I had this grand road trip plan that would take up all of September and finish off my savings; then I’d settle down and get job hunting and moving on with the next stage of my life. The plan was along the lines of Kielder 100 (helping now rather than racing due to injury); bit of time round Scotland; to Wales for a MTB trip with some Uni friends and then round Ireland.
Well during the planning stages, I had my ferry tickets booked for Ireland, then went to sort out my car insurance. Ah – well car insurance people tell me I’m not allowed abroad anymore this year…and I can’t afford a new policy, so I had to cancel my non-refundable ferry tickets. Oh well, change plans to a bit more of Scotland, Wales and England then.
Soo, this is what actually happened….
Kielder 100
Firstly I fiddled about with the car a bit, strategically unbolting some of my rear seats in my car and a bit of crafty packing allows me to sleep comfortably-ish in my car as well as have camping kit, a MTB and road bike inside, although sleeping in a tent would be more comfortable. Loaded the car up and drove up to lboro to break the journey up, testing some various android sat nav applications on routes I knew….decided I still prefer using paper maps! Anyway, crashed a night round Harry’s in lboro, collected all my final year coursework, caught up with a few friends and even managed a little pedal.
I then set off mid afternoon towards Kielder water, planning the scenic route across the penines. Absolutely gorgeous roads, could see for miles around and very little other traffic about and good fun most of the way to Kielder castle. Weather immediately turned damp here. Anyway, I managed to upgrade myself to being a tail end charlie which involved riding the first 1/3rd of the course, getting soaked through because I’d forgotten my decent riding waterproof. On plus side, it would appear I did 33 miles (admittedly very slowly due to all the people we stopped and helped at the back of the ride) without my knee giving me much grief – bonus! Spent the rest of the day marshalling and various other tasks I could help with. Woke up the next day to glorious sunshine, and er decided to head back the scenic route as to allow my knee to rest and my bike needed some TLC (namely brake pads and it should really do with some new gear cables), and the weather forecast looked grim, so I headed back home. My mind wasn’t all there, factor in poor weather and not a fully working body, I decided I’d be happier doing a few little projects and things. It was also pretty expensive given I’d paid an entry fee to help out!
Wales Trip
A week (well 3 days) at home sorting out my bike…2010 Sram X9 shifters can spring apart easily if you’re not careful and they’re very very fiddly to put back together again! Anyway friday afternoon I packed the car quickly and had a nightmare journey driving to Corris in Wales…I remember last time I did the journey was late friday night after work and I did it a couple of hours quicker than google maps suggested, this time it took about the same time as google maps suggested and that is pain-stakingly-slow. Still arrived in time to do a lap to cli-mach-x which I did with Henry…it would appear my MTB skills and pace are very rusty as I couldn’t stick with him downhill and I had a pretty big stack…
Weekend was quite good, riding with friends mostly at coed-y-brenin and the weather held out and was good (for Wales standards). I was obviously lacking fitness from a while off the bike and struggled to keep up with the pace uphill, but I remembered how to ride down again, and using the full sus on my trek to allow me to start getting air to miss big rocks that slow progress and remember to be happy with the bike sliding around under you. A friend made a pretty cool video of the weekend which is on facebook…I might stick it on youtube later (shhh!). Anyway, started to get my riding mojo back just need to take it easy to not injure myself too soon. Didn’t take too many photos due to it being a bit wet.
I drove back with Mike Ayles and crashed in Swansea for a night, did a VO2 max test, popped in on a friend in Chippenham and had a late night M25 run which was clear back home.
And The Rest…
With savings dwindling and the need to get a job, I’ve sat down and started job hunting whilst also trying to get my body working again. This has had ups and downs as I mis-judge how well my body is doing (e.g. managed a 72 mile ride without muscles complaining at all but a week later a gentler smaller ride made the knee complain); but on the whole progress is positive if a little slow and hap-hazard. I’ve now stepped back a gear and taking it very slowly to make sure I fix my body properly…knees are poorly designed!
In the meantime I’ve got lots of little bike projects to do, like unsticking my seatpost, get a job and generally sort out my life! Most of my time is being taken up fixing my body and job hunting, but I’ve spent time not riding with my friend Andy doing a bit of Kayaking (Did I mention he’s got a lotus elise too).
And as a side note, you can see my September photo gallery here, here and here!
I finished University way back in June. Straight after it was a whirlwind of doing lots of little and large things that had been planned after exams. I went to Mountain Mayhem, had a crack at the three peaks challenge, moved all my stuff out of uni which involved some big miles in a crappy hire van, and went on a week long trip to the Alps, where I blew my knee up due to big miles after doing not many miles – more fool me.
