Monday, July 22, 2024

Trans Cambrian Way ITT: Calling Norris McWhirter - Part 1

Star date: 9 September 2014
Location: Right across Wales (literally)
Event: Trans Cambrian Way ITT
Weapon of choice: Rigid 26" singlespeed
Result: Find out in Part 2 (oh, the suspense)


I'd like to start with a word of advice for anyone else thinking of having a crack at the Trans Cambrian Way record: DON'T!

Racing the TCW goes against everything the route is about, namely meandering through beautiful, wild, unspoilt countryside, savouring views, getting closer to nature and sharing picnics and beers and laughs with mates in the sunshine. It's not supposed to be about tunnel vision and average speed and energy gels and hours fighting the urge to puke. If ever a journey was supposed to be all about the journey...

But then I knew all that, and I still raced it.
The Trans Cambrian Way

Devised by IMBA in 2006, the TCW is a mostly offroad cycle route that meanders for just over 100 miles across Wales from Knighton on the English border to the Dovey Estuary, taking in as much wilderness as possible while still being 99% rideable all year round.

Essentially, as you can see, it runs from the middle of nowhere to the back of beyond via the land that time forgot:


It's not a waymarked route, making navigation an added challenge. Cunningly, though, it starts and finishes at railway stations, so you don't have to pedal back again afterwards (phew!), and is divided into three bite-sized chunks for normal people, each ending in or vaguely near what passes round here for civilisation so that you can overnight at a local B&B/Bates Motel:

Day 1: Knighton to Rhayader (50 km)
Day 2: Rhayader to Llangurig via Ysbyty Ystwyth (70 km)
Day 3: Llangurig to Dovey Junction (50 km)
"We recommend riding the route over three or four days, though very fit riders with good navigation skills may attempt it over two days" - International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) website.

Red rag to a bull, really. It didn't take long for some nutter to do it all in one day... and then another, and another, and another.

When I first heard about the route earlier this year, I knew straight away I had to ride it. For me the undeniable allure of organised ultra-endurance racing has always been trumped by the tedious prospect of riding round and round in small circles the whole time. The TCW, on the other hand, is a point-to-point. It actually goes somewhere, even if that happens to be nowhere, which makes it more of an adventure. Plus it's pretty much on my doorstep.

And when I saw that the overall record was a whopping 10h58m and the singlespeed record 11h44m - an average speed of only 9-10 miles an hour - I knew straight away I had to race it. It was like it was meant to be.
The independent time trial (ITT) concept

Devised by beardy nerds doubtless brought together by a love of real ales and old trains, offroad ITTs are a way of allowing dysfunctional loners like me to compete against each other cycling solo along a set route without ever having to meet in person. (Or was it to circumvent the law that says you can ride but not race bicycles on bridleways? I never can remember.)

The fastest times confirmed by GPS tracking are then listed online, making it rather like a super-sized Strava segment. But unlike Strava, where anything goes (I mostly get my KOMs on a moped), ITTs have a strict code of conduct:
  • No outside help
  • No stashes of food/water/tools/spares/clothing
Oddly, the following are permitted (though I manfully eschewed them all):
  • Popping into pubs and shops along the way for sustenance
  • GPS mapping (like Sat Nav for boy scouts)
  • Gears, although they so-like-totally undermine your achievement
  • Riding with a friend, if you have one, which is unusual, and frowned upon, and your time will then always have that social stigma attached
So, to sum up, you have to carry everything you might need, either on your back or on your bike:

 
After endless analysis of maps and times and some fiendish back-of-a-fag-packet calculations involving complex algorithms hacked straight from the NASA mainframe, I eventually came to the conclusion that 3 + 4 + 3 = 10. If I averaged a paltry 11 mph, it would take three hours to do the first day of the route, four hours to do the second, and three hours for the third, a total of ten hours, making the record mine, yes mine, all mine [maniacal laugh]. Simples.

Of course, this e=mc2 moment conveniently overlooked a number of blindingly obvious issues:

1. Baggage
Mobile coverage in Mid Wales being more elusive than even the legendary Beast of Bont, there are parts of the route where getting help can mean a two-hour walk or an even longer crawl. You therefore need to be prepared for every eventuality short of full-scale nuclear war. The Cambrians also have a nasty habit of turning cold, wet and windy without notice on even the fairest of days. Trust me, the combined weight of foul-weather gear, tools, parts, first aid, maps, food, water, 59 varieties of overpriced hi-tech sugar, a useless mobile phone and a possibly even more useless whistle, plus a head of garlic and a silver bullet to ward off the natives, clothing for the train and a cuddly toy is enough to break even a seasoned SAS commando.

2. Navigation
Consider this. Most ITT aficionados are also "bikepackers" - bushcraft nuts who happily camp in January living off roadkill and lighting fires with nothing more than a lump of sheep poo and a toothpick. Try to imagine a stick-thin Ray Mears. They could probably therefore navigate the Kalahari using scent and spoor alone - yet they all use GPS mapping to do the TCW. It doesn't help that the official route guide is more interested in listing B&Bs that are now cheesed-off ex-B&Bs than in providing clear directions. Whether instructions like "take the faint path" (which one, dammit?!) and "do not take the obvious path" (none of them are obvious, dammit!) strike you as intriguingly or worryingly vague depends on how much of a hurry you're in. The bottom line is that checking paper maps and taking compass bearings can make for painfully slow progress. 

3. Gates
1 million gates @ 20 seconds = forever, especially in dog years.

4. Fatigue
Whether you call it 169 km or 106 miles, it's a bloody long way to cycle non-stop, much of it on rough terrain and with four Snowdons' worth of climbing en route, and a lot further than I've ever ridden before (or ever plan to ride again*).

*Subject to change.

5. Mechanicals
Shit happens.

To counter all this, I decided to exploit home advantage by cunningly pre-riding and half-memorising much of the route over the summer, and then waiting for the best possible weather window. I also decided on a 100% non-stop strategy by carrying all food from the start and refilling bottles from streams to avoid losing precious minutes queuing at the Spar in Rhayader and making the detour to the village shop in Llangurig. So then it was just a matter of waiting for the stars to align - workload, race calendar, child-ferrying commitments, ground conditions, weather.

