Hi Dave,
I'm doing the ride on a MTB but I stiffened the suspension and put on a set of 1.25" specialized nimbus tires with some grooves. So far so good.

Dave, I've done a ride longer than the RCC in a single sitting on a mtb with slicks. You most certainly can do the Ride with a mtb. Just get a good set of slicks (road-like tires for a mtb), firm up your suspension (if you can) and you're good to go.

You likely won't be at the front of the pack with the serious road riders, but that's perfectly ok too. :) Heck, depending on what my team is up to, I may even do it on my mtb this year ;)

You certainly can do it on an mtb!  For last year's ride I swapped my suspension fork for the rigid fork that came with the bike and ran 1.25" Kenda Kwest tires.  They're rated for 100 psi, which really cuts down on the rolling resistance.

-- Edited by JCP on Thursday 25th of March 2010 09:45:12 PM

i paid about 35 smackers per tire.... at bow cycle and its certainly worth it and will save your knees big time.

-- Edited by Jason on Thursday 25th of March 2010 11:30:51 PM

Dave,  You'll have no trouble on a mountain bike.  My daughter rode one, putting slicks on for the ride but leaving the grip tires on for training.  There were lots of mountain bikes out there!!  Good Luck. 

Hey Dave,


I'm pretty much reiterating what everyone else has already said. It is very much possible to do the Ride with a mountain bike. There was even a fellow with a reclined trike during the 2009 ride.

In all honesty, there were more people in our Med Tent who had road bikes than there were people with mountain bikes, trikes, or BMX bikes combined. Like Psycho_Mike had mentioned, if your shocks are too soft you'll waste a lot of energy. That being said, and I know we've all heard this hundreds of times, but... keep hydrating. However, do not drink just water. Always have some Gatorade, Powerade, Kool-Aide, or any other salty and sugary sports drink handy to keep your electrolyte levels up and to keep you from becoming ill with hyponatremia. If you so feel like it, you can buy electrolyte packets with which you mix into water - I do not have any experience with these so I cannot comment on the taste, but I have heard from other people that they either A) can flavour your water or; B) leave the taste of your water unaltered. All of these types of drinks or drink mixes can easily be packed away in a Camel Pak or still in their packets.

Also, it may be beneficial for you to have compression bandages/braces on your knees while riding to help reduce the stress on the joints.

Hope to see you out there, but hopefully not in the Med Tents! Good luck.

At MEC you can buy some tablets that will turn your water into flavored drink ...like gatorade ... with all the good stuff that your body will need and they don't taste half bad either... I don't like gatorade, I don't like the taste or should I say the after taste!  So just a thought ... MEC has chews and gummys and sharkies and gels and shots and lots to help us not get into trouble ... Just remember drink .. drink ... drink!!! and each some chews along the way!!!!
Tammy

Sharkies, Clif Blocks, Clif bars, power beans are all good for energy while riding and many of them also help with some of the electrolytes. Just get fluids in with the energy bars and gummies...I find they can be very dry otherwise. And don't litter ;)

If you're not a gator fan, Corries, there are some other options out there. The flavorless tablets are a good choice, as are some of the alternative drinks (i.e. Endurox and some of the similar endurance drink mixes at GNC and similar supplement stores). The alternative ones are pretty decent for recovery and/or endurance...but most of them have a protein component which gives them a different taste and texture, so they may not be much better.

Personally, I've found my own mix of juice, gator and Endurox (overall a bit lean/thin on the powders compared to label strength) with a bit of the tabs gives me enough flavor to encourage hydrating properly and decent electrolyte replacement without turning me off from any aftertastes. Of course, the mix and taste that works for me may not be what works for you :)

Nomo, where do you volunteer (vFF)?

Cool.

Myself, I'm an MFR (medical first responder....far more than SFA but not quite as far as EMR) and have been hanging out as a volunteer with St. John Ambulance for almost a full decade now. (Sheesh, has it really been that long?!?!!?!)

You may have met me last year....I was the guy silly enough to ride and volunteer with medical at the same time :) I'm packing a kit especially for the ride this time....last year all the gear (ride related and medical) ended up adding ~40lbs to the bike and made those hills nasty!

Yeah, the hills were interesting. Unfortunate about the passing-on-the-right thing...I hadn't heard about that one. I did hear about the day 1 incident with the impatient driver in Calgary clipping a rider as she tried to cut across the line. At least there was a cop right there and the rider only had a couple scratches from going down.

As for being older....I'm only in my mid-30's, so I'm not *that* old yet ;) I tried to stop in and say "hi" at all the posts, so I probably saw you...but as you say, there were a lot of folks at the event.