After all this, a bit of time to settle down and think about what I want to do next in life. I’ve finished university (there’s an amazing set of mixed emotions that anyone who’s been to uni can relate to), I’ve got a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering and I’m no longer tied into my company that sponsored me due to the economic recession, so I’ve had a bit of time to think and plan. I’ve also been doing lots of little projects and things too – more on that later.
After much thought, this is my next step in life. I’ve planned a month long road trip with the remains of my savings – I’ve never really given myself the chance to do any kind of travelling, and this is one of the only chances I’ll have to go travelling having finished uni but not started in the real world of work yet; and I’ll regret it if I don’t. I’m going up to Scotland firstly, helping out Marshalling at the Kielder 100 (was going to race, but my body isn’t in the same state of working-ness it was 6 months ago), road trip/ recovery ride round Scotland, then down to Wales for a MTB trip with some uni friends, a ferry across to Ireland which I’ll go round for a couple of weeks. A tent, 2 bikes, hiking equipment and a travel guide should keep me smiling for september. After this, I plan to get my head down and hunt for a job and join the real world, but I’m not going to jump at the first thing that is offered, I have the opportunity to hunt for something I want to do and forge a career path where I want to as opposed to get a job because I need one to survive – I’m actually in an incredibly fortunate position.
Little Things:
And here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve been doing since I’ve got back from the Alps.
Grad Ball, Graduation and a final weekend in Loughborough (more here, here and here). A great weekend, catching up with good friends, an enjoyable Grad Ball and formally got my degree certificate!
Been doing lots of boring things like unpacking and organising all my life’s possessions, including ebaying and getting rid of lots of items, also had a chance to go kayaking with Andy which was good fun but pretty tiring using muscles I’m really not used to using! Photo’s here.
The other cool little project I’ve been getting on with is making my winter steel framed singlespeed bike discbrake compatible by brazing on a disc mount. I’ve got a more detailed write up about the brazing here, and the painting here. Either way, I’m well chuffed with the outcome and looking forward to riding the bike again once I get my body sorted and the rest of the bike sorted!
Other nerdy little things I’ve got up to include getting a site visit round the local Abberton Reservoir raising project, taking apart an internal hub gear, fitting my new 2012 XT brakes to my Trek, improving the insulation on my coolbox and installing my griffing tape thingy into my car without messy wires!
Hopefully my next post on here will be full of roadtrip photos!
The opportunity to catch up on some much missed out months of training in the wonderfully scenic French Alps arose, so I jumped at the chance, especially as I’d never been before.
The trip was planned that we’d stay at Chalet La Giettaz not far from the Col de Aravis (1498m) between the 9th-16th of July. A group made up of 3 lboro uni students, 3 cambridge uni students and Dave’s mate known through racing in Belgium planned on making the trip to the Alps for a week of riding. I was given the task of transporting myself and two others down to the Alps…this almost didn’t happen as when I did a quick service on my car I found I had a rather sticky brake and despite bleeding them, new pads and discs and cleaning up the piston…I had to pretty much wing it and try not to use the brakes much to avoid overheating, especially as I had no breakdown cover (I did have some tools and spare brake pads with me!). I would like to note, the brakes did work and were road worthy, they could just overheat quite easily if used in anger!
Day One – the journey!
A 660 mile journey later, with terrible traffic on the M25 and M20, a midnight ferry crossing with screaming children, and hours spent on the Peage at 85mph for many continuous hours, we eventually arrived at the Chalet. Using pretty much engine braking only in a bid to avoid touching the brakes made for an interesting trip round the Alpine windy hairpin roads. I then immediately crashed on my bed for a snooze, whilst everyone else arrived, unpacked and went for a gentle spin. I caught up on sleep and assembled my bike! I had managed to through digging around my numerous amount of spare bike parts find a compact chainset for the trip – a much needed item for the Alps for me anyway.
Day Two – 80 Miles and 4,600 metres of climbing. Garmin Connect
Day One was a killer day as planned by Dave, taking in the Col des Saisies (1650m) twice, Col du Pré (1703m) and Cormet de Roselend (1967m). We were out on the bike for 7 and half hours, I had a riding time of 6hours 30 with my heart rate bouncing off threshold for most of it. A shock to the system, but amazing scenery, incredibly hard riding, but amazing descents where passing cars was the norm. I was incredibly glad I’d fitted a compact chainset, and despite not much proper riding done recently, my legs held out. Many euros were spent at the top of a few Cols as I was spent and needed refuelling, and the sauna and hottub at the chalet was welcome relaxation. More photos here.