Followed by a mad last-minute panic dealing with the baffling logistics of it all. I decided to leave the car at Dovey Junction and take the train to Knighton the afternoon before the ride, rather than subject a whole carriageload of passengers to technical-fabric-induced Zyklon B on my return. That might not have been a bad idea in hindsight, though, as finding space for your bike on a train these days is not without its challenges. If you don't book one of the two allotted bicycle spaces per train (complete with diddy little clunk-click seatbelts) more than 24 hours in advance, you're at the mercy of the guard's goodwill. Bizarrely, the first one let me on but then chucked me off again at the following station... Stress Central, I think it was called. Luckily, though, the cycling gods were smiling on me and the next train had plenty of space. And the guard's ticket machine had a flat battery - result!

And so, after a hastily arranged night in the one B&B in Knighton that is still in business (handily close to the station but so over-Lenored I barely slept), it came to pass that at the unholy hour of 6.40 a.m., stuffed silly with my traditional slow-burning endurance breakfast of five Shredded Wheat, I crossed the road to the station for the obligatory pre-departure selfie.

Yep, that's pretty much how I was feeling.

Day 1

The first few miles along a flat country lane in enemy territory would normally be a nice warm-up, but it was freezing. Not literally, but enough for me to don my coat and regret fingerless gloves as my digits quickly turned numb. Good job I didn't have any gears to change! But soon it was back over the border into sunny Wales and time for a serious wake-up call in the form of Goytre Hill: a half-mile hike up an only-rideable-if-you-can-be-arsed green lane followed by an unrideable-under-any-circumstances sheep track up a big fuck-off grassy slope that then gets even steeper, making a carry more efficient than a push and taking even my SS-attuned calves to breaking point. On the plus side, I was no longer cold but dripping with sweat, and the view that emerged was worth every step, with the sun breaking through the haze behind me, mist lingering in the valleys, dew glistening on the grass, the dawn chorus tweeting (#anothersinglespeednutter?).

There followed about ten miles of moorland riding, mostly not the boggy black smelly kind but the smooth heavenly grassy kind, a broad rolling moorland superhighway mown to perfection (and freshly fertilised) by a million sheep and rabbits. Coming the other way, the first few miles make a wonderful long descent with countless humps and bumps to pop the bike off BMX-style. Ridden forwards, it was steadily uphill but far from arduous, winding through swathes of bracken peppered with the woolly arses that donate the free gifts constantly spattering my shins and face along with the ice-cold dew. Trust me, though, it was spellbinding.


Before I knew it I was whizzing down the steep road descent to Llanbadarn Fynydd (yes, climbing on grass, descending on tarmac, it's all wrong - in fact the whole of the first day is better ridden in reverse) and the first proper ford of the day across the River Ithon. I thought I might get away with dry feet, but at the last moment the river had other thoughts. All the fords on the route come with the option of a detour to a bridge, but unless the river's in spate that's hardly in the spirit of things, is it?

The second half of Day 1 is fairly easy riding but rather short on thrills (other than one cheeky descent through the forestry at Brondre Fawr, which really ought to be the Welsh for "teenage sex" - fun but over in a flash). It was still very quiet and remote, though. Not until around the two-hour mark did I finally spy my first human being of the day, none other than the little old lady who lives in a car (yes, really), whose disturbingly lewd grin certainly helped keep my legs spinning. In fact the closest I got to a conversation the whole ride came not long after when I treated a farmer to some choice language for pulling straight out in front of me without looking on the four-mile road section freewheeling down to Rhayader (an awful waste of hard-won elevation but a great chance for a breather while still making up precious time). After all this solitude, the early-morning bustle of the small market town that is Rhayader felt oddly alien, wrong almost... But I was feeling strong and upbeat and finished the 50km of Day 1 comfortably in 3h3m, more or less on schedule.
The 29 Gears Guide to Mid Wales

Nestling perfectly logically between North Wales, home to Snowdonia, and South Wales, home to the Brecon Beacons, the less heralded region of Mid Wales is home to the optimistically monickered Cambrian Mountains. Not as tall or dramatic as their neighbours, but then not crawling with tourists either, they are stunning in their own right.

At their heart is the venue for Day 2 of the ride, Elenydd, an area that used to be known as the Desert of Wales, because there was nothing there. And it's still basically a whole lotta nothingness, the only real signs of human activity being a scattering of disused silver and lead mines and the odd pocket of forestry. One species that does still thrive there is Teletubbies (as evidenced by growing numbers of wind turbines) but they only come out when it's sunny.


Which isn't often. Bathed in permacloud and dowsed with permarain for a good 12 months of the year, the area gives birth to more major rivers than you can shake a stick at (Severn, Wye, Danube, to name a few) which carve stunning gorges as they wend their way down between endless swathes of squelchy stinking bog. Above the valley floors, it's so bleak that not even the English want to live there and the smart sheep wear Sou'westers.

Catch it on the right day, though, as I did, and it's rather splendid.

Day 2

The longest of the three days at 70km, Day 2 is mostly easy riding bracketed by two very nasty climbs. A few miles of easy tarmac spinning to Elan Village, home to the first of a series of impressive Victorian dams, an oh-so-tempting café and possibly the world's most out-of-the-way public lavs (it's a Welsh thing), leads to the first of these climbs, fondly known by cyclists as Puke Hill. It's a rideable 1-in-5, but 60km into a 170km ride on a singlespeed in what was now blazing sunshine? Er, no thanks, walked the lot. Still left me dripping with sweat and gasping for water - cue stop at the next passably clear stream to fill my already empty bottles and gobble down first lunch (BLT sandwich - I know, but that's what I fancied when I stocked up at Knighton Spar the evening before). I have to say this was the most idyllic moment of the entire ride, a whole moorland valley to myself, no sign of human anything, not a cloud in the sky, just the sound of the birds and the burbling brook...

The next 15 miles climbing very gradually up to, around and past the Claerwen reservoir and on to the Teifi Pools offer something of a history lesson in the evolution of the road. You start with the roughest track known to mankind - proper moon buggy stuff - before switching to increasingly smooth gravel and eventually (and, in context, improbably) tarmac.

