostly it's from Dave's perspective, because he was the one with the camera. But we all made it round, and we all learnt some things in the process. Mostly about tyres. Enjoy!

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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9 comments

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iUpham | 6 years ago
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Love the video guys. Well done on surviving!

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3mkru73 | 6 years ago
1 like

A brilliant day out. I'm glad I did the 130km, that was gruelling enough. That descent in open countryside on a rocks strewn track (before the tarmac section to the 100km feed station) was terrifying! There were two sweep riders at the top, one of which shouted as I passed them "nice bit of downhill now mate!". It was not nice. I'll be using suspension next year I reckon! Friend of mine was doing the 200km with Laufs and was fresh as a daisy at the finish.

Huge thank to the organisers, sponsors and volunteers. And the hug from Paul Errington at the 60km feed station. I'd missed all the cake!

 

 

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KiwiMike | 6 years ago
1 like

Great vid guys, captured the day perfectly.

...although, if you only have 10 seconds to spare, scrub forward to 5'30"...and imagine that going on. For hours. Eight hours, in my case...

 

.............

 

...interspersed with sections of between two and twenty minutes of moderately-terrifying descending, praying not to come a cropper on an unspotted inch-high wheel ridge down the centre of the road, as I saw two people do in close succession at the 66km mark, bloodied, ripped and shocked. I tell you, it sobers you up to the reality that you are a long, long way from help, even on a brilliantly-managed event like this. There's no mum's-taxi-pop-to-a-pub-and-call-the-spouse bailout here. Once you're in, you're in.

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twinklydave | 6 years ago
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A great day out (as always).

 

Bet it'd be PROPERLY hard if the weather was bad all day, but Saturday was glorious  1

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Jimthebikeguy.com | 6 years ago
1 like

I did it. Nearly killed me. The road.cc crew passed me twice - once in the car near swindon on the way up, and again at about 15k going like trains...

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Man of Lard | 6 years ago
6 likes

All those unguarded disc brakes though. How many participants & bystanders were killed or seriously injured that you're not telling us about?

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Al__S | 6 years ago
1 like

I'd suggest roadcc John should give this a go but he'd probably insist i went too...

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VonPinkhoffen replied to Al__S | 6 years ago
0 likes

Al__S wrote:

I'd suggest roadcc John should give this a go but he'd probably insist i went too...

Well, if you both do it, I could be persuaded... 

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only1redders | 6 years ago
0 likes

laugh

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