Day Three – 32 miles, 1850metres climbing. Garmin Connect
This was the “easy” day, but riding in the Alps simply isn’t! To be fair, it was a lovely day, spent 2 hours 30 minutes riding time and climbed the col des aravis twice and the col de la croix fry (1477m). Scenery was lovely, ride time felt good, weather was scorching and it was just generally good.I remember an interesting descent when my chain wrapped itself very oddly round my chainring due to running the front mech where it should be for man gears rather than the compact, didn’t crash, so it’s all good!
Another long day planned with the route to follow shoved on the garmin (love the courses feature!). This was probably the most brutal day, taking in twice the Col de la Colombière (1618m) and the Romme. First time up the Col de la Colombière was quite nice, with sections of flattish bits (i.e. 2% gradients!) up the climb to recover and spin the legs out whilst making your way up. Stop at the top (Dave attacked this climb and put well over 30 minutes into me!) and then down the other side (faaast descent with gravel in places – sharpens the old skills!). We then climbed up the Romme which was pretty much over a 10% climb the whole way…it was totally brutal. Made it to the top of that, back down, up the Colombière where I blew spectacularly and then crawled back to the chalet having to stop a fair few times! My knees were in tatters, and it was scorching.
Day Five – Rest Day!
After 3 fairly brutal days of riding, a rest day was planned. There was no way I was going to be able to manage another days riding without rest. My knee was hurting massively too, we needed to pop to the supermarket to get some food supplies, and beings as I was the only person with a car on the trip, I had to drive…changing gear hurt as I had to use the clutch pedal – combine this with the fact I had to constantly change gear on the winding alpine roads and not use the brakes, it made my knee hurt a lot! Lots of rest, stretching and time spent in the sauna and hot tub occured. We tried to pop down to the village, but everywhere was shut at lunch time, and we got soaked in the process – a wise day to choose a rest day as the weather was a tropical rainstorm!
Day Six – Intervals…and a Time Trial
Well the plan was to do some intervals up the Col de Aravis and in the evening a Time Trial. Turns out I started riding out, and my knee was just giving me grief, so putting in top end efforts would be a bad idea. So I thought instead I would do a gentle pootle and see how it faired…not very well it would seem – so I headed back to the Chalet, tidied it up and made dinner for everyone. Lots of stretching and easing of the knee… Below are some photos of everyone killing themself on the time trial. It also happened to be Bastille Day, we saw some fireworks from the Chalet!
Day Seven – Big Miles Day
Not a lot to say really – knee was still playing up, so whilst seeing how it faired and gentle riding, I turned round before committing to a 60 mile ride in the Alps. I did a little local exploring on the bicycle, then headed out in the car, drove through the nearby toursity bit which to be fair was rubbish as it was full of people, but saw some nice scenery, and had an empty bit of alpine road for a little hoon!
Day Eight – RoadTrip back
Looking at our kitty put together for fuel and peage charges…we quickly worked out that the peage costs a lot of money and it wasn’t affordable to drive to dunkirk via the peage. So instead using the borrowed tom tom and the internet, a convoluted route through five countries whilst dropping of George at Geneva Airport was planned. We left everyone and said goodbye and by the time I made it back home again, I’d been on the road 24 hours (bar the little nap at the ferry terminal!). It was more interesting and scenic than the peage back…but at night we were on rubbish motorway – it was thundering down with rain, and with summer slick tyre treads, a waterlogged motorway, Belgain drivers, can’t see the lane markings and headlights useless due to headlight deflectors; it was incredibly high concentration driving!
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Overall, an amazing trip with stunning scenery. Things to do when I get back are to fix my body, fix the car (new disc, new pads, new brake hoses, a caliper rebuild and brake fluid flush have fixed the brakes and they’re now sweeet as!) and start planning to do it again next year as it’s going to be an annual thing apparently! If I were to do it again, I think I might plan a bit of sightseeing, MTBing and maybe not do the journey in one go – but we’ll see! I’d recommend the Alps to anyone, and planning it all yourself, riding up the climbs yourself makes it so much more rewarding than just going on a sightseeing tour you picked out of a brochure.
Fast forward one week (and a massive night out) later and the 24th-25th of June was the weekend I’d planned to do the 3 peaks challenge with Shep and a few of his friends who had organised it.
Basically the plan was to climb Ben Nevis in Scotland first, followed by Scafell Pike in the Lake’s, finishing off at Snowdon in Wales, obviously with a fair amount of driving between them. It’d been a long while since I’d done any walking, but my fitness was ok, and I had decent enough equipment to cope with summer walking. I even planned on doing a GPS log of the whole route.