The lumpy bit up to the dam is a personal favourite. Rocky, rough, techy. Unavoidable wetness despite a long, hot summer. Some seriously tricky steps to climb up. Trials bike stuff. Perfect territory for a rigid singlespeed. Love it. Will be jumping off phone boxes next. The canal section pictured above in gloomier conditions was only wet in places - but the big ford at the end was still a big ford. Whoever wanted dry feet anyway?

 

Next up, though, is the Interminable Track from Hell, 10km into a permanent headwind around the bleakest of reservoirs in the most featureless of landscapes. Bare, remote, monochrome moorland with not a hint of civilisation: no fields, no fences, no gates, no wind turbines, no forestry plantations - hell, no trees at all. Deepest, darkest nowhere. This could very well be where they faked the moon landings. Only for once there was just the gentlest of breezes and the sun actually shone, transforming the Claerwen into the most beautiful crystal-clear lake just for me and the red kites. Magical.

Climbing away from the reservoir and hitting the choppy hills of the tarmac lane above the Teifi Pools, I noticed that my legs were starting to feel a bit heavy - but also that this was the halfway point for both Day 2 and the whole ride! So it was with a somewhat maniacal grin that I flew along the fun double-track that meanders gently down towards the village of Ysbyty Ystwyth (there are actually six vowels but only 12 letters in that, language fans), most of the usual lake-sized puddles now shrivelled into bite-sized hippo-wallows, one of which provided my only near-off of the day. I was really enjoying myself in the sun, aware that the clock was ticking but still only a few minutes behind schedule and confident that I could make up the difference.



Time, then, for disaster to strike and punish such hubris!

Find out how in Part 2, coming soon to an Internet near you...



Sunday, May 22, 2016

UK Enduro Series vs British Enduro Series: Clash of the titans

You couldn't make it up. Within weeks of the demise of the once-popular UK Gravity Enduro series, not one but two new national enduro series are announced within days of each other: the British Enduro Series and, er, the British Enduro Series. Yes, not only do they have near-identical logos featuring the same bit of freebie clipart, they both launch under exactly the same name...

This was, I assume, just an unfortunate coincidence. Neil Delafield of Red Kite/Mondraker Enduro fame/infamy and Si Paton of UKDH fame/infamy must have been beavering away on their respective series for months (booking venues, negotiating with landowners, sweet-talking sponsors, building websites, hiring portaloos, making up rules, forgetting to order tape). And all credit to them both - organising just one race must be a massive undertaking.

Needless to say, though, the Twattersphere goes into overdrive. Misinformation rules, opinions polarise, war is declared. Who are you with - Little Hitler or the Rogue Cowboy? When the debate starts to trend higher than "Paris Hilton breaks fingernail", there are calls for the UN to intervene. But not even British Cycling are interested, despite all they've done for women's cycling.

A stand-off ensues. Who will back down on the name? Both sides claim to have got there first. Eventually the bigger man (literally, at least) breaks eye contact and backs down. And thus the British Enduro Series and the UK Enduro Series are born - two imaginatively named series for the price of one!
Disclaimer
I should perhaps stress that the views expressed here are not necessarily those of my sponsors. Or even my own.

I also have something to declare beyond ten crates of vodka and half a dozen immigrants under a blanket in the boot. I ride for UK Enduro's own race team, and Neil Delafield is my friend. I don't work for FIFA, though, so I'd like to think I'm still capable of being impartial. Suck it and see.
Following this false start, the two series were at pains to project a unique identity, suggesting that they would be more complementary than direct competitors. While UKE was all talk of "riding with your mates", BES was busy announcing cash prizes. When UKE launched its hashtag #fortheriders, BES responded with #fortheracers. It seemed that one was about the taking part, and the other was about the winning.

But what would this mean in practice? Only one way to find out. Some poor sod would have to ride them both and report back. Hmm, spend two entire weekends messing around on bikes, or crack on with the DIY? After much soul-searching, I selflessly stepped up to the plate - but would I smash it?

Triscombe in a nutshell. 
Don't worry, this wasn't me. I was going too slowly to crash. Check out the dust.
Photo: Dan Wyre Photography.

Star date: 23-24 April 2016
Location: Triscombe, Somerset
Event: Rocky Mountain UK Enduro round 2
Weapon of choice: Mondraker Foxy with RRP mudguard and Absolute Black oval chain ring
Result: 19th vet

First impressions on Friday afternoon were not good. The Quantocks aren't the most imposing range of hills, more of a freak pimple on the arse of England. The venue might have looked like Hogwarts but was actually more real-world boarding school, with the heating set to absolute zero and rampant bum fun in the showers. And it was raining.

But it turned out to be a really fantastic event.

Having everyone eating, drinking and sleeping together in the old school made it a much more social occasion with a decent atmosphere both day and night. Less event village and more holiday village.

Nor was the rain a problem. Partly because it stopped, giving way to a weekend of non-stop sunshine. Also because the soil there is so absorbent they used to mine it for Pampers. Things were still a little greasy in practice, but we were treated to bone-dry race runs bar a couple of short fresh-cut sections of slippety-sloppety slapstick fun.

And the lack of elevation may even have been a good thing. The climbs were that much more manageable, and the stages were still a good length. While round 1 of the series (see my report here - no, go on, please do, it's had so few hits I don't know why I bothered) was all about Neil Delafield's 100% home-made loamy tracks, here in the Quantocks he was limited to adding a few short sections to the existing network of downhill tracks. But what great tracks they were. Some heart-in-mouth steep and twisty bits, some easy flat-out blasts. Lots and lots of roots. With a side-serving of more roots. And drops and jumps and steps. A bit of everything really. And fast. With not a trail-centre descent in sight.

I won't bore you with a detailed breakdown of the stages - I'm too old to remember them all in any case - but you can get a taste from these videos:

Some helmet-cam highlights courtesy of Wheelies team rider Ben Stallwood.

The end of stage 3 courtesy of marshal Fred Cook. The steep bit (from 5 minutes in) was more than a little scary and ace fun. Sadly the stage had to be abandoned on Sunday because some scrote half-inched one of the timing beacons. Wonder what they'll make of that at Cash Generator?

I particularly enjoyed the fast 'n' furious stages 5 to 7, ridden blind on the Sunday. When you're hurtling down the bottom section of the already super-hairy stage 7 at 20mph (OK, in my case maybe 10mph) and you suddenly find the Grand Canyon opening up before you, there's only one thing you can do - go for it. Trust the bike, feel the fear - and then feel on top of the world when you make it through unscathed, grinning from ear to ear. You just can't beat that feeling!

