Ridley X-Trail Dk200 2017 report

So my goal of completing the Dk200 this year is complete. The event was Epic.  Condition were as good as I could ask for I suppose.  
Weather - 70's most of the day, low mid 80's when the sun popped out for a bit.  Cloud cover in the late afternoon. Winds were pretty light most of the day.
Conditions: roads were pretty well packed. Some sections were pretty rough/rocky.

Bike Report - main purpose of this post.

Bike - Ridley X-Trail C 30.
Changes I made to the stock bike:

• Bar and stem are Enve, Wheels Enve M50
• Shimano Ultegra Di2 group set.
• I added a rear saddle cage - dual.  Wife's Hair bands kept the bottles in place for 207 mi of the DK200. 4 bottles was a stretched to the max between sag 2-3 at 61 miles and the heat of the day.
• Tires: I ran a Kenda Flintridge Pro 40 tubeless up front.  Clement MSO xplor 36 (measure closer to 38) Tubeless in the back. Tried a Kenda 40 in the rear leading up to the race, it didn't have enough space IMHO.

I did a 30 mi pre-ride on the Friday before the race and checked everything out on the bike. All seemed well so I rested the remainder of the day and enjoyed Emporia's DK atmosphere.

Race Day - Bike performed perfectly.  Rider struggled from mile 135ish to the 164mi checkpoint. Inner quad cramps slowed my climbing pace.

Many sections of the 'roads' were rough exposed rock.  The 40mm up front took it all well and gave a little extra padding and control was never a problem.  Happy to report I had no flats or mechanical issues of any kind. (Met a guy the next day that had 10 flats!)  

Finish time was a little off my goal. I had to take longer than planned in checkpoint 3 due to the cramping.  Ended up missing the Race Against the Sun and came in at 9:20PM (15:20:02 officially - sunset was 8:45)

Dk200 is an incredibly challenging event.  Its a race against yourself more than a race against others. I did this one solo, no team members joined me for the event and I used the charity SAG support group. They did a great job!  

Next time, yes I'll look to do it gain, I hope to have teammates join the adventure and have team/family support in the SAGs.

Bike, I'll use the Ridely X-Trail  again, no question about it.

 

 

Congratulations!

Great job out there!  A most commendable achievement.  And thank you for representing well others of us riding the Ridley X-Trail.

I have a very similar bike.  I purchased a C30 w/Ultegra about 1 1/2 yrs ago.  I upgraded the wheels to DT Swiss XR 1501s and installed a SRAM 11-36 cassette.  I used that bike for the 2016 Belgian Waffle Ride@ 146 mi / 11,000'.  Over the Winter, I upgraded it to Di2 along w/some carbon bits.  And love it.  I used it for this year's BWR though I rode the shorter Waffle distance.  Great bike for the purpose.  We've got about 6 of them now in our team.  I run a variety of Schwalbe tires on it, depending on purpose, including the Pro-One @ 25 or 28 mm, the S-One @ 30mm and the G-One @35 mm.

CONGRATS!!!!!!!!! And thank you for the report and pics \n\n(Another very very happy ridley xtrail rider here ... got her this spring and while my multiple gravel 50's and one 102 don't really compare at all to 206 ... i am very happy with it...it's more capable than i am.)\n\nMine is stock carbon 2017... but for adding tubeless tires (clement mso 36's)\n\nAgain...thank your for the report and pics...and more importantly CONGRATS! \n\nNice riding!!!!!!!! Very nice!!!!\n\n((And way to go battling through the cramps...they can be a really throw ya for a loop physically and mentally...way to battle!!!!!))

Congrats as that is a huge accomplishment just in finishing and not to worry about the before sunset. Curious as to how the charity support crew works if you could comment on that some. Oh yeah what is your rider weight if you don't mind and what psi did you run up front and back. Newbie here and just had my bike tires made tubeless tonight.  

Thanks
Zman

Thanks for the congrats.  It is a fantastic event. Looks like 2018 may be harder to get into. Rumor of a lottery coming.

As to the support crew.  They were great!  You provide them 3 bags, one for each stop.  They bring them to the stops for you.  They also provide water (you provide your mix) They also had food, cold soda, cold Gatorade.  Chips, cookies, pickles etc also avail.  Their crew was great, spotted me before I came to a stop, the bag was to may before I was ready for it.  They filled my bottles while I got my food/garbage swapped out. first two stops I was in and out in under 15min as planned. 3rd, stayed 25+ trying to get the legs back. The next day, bags were available at 7AM.  Very easy to work with, would use it again if I cannot get a crew to travel with me.

As for tire pressure, I'm 6' 220lbs/100kg. I put 48, 50 rear.  Ran high to avoid burping a tire. Many of the downhills were very bumpy. Saw MANY riders flat/burp tires.