So on Friday the 24th of June, the group (Shep, Me, Pete, Loz, Greg, Tobes, Ol and Irish Dave), we got in two cars and rolled down the motorway to Fort William. Come 5pm ish we were parked up outside the Youth Hostel at the base of Ben Nevis, and proceeded to walk up Nevis. The group seggregated a bit, and there was a huge number of other people walking up Nevis at the same time, I almost got poked in the face many times by people with walking poles. Cardio wise I felt fine, especially compared to lots of others who seemed to be breathing hard, and myself and shep reached the top relatively quickly (about 30 mins quicker than the rest of the group!), once the rest of the group got to the top, we shimmied back down. I then made a bit of a silly mistake as I carried on along the main path and walked all the way back to the visitor centre, as opposed to walking back to the Youth Hostel which felt like too much of a shortcut on the way down! So after an extended walk I made it back to the car at about the same time as everyone else…
Now in terms of photos, I got a lot climbing Nevis, and not a lot for the others due to the weather! Anyway, after Nevis, weather was still good and we all hopped in the cars and started the drive down to Scafell Pike, which considering we were running against the clock was surprisingly relaxed and on the single carriageway road I distinctly remember a minibus full of people overtaking us…
We arrived at Scafell Pike around 3am I seem to remember, and it was hammering it down with rain. Still, we got our waterproof’s on (I don’t have any waterproof trousers worth wearing so all I had was a decent waterproof coat.) and headtorches on as it was still dark, my exposure joystick might have been a little overkill, but still I had plenty of light! Walking up Scafell was distinctly rocky, and wet. About 2/3rds of the way to the summit Irish Dave had been struggling and turned back, I felt fairly good but my knee was giving me grief and the last rocky scramble/walk (one or the other would have been fine, but walking over pointy rocks was a bit painful) and the descent took me ages due to basically my knees stopping working…this is what happens when you don’t do much walking practice…and every single half decent length walk such as my Gold DofE, my knees have pretty much given in. Also, it would appear I managed to waterlog my phone on Scafell Pike, so the GPS logging stopped here, and my phone didn’t work either!
Back at the car and we all crammed in, taking off as much wet kit as possible. My boots were waterlogged as my trousers had shot all the water into them..still my feet seemed ok. My legs were in agony, only walking on gradients wasn’t brilliant, I should have had some walking poles, do some stretching between legs, but this is all a bit difficult to do whilst in the car. Another long drive later we arrive at Snowdon, with doubt in my mind as to whether I should do the walk at all. I put my kit on with the idea that perhaps my knee/s (and hip) might ease off with a bit of gentle walking, and providing I’m careful, I should be able to make it to the top as there was just about enough time.
Weather wise it was pretty misty up Snowdon and I couldn’t really see a view, also steep hobbling was problematic. I think I made it about 2/3rds of the way up the path before I decided I should turn back as it was getting pretty silly and I’d miss the time deadline anyway. The view was rubbish anyway, so I wasn’t missing out on that, and so Snowdon would have to be something I’d save for another day. It was agony getting back down Snowdon and was about 3 times as slow and painful descending as ascending…must do something about this.
Back at the base of Snowdon I had a lovely warm soup of the day, waited not long for the others to arrive…and that was the end of the three peaks challenge. I didn’t quite make it all, but I had a shallow attempt. If I get round to fixing my knees, I should be able to do this. In fact, a set of decent knee supports, fitness was fine – just lacking strength in certain muscle groups, some walking poles, and some faster driving, the 3 peaks challenge is game on! I reckon I could even get a half decent time solo attempt providing I had the funds!
Photos below show the aftermath – a nice pub meal, lovely views at the campsite, early morning breakfast, and me rescuing my waterlogged phone. I managed to sort my phone (notification LED is broken..) and recover the GPS log from it, up until the phone got waterlogged on scafell – you can download the kml file (Google Earth) here.
I’ll have to at some point climb Snowdon in nice weather and make it to the top, then I’ll have at least made it to all the three peaks, just not necessarily within 24 hours.
OK, I’m a bit behind on the old blog front…best play catchup then! Mountain Mayhem was on the 18th-19th of June…
This year Loughborough’s term finished a week later than normal, meaning that scraping a team together for Mayhem was going to be a challenge as most people at uni would be having exams. As a finalist I gambled on not having any exams in the last week of term and set about scraping a team together…bring in some old skool lufbra and boom a team of ten was formed, perfect.