Which makes me wonder whether enduro stages shouldn't always be raced blind. No weekend-before recces, no practice sessions, no track walks, nothing.

One drawback, of course, is that you have to work harder on navigation. As a geriatric with more than enough on his hands dealing with the trail immediately in front of me, I find the additional complication of looking ahead to see where I'm supposed to go next (let alone spot alternative lines) a massive test for my limited multi-tasking abilities. It's like opening too many windows on your PC - eventually everything just grinds to a halt.

So I could have done with a whole lot more tape to show me where to go. Whereas the top racers could have done with a whole lot more tape to show them where not to go.

What I saw as a mildy disconcerting absence of directional cues was seen by some as an opportunity for the ultimate Strava line, cutting straight down through the trees and completely missing out the twists and turns of the actual track - eventually triggering a 20-strong protest train of riders whizzing down the hill to harangue the organiser into cancelling the stage, plus a whole lotta bitching on social media.

Click here for a video of the offending section courtesy of James Scott.

Ultimately, though, it was a storm in a teacup, and I've no doubt that lessons have been learned and future rounds will be taped up tighter than a Tory MP in Mistress Whippy's dungeon of dodgy desires.

And I still thought stage 7 was the absolute bollocks, rounding off a perfect weekend's riding.

Once again I was completely outclassed, and I couldn't believe how slow my times were when I checked them, but I had such fun riding the stages that I just didn't care. Could that be what #fortheriders is all about?


Dyfi in a nutshell.
Tracey Moseley has been world enduro champion every year since 1947, and if she looks knackered at the end...

Star date: 7-8 May 2016
Location: Dyfi Forest, Mid Wales
Event: Cannondale British Enduro round 2
Weapon of choice: Mondraker Foxy with RRP mudguard and Absolute Black oval chain ring
Result: 15th vet

"How are you feeling, Chris?" asks the MC.

At precisely 8.36 and 20 seconds on a Sunday morning after a night in a field with no showers on the back of the toughest practice loop of all time? Forgive me if I don't pull a wheelie off the start ramp.

The pre-race interview is part of the ritual here, part of the show. This isn't just a bike race, it's an event, a happening, a big deal. There's a clear aspiration to be the best (in the country, the world, the universe), a super-slick and super-pro mini-EWS or World Cup. And in fairness, it is all very well organised, with an impressive start/finish arena with massive sponsor presence and loads of trade stands and a huge crew telling you where to park and restocking the bogroll in the portaloos and otherwise keeping things running smoothly. The timing beacon thief wouldn't have stood a chance here. And they've certainly attracted a big field of elite riders who are very much the centre of attention - to the point where I grew pretty sick of hearing about Jerome this and Jerome that. What about Robson, I wondered.

Everything, but everything, is more serious than at UKE. There are an awful lot of rules, with seeding by age category and exact start times for every stage - and rapidly escalating time penalties (even disqualification) if you miss them. I'm still an XC racer at heart, so I'd thought the fixed start times would mean having to spend ages hanging about, but actually the transitions were pretty tight. Riding at an economical pace I only had a few minutes to spare before most of the stages. In fact it was very like an XC race where you only ever snatch a few words with riders here and there. There certainly wasn't time to deal with a mechanical or help someone else with theirs - you had to look out for number one.

The loop itself was tough, very tough, with over 50km and 1,500m of climbing each day. The first two stages in the forest were both preceded by a gruelling 350m ascent, and the arena was a full 5 miles of dull, cruelly undulating tarmac from the forest. The weather didn't really play ball either, drizzling down most of Saturday, and despite blazing sunshine on Sunday the fireroads remained sticky, hard work on a heavy enduro rig with soft mud tyres and flat pedals.

First stage on Sunday. I said conditions were sticky.
Photo: Peter Jones, organiser of the incomparable Dyfi Winter Warm Up.

What made it really, really, really hard, though, was doing all that climbing in a full-face helmet in 25°C sunshine. Yes, I could have taken a separate trail helmet for the climbs, but that would have required me to wear a backpack so I'd have ended up just as hot, and anyway how safe is it to crash on a race run with a spare helmet digging into your back?

The "full-face on stages and helmet on transitions" rule simply has to be revisited. Not only is it illogical (it's fine for us to push our limits on some seriously sketchy shit on the stages but we're not trusted to pootle up a fireroad transition without falling off?) but it's dangerous: hot, bothered and blinded by sweat is no way to start a downhill run. It's not surprising so many people binned it on the final stage of the day, and I'm surprised nobody collapsed from heat exhaustion or drowned in a river of other people's sweat on the way there.

Me and the two riders I overtook on the final stage. Far too little, far too late.

Now maybe it's my XC background, or just my contrary gene, but I actually liked being under pressure the whole time on race day, I loved the physicality of the loop, and I really enjoyed the weekend. I don't mind riding on my own, and I'm happy with it being all about me, me, me. 

And the race stages were brilliant. BES and UKE may be like chalk and cheese in other respects, but the actual racing was very similar - varied, challenging, scary at times, fun throughout and a world away from your typical trail-centre enduro.

Stage 1/6 was the best - a fresh-cut old-skool DH track with hairy steep turns on slick clay lined with enthusiastic spectators and finishing with a proper knackering grassy sprint into the arena. Even the one trail-centre stage was good fun - just how fast dare you go? And I'm glad they kept in the controversial slopfest at the top of stage 3, which I found unrideable but hilarious, spending most of it on my arse.

After five (yes, five) people passed me on that one section, my chances of an overall win were slim, despite Dan Atherton pulling a sickie immediately after seeing me nail stage 4 in practice. A coincidence? I think not.

Click here for gavskxf's video of "carnage corner" on the seeding stage, which I rather overcomplicated by getting the nose of my saddle wedged somewhere it really shouldn't have been.

In reality, all my times were woeful, but I still ended up halfway up the vets category after exhaustion caused quite a few to pull out early or crash out of the final stage. But I'll take that. It's supposed to be hard and it's supposed to hurt. Sport should reward fitness as well as skill. You want skill without fitness, go play darts. (In my head right now is a Baywatch slow-mo of manboobs in motion as Jocky Wilson sprints 100m to the oche... Sorry, had to share.)

One thing I've missed with enduro until now - and at UKE in particular - is that feeling of being completely, totally and utterly shattered at the end of a race day, hobbling home having given it your absolute all. I guess that must be what #fortheracers is all about.

I gave it everything.

So... UKE or BES?

With the stages themselves being very similar in nature and standard, it has to be down to the rest of the weekend outside the 30 minutes you're actually racing.

If you don't want to be rushing to stages to make an allotted start time, or you want to ride with your mates, or you're not very fit, the more grass-rootsy UKE is for you. There's even a handy Sunday-only option for those who can't make the whole weekend.

But if you're secretly fed up of having to wait for your mates on every climb, fancy your chances of bagging some serious prize money, or prefer a structured approach to life, you might want to look at the more corporate BES. 

As a rider, I enjoyed the more laid-back atmosphere of UKE. As a racer, I enjoyed the more intense atmosphere of BES. But which is better? I guess there's only one way to find out... FIGHT!



UK Enduro heads back to the loamy trails of the Crychan Forest in Mid Wales this coming weekend 28-29 May (Triscombe sold out, so best enter sharpish!). The next British Enduro round is at Afan in South Wales on 11-12 June.
Featured sponsor - Wickens & Söderström

Their chain lube is like totally amazeballs.
Even in the buried-alive mudfest that was stage 3 in the Dyfi, it kept my chain and cassette squeaky clean. Without the squeak.
I can wholeheartedly recommend it.
And finally a BIG THANKS to Dan Wyre for letting me use his fantastic photos!

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

UK Enduro Round 1: Humbled

Star date: 19-20 March 2016
Location: Crychan Forest, Mid Wales
Event: UK Enduro Round 1
Weapon of choice: Mondraker Foxy with RRP mudguard and Absolute Black oval chain ring
Greatest strength: Bouncing
Greatest weakness: Speed
Result: 6th vet

We’re at the top of stage 3. “Want to go first, Chris?” asks Rowan Sorrell.

Yes, that Rowan Sorrell. Globe-trotting elite downhiller turned trail-builder extraordinaire. The guy behind Bike Park Wales. The guy who built my local trails at Brechfa, the whole reason why I started mountain biking. The guy who has just celebrated a return to racing after shattering his leg into a million tiny pieces a couple of years ago – twice (duh!) – with an overall win at the BPW Mini Enduro, where he finished a whopping 90 seconds ahead of yours truly.

Going first would be like trying to outrun a bullet train on a handcar.

“Nah, you’re OK,” I say. “I’ll leave a good gap.” Ho, ho, ho.

And off he goes.

I give him a couple of seconds (well, you never know) and shoot off in pursuit. Needless to say, after the first corner he’s out of sight. And with the steady barrage of sniper roots and kamikaze drops and you-gotta-be-kidding twists and turns on the event's all-natural tracks, he’s very quickly out of mind.

Roots, loam and clearly something alarming coming right up.
The full-face soon came off. It was just too sunny. I know. 

It was an odd chain of events – involving an ageing hippie, a missing roof, my awkward gene and clocks in the South Wales Valleys running a good two hours behind GMT – that led to me spending much of my first official outing as a member of Team UK Enduro riding not with my teammates but in a group that included local downhill heroes Duncan Porter and Sam Robson (you know, the kind who build tracks down a near-vertical slope and then think what they really need is some six-foot drop-offs in the middle) and, on Sunday, the aforementioned Mr Sorrell. Plus my regular enduro-buddy Gary Allen battling terrier-like to stay with them, and little old me trailing along behind.

Which would never happen at The Other National Enduro Series with its rigid categories and start times and seeding. Which is a shame. Because when you’re only actually racing for 20-30 minutes over an entire weekend, the social side is all-important.

The pasta party kicks off at the Drover’s Rest
 
Much has already been made of the “ride with your mates” approach of the UK Enduro series. Do the stages in whatever order you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want. Seed yourselves – fastest mate goes first. And when you do need to pass someone, generous taping means it’s no biggie.

The chilled vibe only goes so far, of course. As soon as you start down a stage, the gloves are off. It’s the same focus, the same determination. But three minutes later there you are at the bottom, whooping and hell-yeahing and sharing war stories with your mates and complete strangers alike as you winch back up the hill.

Such is the Spirit of Enduro – and the reason why I’ve switched completely from XC in 2016.


Seems I've mastered the art of looking scared even when I'm not.

But it isn’t just as an example of the Brotherhood of Enduro that I mention riding with Rowan. Nor is it just namedropping, although I do admit to being somewhat star-struck (to his credit, he didn’t visibly wince when I told him he’d changed my life).

No, the main reason is that riding with the likes of Rowan Sorrell and Duncan Porter (and indeed my teammate Ben Jones) is jaw-droppingly inspiring – and humbling.

They’re just so incredibly bloody quick!

And the thing is, they make it look easy.

Whereas I’m fighting my bike like a bucking bronco, they’re so smooth they’d already have five babes in the jacuzzi by the time I plucked up the courage to speak to the geeky plain girl in the corner.

Even on the flat sections, they hardly seem to pedal. Whereas I grab every opportunity to spin like a dervish to make up a fraction of a second before the next root-infested corner forces me to grab the brakes or be pinged into oblivion, these guys barely turn the cranks.

The amount of speed they carry, with seemingly nonchalant ease, is untrue.

And with the UK Enduro format, I get to witness it close up. I get invited into the jacuzzi.

Too much pedalling and not enough flow. I'm working on it.
Nice kit, though, thanks to Flare Clothing.

Zigzagging down through the woods to make the best use of natural features such as stumps, logs, fallen-tree bombholes, ancient hedge banks, streams, root after root and general Welsh steepness, and evolving over the weekend along with your riding, Neil Delafield’s all-natural stages are a far cry from the predictability of trail centre descents. This isn’t DH, so everything is rollable, but the tracks throw up a steady stream of technical challenges to test your mettle. Importantly, though, it’s fun-technical, not scary-technical, so you don’t have to be the world’s best rider to get down them. I'm the living proof.

Kudos to Richard Thomas for letting me use his warts'n'all footage of stage 2.

And a blooper reel from Steven Baldock, one of the better riders.