Now due to being a finalist, I’ve really done bugger all riding, and my shiny carbon race bike hadn’t been touched in ages. I didn’t really have time to sort it out in time for Mayhem, and I didn’t want to ride it if Mayhem turned into the mud bath that it had been in previous years if it rained cats and dogs…so I ended up taking my winter rigid singlespeed, which needed new brake cables otherwise the brakes didn’t work. Ho humm, packed the car, picked up Ben and set off…arriving sometime friday evening, and eventually managing to setup my event shelter away from the main campsite which was rammed full and at the start of Kenda climb. This turned out to be brilliant trackside viewing and great to give people cheers. The team of 10 wasn’t really planning on being competitive, it was just going to be a bit of fun. Enter the team “Lufbra old skool gringo’s” although we missed out on fancy dress although Gibber wore a big hat and Ben dressed his bike up as a horse at one point. The team of ten also ended up being a team of 8 (shh, we sneaked all the transponders round!) made up of myself, Ben Oggles, Trials Bike Rider Andy Walker and old skoolers Gibber, Nick P, Chloe, Anna and Fian! We also had camping with us a mixed team of 5 made up of Shep, Josh, DVL, Nath and Kate.
Now after pitching the tent in wet conditions, wondering round the site at night, and some sleep, it seemed that having mud tyres, a spare skinny tyre and Ben on his tiny little tyres was going to be the correct choice when the course all get churned up. Fast forward to Ben ending up accidentally volunteering to do the run and Mountain Mayhem 2011 started 2 hours earlier than usual, and on a course that is longer than normal. We had a fairly organised order to go by, and we put in some casual laps in order. In between I drank beer, caught up with a few friends, heckled everyone going up Kenda climb and took a few photos – also got in a fair amount of sleep and some decent meals. Turns out the weather gods were being nice and the course stayed fairly alright all the way through, however a few months off from riding and riding singlespeed was effort, I quickly ditched my 32-16 and put a 32-17 onto my bike..I was also putting in 1hour10 lap times I seem to remember, which is about 10 mins slower than ben and about 25 mins slower than the fast guys round the track! Turns out bike choice and not riding was not a great plan, still I only stacked it once on the first lap on the first corner when I wasn’t concentrating!
So another mountain mayhem complete, a few friends on the podium and a very casual enjoyable time, we headed home. That’s every mountain mayhem since 2008 taken part in, I think next year we might try and be competitive again in a real category! Our team of 10 finished 8 out of ermm 35 or so teams I think, and our team of 5 missed out on the podium coming 4th. Slightly annoyingly is that this year the podium gave proper prizes and a full podium to the team of 10, where last year we obliterated the category and won a crappy plastic trophy (which I think was fair given it’s a team of 10) and the university category which we’ve won before got prizes and we didn’t even get a mention when we won it. Oh well, we don’t go to these events to podium hunt, we’re there for the riding!
A few more photos I took can be viewed here and here.
I hadn’t been riding much in May as I really needed to get work done, the joys of final year at university. So pretty much the rest of the month after Enduro 6 was spent flat out doing coursework, mostly my final year project to be fair. I still somehow managed to help at 24 hours of exposure, went Go Karting, the AU Ball and had a dabble at a few road events… That said, I didn’t actually do any real riding, so my fitness has taken a ridiculous turn for the worst!
24 Hrs of Exposure (7th-8th May)
Several months back I agreed to help a few friends out as a pit bitch at the UK national 24 hours solo champs, a hard task. So on the weekend of the 7th-8th of May I headed down on a crowded M6 with a boot full of everyone’s kit and my event shelter and camping kit. I say the journey was rubbish, it was quite good once I hit scotland and really enjoyed the twisty little roads!
I found Phil, Sam, Dave, Mike and Matt who were all taking part in the event (Mike and Matt doing 12 hours), all the big names were at this event, and I have to say it was one of the best organised and friendly events I’ve ever been to. Without blabbering on too much, I spent my time camped out under my event shelter, feeding Phil, Sam, Dave, Mike and Matt, cleaning bikes, on my laptop doing my final year project, and cheering on riders – it was over 24 hours a very close run race with Matt Page pulling out an amazing win, but it was amazing to see the grit and determination of all the riders going round for a full 24 hours. I took a few photos which can be found here.