Whatever your level, it doesn’t half help to have the right bike and the right tyres, so a big shout out here to my Mondraker Foxy with Onza Greina mud tyre up front, which, unlike me, never put a foot wrong all weekend.

Mondraker are well-known for pushing the limits of bike geometry. 
But next time, Mum, ask before you borrow it, eh?

At race pace (even my race pace), it’s still a white-knuckle ride. Like one of my kids’ high-speed computer games (without the spare lives), the obstacles fly at you thick and fast, giving you no time to think and barely enough to react.

Unless, of course, you’re one of the fast guys, who use their bionic vision to focus three corners down the track, casually floating over everything in the meantime as though on a hovercraft.

I get to one of Neil’s signature point-and-pray off-camber turns and tentatively slide the rear wheel round at a speed where if it all goes pear-shaped at least it won’t hurt. What do they do? Do they slow down? Do they hell. Half the time they don’t even slide round the corners but give two fingers to the laws of physics and turn in mid-air.

They could probably also do a back flip and triple somersault in the process, but they don’t. They just get the business done, no showboating. Sure, on the transitions Rowan and Duncan seized every conceivable (and inconceivable) opportunity to pull wheelies and flicks and huck off pretty much everything, but on the race runs they were supremely economical, silky smooth.

As you might have guessed, I want to be like that.

More loam than you could shake a whole forest of sticks at.
Photo: Victoria Dawes, better known for her role on Shooting Stars.

While I didn’t exactly rule the roost (see what I did there?), I could sense my riding coming along over the course of the weekend. I’m beginning to get a feel for riding loam. Spaghetti roots are fine, but the anacondas still freak me out. I need to learn to bunny-hop properly and I need to man up and commit more on off-camber corners.

Ultimately we’re talking skids and tricks, all the things I didn’t learn during a childhood misspent swotting. It’s a whole new way of riding, and I’m loving it.

Teammate Ben on the top step. I won’t mention his height in case he gets a complex.
Note the Julbo glasses he still has surgically attached to his face.

This weekend was the maiden outing for the UK Enduro race team, including new arrival Bond, Gemma Bond, licensed to thrill. And what a successful weekend it was for the team, with two out of four making the podium. Ben won the senior male category and was fifth overall, Gemma finished third elite female, and Ceri was an impressive ninth in masters, the largest category, a good three minutes ahead of me. I ended up sixth in vets and 56th overall in the two-day race, the very definition of mid-table mediocrity and way better than I’d expected.

And in my group, Rowan was the overall winner of the Sunday race, Duncan was first master, Sam was third senior and Gary was second grand vet. That’s pretty illustrious company, so perhaps it’s not surprising I couldn’t keep up!

 
I said there were steep bits. 
Photo: Shaun Rutherford in between marshalling, heckling and checking his Tinder.

The great news for those who enjoyed - or missed - Round 1 is that Round 3 of the UK Enduro has now had to be moved from the Dyfi and will also be in the Crychan with at least one brand-new track. Round 2 is at Triscombe in Somerset on April 23-24. Get your entries in now!

Finally, a big thanks to the team’s growing list of sponsors.
  • UK Enduro – purveyors of the finest mountain bike events this side of the EWS
  • Wheelies – purveyors of the finest bikes and stuff in South Wales if not the Universe
  • Flare Clothing – purveyors of the finest MTB clothing
  • Julbo – purveyors of the finest eyeware
  • Sealskinz – purveyors of the finest gloves and socks
  • RRP – purveyors of the finest lightweight mudguards
  • Absolute Black – purveyors of the finest oval chain rings 
  • Airshot – purveyors of the finest tubeless tyre inflators 
  • Dan Wyre Photography – purveyors of the finest action photography
  • Sixth Element – purveyors of the finest carbon wheels
  • Rocky Mountain – purveyors of the finest mountain bikes
Now also featuring:
  • Wickens & Söderström – purveyors of the finest bottled magic (totally unprompted, a mate of mine said yesterday that their lube is “life-changing”; insert smutty comment of choice)
The weekend's star freebie without a doubt was my Flare Clothing team top. I always seemed to be at just the right temperature – and suddenly now everyone seems to know my name!


Other race reports worth checking out:
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Fancy some more Welsh MTB goodness?

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(Though I'd go elsewhere for web design.)

Friday, February 26, 2016

The one where Chris sells his soul: UK Enduro launch

Anyone know where to source cheap needles now I’ve gone pro? Oh yes, it’s official, at long last my prodigious mountain biking talents have been recognised. I’ve only gone and been snapped up by Britain’s hottest, coolest and sexiest enduro race team: Team UK Enduro!


When UK Enduro series organiser Neil Delafield started singing down the phone, “Boys, do you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang?”, naturally we told the old perv to sod off. “What, even if you get a load of free shit?” Free shit? Oh, all right then.

And thus Team UK Enduro was born: the world’s tallest person (Ben Jones), the world’s fastest talker (Ceri Lewis) and the eye candy (me, obvs), plus Mr Wheelies (Dawie Davies) and a possible token female to be announced later. Needless to say, I’m super stoked to be hitting the dirt with such a sick crew. My special role will be to do the race reports, as I’m the only one who can spel.

Chasing down teammate Ceri (photo: Dan Wyre Photography)

We’ll be ripping up a whole heap of events this year, with the focus on the UK’s premier national enduro series – you guessed it – UK Enduro. Hitting the sweet spot between XC and DH, enduro is the race format that’s taking the world by storm because it actually makes racing fun, and the UK Enduro series will be enduro at its finest, with no fewer than seven races this year at venues across Britain (yes, they’ve even managed to find some hills in England). I’m especially looking forward to being crowned national champ at Revolution Bike Park in September.

Yesterday was the big UK Enduro press launch bash, with journalists, sponsors, forestry bigwigs and top Welsh Assembly totty gathering for nibbles and a good schmooze at the Drover’s Rest in Llanwrtyd Wells before heading out to test a selection of hand-crafted stages set to feature in the first round.

 
I don't remember it being that green (Photo: Dan Wyre Photography)

The tracks were the usual challenging-but-rideable fare familiar from Neil’s previous events, but longer and running faster thanks to more support on the corners. If loamy, rooty, twisty, steep, techy, off-camber, all-natural hooning about in the woods with mates is your bag, you really must come to the Crychan Forest on 19-20 March. Be there or be square.