Karting (11th May)
I had an opportunity through a course mate to have a go at karting round wilton mill kart track with lufbra kart club. Being a bit of a petrolhead and in need of a break – this seemed like a brilliant idea! I’ve never really been karting before, and going near the end of year with a group or regular karters was a bit daunting, but I got stuck in anyway. I qualified in group 3 of 4 just (so I was at about 75% level) – so it was nice not to be last, and every lap I did in qualifying (a whole 4 or 5 I think!) I was learning what I could do, the track and pushing the kart harder and harder each time – great fun. In the actual race, I started at the back of the grid, and straight off even made a few cheeky overtaking manoeuvres. I didn’t realise however what cold tyres did – i.e. didn’t grip, so spun the kart a couple of times – and it was all alien to me as to why the kart wasn’t behaving like it was earlier…I still managed to point the kart in the right direction once it spun – and a couple of laps later the tyres were warm and I got on the prowl. I started position 15, didn’t get overtaken once and ended up 7th – I loved overtaking, and 2 more laps I would have ended up 5th. I had a brilliant time, and if I had the cash I’m pretty sure I could see me doing a lot of motorsport photos here
AU Ball (16th May)
The AU Ball was a brilliant night. I literally was finishing printing and binding my final year project as I got ready for the Ball, and made it just in time. The relief of having finished my project and then a posh night out with a large set of friends was just brilliant. The venue was the Leicester Tigers stadium, transport provided via racing double decker buses! More photos here and here.
Campus Crit + My First 10TT
So having not ridden my bike in about a month, I decided I should have a go again seeings as I had entered the Loughborough University Campus Crit. So the tuesday before the campus crit on the 28th May, I rode over with some friends to Mallory Park about 16 miles away. Just the casual ride there almost killed me, then the category 3/4/W Crit race also killed me – I managed a whole ermm 45 minutes before I got dropped, and pretty much keeled over with exhaustion and an average heart rate of 186bpm! The problem being lack of fitness, and not really being able to give any kind of speed to catch up with the group as it kicks out over the hairpin bend…so this added to my lack of speed, endurance and general riding – see the garmin log...
So, nevertheless I joined in with the Loughborough uni Campus Crit support race 3/4. As a student knowing the campus quite well, I was looking forward to it, and hoping my local knowledge of how to ride the bends, the speed bumps and hoping I could recover from the short sharp uphill on the descent. Actually, as the race panned out, I actually just blew up after 10 minutes with an ermm average heart rate of 197bpm if you see the garmin log...oops! Still, this gave me time to pop back home, have a shower, get changed and come back to watch the finish of the 3/4 race and watch the whole E/1/2 race. Photos here.
Three days later on the 31st of May, a few of us from LSCC headed out to the local 10TT. This was a great fun local event, totally relaxed and no pressure for certain times. There weren’t however any signs, so I spent 5 mins looking at the map to work out where to go when attempting 10 miles flat out. After very little riding for a considerable amount of time, I wasn’t sure what time I’d end up doing… I managed a 26:22 which given how i’ve been I was quite happy with, although phil on his cross bike beat me by 3 seconds. Apparently if I’d taken my MTB peak off and shaved my legs I would have saved 4 seconds! Garmin log here and some photo’s here.
So that’s what I got up to in May…June is the time for exams – and then the end of Uni looms, scary times!
In summary 2 hours of good riding; 30 mins suffering; 1 hour in the pits / getting body mended, 2 hours 30 mins of limping round the course.
Being a bit overrun with coursework at the moment, riding/training and preperation for this race were not at the forefront of my mind…Packing occurred only on the morning of the race – at 0700 in the morning, having not touched my bike since racing at Dalby Forest 2 weeks ago! Still, I’m not one to take life too seriously, so after picking up Ben who came along for navigational / heckling duties; we raced down to Catton Park, registered (I got race number 69 – snigger!) and I set about building my bike/sorting it out. Then also came the realisation that the parc ferme pit area actually means coming off the course (I thought originally the pit sections were along the side of the course, so you could simply stop and carry on), so would add easily a minute to your lap time…feeding/lap strategy had to change!
About 0900 friends and people I knew started to arrive, I’d managed to get Matt to pit bitch for me, so that would help me along a bit. Anyway, race time start was 1000 – and is a Le Man start…so 800metres of running to the bike (which as I can’t run, wasn’t really something I looked forward too). I ran round with Ed D also from LSCC, and when we reached the pit to collect our bikes, we parted company. I hopped on the bike, and started riding round, remembering that I had 6 hours of riding to do.
So, the course was very catton park like, lots of bumpy fieldy bits (including an incredibly bumpy bit which was ridiculous…I mean ridiculous), a few open bits which were windy, a couple of bombholes, some loose stuff, and some twisty stuff (I loved the twisty stuff, I really got in a flow//rhythm, concentrating on being smooth and rode them pretty well ). The bumpy stuff really involved having some core muscle strength if you were on a hardtail, fortunately I’ve been working on that, and having the carbon bike has made a difference to me compared to my old solid aluminium bike I used to ride! Anyway, I put in some nice lap times, and felt good and went into the pit after 3 laps of riding (about 1 hour 40 I think), mistake 1 – I couldn’t find my pit…found it, got a new bottle, ate a bit of food, and went on my way. 4th lap was then good again, then on my 5th lap, for some reason my core strength just died and every single bump started hurting. Also, my left leg hamstring started to pull – not cramp, but pulled as in the same way/place I tore it about 9 months ago. Due to this, the 5th lap pace backed down a bit for the last half, and I limped into the pit. 10 mins of stretching and resting later, Matt helping with this, I decided to do another lap – veery steady and slowly putting as little strain on me as possible – I was now out of the running for a decent position, but I’m never one to quit…nor did I want to make my injury worse. This 6th lap was horrible, going from being overtaken only occasionally by pro’s to feeling like your the slowest person on the course was horrible….and the muscle was hurting, I had to get off for a tiny little climb because my leg had no power and I didn’t want to risk damaging it – and then discovered I could barely walk. I limped back to the pit and seriously considered quitting; after all quitting whilst you’re ahead isn’t the same as quitting; damage minimisation and all that.
Decision was made to see the massage people, I got some good advice and a really good massage on my I have been informed hamstring but around my knee. Consensus was that I had probably just pulled it, and if I took it steady and carefully out there, I shouldn’t do any lasting damage, but be very careful, seated climbing and no explosive movements. Massage and information was very good, I appreciated it, and they understand that we’ve come there to ride. So after about an hour in the pits, I got back on my bike to limp round for another 2 and a bit hours. I managed to put in 3 laps at a snails pace to finish it off, core hurting and basically having done it all wrong. Still, a finish is a finish, and I came 57th out of 120, so still top half of the field – mostly due to the 4 good laps I put in I reckon.
Thanks to everyone else who helped out, Matt for Pit bitching, Ben + Phill for heckling and mentions to all the riders who did well, fellow LSCC riders Ed D who solo’d and must have done a couple more laps than me and Harry+Chris Irlam who put in a decent male pairs effort being I think finished as the top non pro/elite pair in the category.
Here’s some photos that Ben took..I would have struggled to take any whilst I was riding!
I’ve done the Builth MTB Marathon 3 times now, the first time I was pretty new to all this MTBing and only just managed to complete the 75km on the sunday, last year was pretty good where I raced the night marathon finishing 17th out of 200+ and pottered round the day marathon finishing it in just over 4 hours. This year I wanted to do it, but wasn’t 100% sure if I could afford to make it, the offer of a lift from some friends meant it was game on and we made our way west on Saturday the 9th April, with the plan to do the night marathon pretty quickly/race pace and then to potter round the day one just like last year. So 44km in the dark saturday night, 75km the following morning – game on!
1930 saturday evening came around pretty quickly, I lined up amongst the lufbra old skool and by the time it eventually got dark enough, we headed down the road behind the pace car, we were pretty tightly packed and I was in the front group, and I spotted a fair number of pro riders, more than last year, so bettering 17th was going to be tough. Nevertheless the moment we peeled onto the off road and the first climb, somehow through sheer fluke I shot round the outside of everyone by outbraking them and entered the climb in the top 10…for about 15 seconds I was even in front of Matt Page -> I knew this was bad so I backed my pace down a bit and sort of started trying to settle into a rhythmn. It was interesting, and up the first climb a few people passed me, but weren’t getting away, then the moment the course went downhill, I flew past them and started catching the next group ahead…this pattern happened a couple of times until I snuck in a good rhythmn with fellow lufbra’ite Shep, he was working harder than me on the climbs but keeping the same pace, and we worked well together on the road. Then about 20 miles in, along a draggy section of grass slight climb, I thought I had a slow puncture, but then again the grass makes you feel like you do, but then I got caught again by Shep and another rider who I’d been gradually gapping, confirmed I had a squidgy rear tyre, then about 2 minutes later I felt my wheel rim bottom out. I found a massive thorn in my tyre (which I think I must have caught when I deviated off course earlier on following another rider down a descent earlier on)…a quickish tube change later, and I was on my way again…but it still felt squidgy and was being a nightmare to handle, then I felt the rim again. Bugger, I’d only brought one tube with me, I think I must have not put enough air in the tube and therefore pinched it when trying to play catchup. A kind soul riding through gave me his innertube (much indebted to him) and by the time I was ready to go again, Josh and Dave (more lufbra old skool) had caught up; so I rode back casually with them, I was out of race points by then.
So that was a bit frustrating, but at least it was warm and still fairly enjoyable riding back with friends. I found out shep finished 19th, and I’m confident I would have finished with Shep, oh well. Garmin log here.