To finish, I’d like to say a quick thanks to God and my family for making it all possible, but most of all to the sponsors for the free shit:
  • UK Enduro – purveyors of the finest mountain bike events this side of the EWS
  • Wheelies – purveyors of the finest bikes and stuff in South Wales if not the Universe
  • Flare Clothing – purveyors of the finest MTB clothing
  • Julbo – purveyors of the finest eyeware
  • Sealskinz – purveyors of the finest gloves and socks
  • RRP – purveyors of the finest lightweight mudguards
  • Absolute Black – purveyors of the finest oval chain rings 
  • Airshot – purveyors of the finest tubeless tyre inflators 
  • Dan Wyre Photography – purveyors of the finest action photography
  • Sixth Element – purveyors of the finest carbon wheels
  • Rocky Mountain – purveyors of the finest mountain bikes
(I should add that I haven’t actually had any freebies from the last two yet. Get your fingers out, boys. What's a few grand between friends?)

You know, yesterday's ride just wouldn't have been the same without my Absolute Black chainring, RRP mudguard, Julbo goggles and Flare Clothing top! Or my Mondraker bike, for that matter, but I had to pay for that so they don't get a link.

Also a special shout out to Drover Cycles, purveyors of the finest mechanical assistance and lentil dishes, for lending me various bouncy bikes over the years until I finally stumped up for one of my own.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Red Kite Techie Devil 50km: Marmite

Star date: 12 July 2015
Location: Irfon Forest, Mid Wales
Event: Red Kite Events Techie Devil
Weapon gratefully borrowed: Pyga OneTwenty from Drover Cycles
Greatest strength: Growing a pair
Greatest weakness: Growing them a bit late in the day
Result: Need new trousers

This one really divided opinion. Who needs Kim Kardashian to break the Internet when you have the Techie Devil, eh? Listen to some people and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was like this:


On paper, it was a great idea. Take one of the country's most demanding old-skool enduro loops and spice it up with some hardcore nu-skool enduro descents hand-built for this year's Mondraker Series.

Lots of natural rocky goodness + Lots of twisty rooty goodness = Just what the doctor ordered!

Unfortunately the weather threw a spanner in the works, with heavy overnight rain sending some of the tracks deep into slapstick territory. The Mondraker Series is very much at the technical end of the enduro spectrum even in the dry (read what I made of round 1 here) and many riders soon found they'd bitten off way more than they wanted to chew...

The rain actually held off during the ride and there was even some sunshine.

My day didn't start too well either. On arrival, I had to sit in the car for ten minutes because it was raining so hard. A quarter of an hour into the ride, I was part of a group that missed a sign and headed the wrong way for a mile and a half. And sandwiched between the two was the Garn, a killer tarmac climb that soon has your legs screaming for mercy - and leads onto a loose rocky climb that demands levels of oomph and momentum your legs no longer want to deliver. I'm not surprised everyone else I saw was walking, but they could've moved out of the bloody way. I may well have lost traction at some point anyway, but after all that gurning effort I wasn't a happy bunny to be blocked off!

The first whiff of a descent then brought the first sign that not everyone was expecting the event to do what it said on the tin, as I (yes, me) whizzed past another rider. And on both the first proper descent (which I found pretty innocuous) and the first gnarly bedrock section, I passed people walking. As it happened, I cocked up the bedrock section - I picked a terrible line, got stuck in a cleft so deep there were kangaroos waving back up at me, and had to bail. So I too decided to walk... back up to the top so I could ride it again! I totally understand the need for self-preservation but it is called The Techie Devil ffs...

Little old me riding the unrideable descent.
Photo by Dan Wyre

Next up, though, was the now-infamous mudslide. I knew something was up from the queue at the top - and all the way to the bottom. Neil the organiser had told me it was his best track yet, but on the day it was mostly a slip 'n' slide scramble down 150 hard-won vertical metres. It really was very steep, winding tightly round the trees without berms or other support, and peppered with drops that seemed to need speed I'd never be able to scrub off afterwards. After numerous failed attempts to get going, I decided it was indeed beyond me and joined the procession trudging down the hill grumbling quietly. But then, towards the bottom, I spied event photographer Dan Wyre ahead. Quick, back on the bike for the camera! I actually then managed to ride 30 yards round several corners before losing it again, a huge improvement on my record of about 10 feet further up. Which goes to show that even an unrideable descent can be rideable if you have a big enough incentive...

Forget scratch 'n' sniff, try tilt 'n' weep. Go on, tilt your head/monitor/phone/tablet until the trees are vertical. The fact I'm on the bike means it's actually the flattest part of the descent...
Photo by Dan Wyre

It was a shame the rain ruined this descent. Not only would it have been a scary-but-doable cracker in the dry, but it seemed to dampen everyone's spirits and pave the way for a whole lot of negativity. Neil would have done everyone a favour by taking it out and sending us another way down the hill - which, to be fair, he did on the return leg.

The next two descents were built for round 2 of the Mondraker Series. They too were incredibly slippery in parts, especially after everyone else's locked-out rear wheels and flailing buttocks had rubbed away all the lovely grippy loam of summer to leave the slick, polished clay of winter freshly coated with anti-climb paint. It gave the opposite of grip, actively pinging you off the trail like two magnets repelling each other. And it was a helluva job to remount, not only you and your bike but even the trees seemed to be sliding down the hill.

I must've come off half a dozen times on the last descent before lunch (Mondraker stage 4). I was like a clown on an icerink. But I did ride all of it. In short bursts. Faced with an audience, I even did the rather scary drops at the top and bottom, with mixed success. It was a real handful but also an absolute cracker and my highlight of the day. Normally you surf down the best descents on a wave of euphoria rather than wobbling around like a hysterical clotz, but I'll take that.

Lunch at Coed Trallwm café was followed by one last hand-cut enduro descent (entirely rideable) and a rerouted trip home with two very big climbs, some very big puddles and two big but not overly technical descents that would, ironically, have been ideal for the riders who threw in the towel half way and took the road back.
A little something for the weekend

Once again Drover Cycles in Hay-on-Wye very kindly lent me their all-conquering Pyga OneTwenty trail bruiser to help compensate for my lack of sick skillz, this time fitted with the latest Pike-slaying Fox 34 forks.