Waking up Sunday morning, it was beautiful. 75km here we come… A quick swap of numberboards, some breakfast and then off to lineup with a couple of thousand people doing 25, 50 or 75km. My loughborough uni friends who I’d come up with were all quite organised and shot off to the start line, I casually rocked up with the old skoolers who were going to take it easy. In brief, I pootled along for the first hour with Shep, Josh and Dave+Kate whenever we stopped for them and on the road section I’d had a good chat and catchup with James Williams. Then Shep and Josh started talking about cutting down and doing the 50km route, which I did not want to do, and my legs felt pretty good considering the previous nights effort. So I put my head down and rode fairly hard. About 45km I’d caught up and passed my friend Toby and saw in the distance Ed who I’d also come down with. I then absolutely blattered a descent in an effort to catchup…I was in my biggest gear absolutely flying and er managed to clip a tram line wrong; I went straight down, BIG CRASH BIG CRASH, did about 3 cartwheels and landed 4 metres from my bike…I got up a bit dazed, wondered where my bike was, and then from that point on the left hand side of my body stopped working, it was a bit painful. Bike was relatively ok considering what had happened, bars were round 180 degrees and left big scuff’s on the top tube, bot my brake levers now have matching fracture lines, but as they’re formula R1′s I can’t afford to change them anytime soon. I pretty much from that point limped to the finish, only just catching Ed at the finish where I was closing in on him at ridiculous speed (to such an extent that I left my braking a bit late and almost careered into him!) I came back to the campsite just about ahead of Dave and Kate who’d done the 50km and found Josh and Shep looking sheepish that they’d done the 50k. I still managed a 4 hours overall ride time, even if I had spent the best part of closer to 4 and half hours out on the course, see the garmin log here. It was painful to walk/move when packing up, and Monday morning I could barely move…that was a BIG CRASH!
Fast Forward a week and I made my way up to Dalby Forest with uni friend Harry Penn. Dalby was a course that last year I absolutely loved it, being able to make up considerably time by being able to ride the proper line through Worry Gill and Medusa’s Drop which made up for the fact I couldn’t climb! On saturday we had a casual couple of laps as uni friend, myself, Harry Penn, Jessie Roberts and Chris Irlam went round, although it was pretty crowded round the technical sections, that despite being able to pretty confidently ride down them, I was struggling to get a chance! Oh, and the first time I went down medusa’s, I false unclipped and got down with my right foot not anywhere near the pedal – sketchy to say the least, no problems everytime after that!
Anyway, Harry and I stayed at a youth hostel nearby, got a half decent nights sleep and then headed down Sunday morning. Met up with a few friends, and did a warm up lap just before the race, and then got gridded on the second row. The start I didn’t do particularly well and entered the singletrack just behind uni friend Chris Irlam. The first lap was a bit chaotic, and Chris managed to overtake just the key people at the right time, whereas I seemed to be getting caught behind people who were just being a bit arsey about the whole thing, not letting me pass on a climb where there’s lots of space and I called it, so I end up in the soft gravel because they’ve physically gone to block me, and so have to get off and push as there’s no traction there, therefore losing 3 spaces, and getting verbal for getting in the way on the section going up to Medusa’s – which I can ride up with no issues but because the couple of people got off in front of me, I also had to get off. Once the field spread out a bit it wasn’t soo bad, I got into a nice-ish rhythm, and let someone past, who following his line he could do some sections better than me so I followed him, but most of it, I could ride far more efficiently, so I passed him just before Worry Gill having borrowed his better lines on bits of the course and shot off never to be seen again. On my second lap, I came into Medusa’s and spotted Chris Irlam covered in mud having stacked it down the climb and with a paramedic seeing to him, I paused momentarily shouting something like “ah crap, you ok?” before realising that you can’t stop on medusa’s and I better ride down before I fall off! I later found out that someone had stacked it in front of Chris and he had nowhere to go and came off, it did momentarily put me off… FInal lap I think I passed a few riders in my category (also, this new UCI course length thing doesn’t half make it a short time before the elites lap you!), and was rapidly closing in on the rider in front, I finally finished in 18th place, 1 second behind 17th…he’d blown! First top 20 at a nationals that is, so I think I’m making progress. Results are here. Overall though, good weekend, the course is good enough to enjoy even if you’re doing badly in a race, and having something in a course a bit more technically challenging that the average XC course was good. I’ve got a few more Dalby photos here.
just need to take it easy to not injure myself too soon. Didn’t take too many photos due to it being a bit wet.
photos 