Once again the bike performed impeccably despite a relatively modest 140/120mm of travel. Its surefooted indestructibility gave me the confidence to let fly like never before on the bedrock sections on the return leg, and even the most seriously ill-judged, potentially tyre-shredding, wheel-mangling, frame-cracking, bone-breaking line choices elicited nothing more than a Gallic shrug. Is there anything this bike can't handle?

Photo by Dan Wyre

The silky-smooth forks not only soaked up the big hits but were impressive on persistent road-drill rockiness, as confirmed by three comfortably dingless runs down the notorious Rim Dinger at Bike Park Wales two days earlier. They're still unnecessarily complicated, though, with three main settings and an "additional 22 clicks of low-speed compression adjust". The only settings I ever need are "on" and "off".

In a way, the bike and forks really came into their own towards the end of the ride on the less technical White Bridge and Preacher's Path descents, which were so overgrown in parts that you had no idea what in the way of rocks/logs/holes/monsters might lurk beneath. Completely letting go of the brakes and trusting the bike to get on with it in such circumstances was most unlike me.

While the Bionicon Alva I took down White Bridge last year was like floating on a magic carpet, the Pyga is much more involving and sticks to the ground like glue. Unless, of course, you don't want it to. I made a real breakthrough at Bike Park Wales getting a handle on that whole if-you-don't-like-the-look-of-it-just-jump-over-it approach. This bike has opened my eyes to a new way of riding.


Photo by Dan Wyre.

That said, I still hated the Havoc bars and I had a nightmare hauling the bike up all those hills. It's not especially heavy at 30lb, but I'm used to dancing up climbs on a 20lb featherweight and don't normally have to carry water on my back, which made me a right sweaty betty from the word go. It gave me a real insight into why so many people creep up the hills at events like these - seems it's not just down to too many pies. Even with the suspension locked out, much of the power I was putting down was getting lost in the mix. I never thought I'd need a XX1 cassette's 42t crawler sprocket, but I certainly did on the persistently steep and hurty bridleway climb at Coed Trallwm. As I didn't spin out at all, some would argue that the bike climbs well. For me, the fact that I eventually had to stop for a 10-second breather says otherwise. Let's call it a draw.

But like Margie Melons down the docks, the Pyga's very, very good when going down.
Fewer than half the starters completed the course. So did the haters have a point? Were the descents unrideable? Did the organiser get it all wrong?

As riders, we have to accept that it might occasionally rain in Wales. But it's very rare for the weather to actually wreck an event (Red Kite's own Little Devil in April springs to mind - so horrid were its constant rain and impossible headwinds that I still can't bring myself to blog about it). I've done plenty of XC races that have been total mudbaths, and you just have to get over it - or go online and slag off the organiser.

Of course, organisers too need to allow for the weather. The mudslide descent may still have been rideable for the likes of Dan Atherton after the night's rain (bet he'd have dabbed though), but it wasn't for the mere mortals who entered the event, so clearly it should've been pulled or made optional. But that was just one descent, what about the other 49½km?

 The mudslide. Bearded rider shows how it should be done.
Photo by Dan Wyre.

The whole point of the event was to go beyond trail centre predictability and really test people's skills/bottle. You have to expect an event called The Techie Devil to put you out of your comfort zone. And it did.

Of course, picking just the right level of difficulty is always going to be tricky. Did the organiser read his ridership wrong? There were certainly some who were walking the "easy" stuff and should probably have stayed at home. But even if we assume that the rest were still only of my very average standard, what are we left with?

Well, everything bar the mudslide was entirely rideable. Yes, I struggled to stay upright on some sections. Yes, I scared myself silly on some of the drops. But then that whole "I can't do that, I'm not doing that, no way - oh wait, I just did" buzz is what I come for. Isn't that what it's all about?

I think most of us ended up on our arses at some point.
Photo by Dan Wyre.
Maybe some people were disappointed to find they weren't quite as good as they thought they were (I was mostly delighted to find that I wasn't quite as bad as I thought I was). Which is kind of understandable, as those slippy-slidey descents were a far cry from the all-weather tracks you get at trail centres, whatever shade of black they may be graded.

And maybe the route was simply too long for many of the riders. I'm fit as **** and I found it physically draining on a trail bike. And it wasn't just the whopping 2,000 metres of climbing, some of it quite technical and very steep. The intense concentration required on the descents also took its toll.

So when you then hit Puddle Alley without a snorkel, do you have a hissy fit or get the giggles? I know from my guiding (shameless plug for Epic Rides Wales) that once fatigue levels get to a certain point, a complete sense-of-humour failure is all but guaranteed.

To be honest, the flowers and the scenery went unnoticed at the time.
Photo by Dan Wyre

So, lessons to be learned on both sides. But ultimately you can't please all of the people all of the time. In the immortal words of Taylor Swift:

The haters gonna hate, hate, hate
Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake
Shake it off

I do hope there's another Techie Devil. I hope the weather plays ball, I hope the route is less punishing, I hope entrants will have realistic expectations, and I hope the descents continue to push my limits and develop my riding. The end.

P.S. Quote of the day: "Yeah, fine thanks, mate, just picking pine needles out of my arse."

If you're man or mad enough, the fourth round of the Mondraker Enduro Series is on 22/23 August.

Strava:

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Bristol Bikefest 12-hour solo: Too much of a good thing

Star date: 13 June 2015
Event: Bristol Bikefest 12-hour solo 
Weapon of choice: Fully rigid 26" singlespeed
Greatest strength: Finishing
Greatest weakness: Entering
Result: Knackered

Warning: Contains nuts (and bad language)

As regular readers will know, I rather like mountain biking. Indeed I can't get enough of it. So a whole 12 hours of it at the Bristol Bikefest seemed like a really good idea. It's also a proper race (not some namby-pamby "challenge") and even has an official singlespeed category for the beardy-weirdies purists.

But while extreme endurance events, like bondage parlours, have long held a certain weird appeal, I’d always thought that people who enjoy such proclivities must have something very wrong with them. Without wanting to give too much away at this early stage, I was right. And I didn't get a happy ending.

Of course, I knew it would be tough - despite appearances I'm not entirely stupid - but I really didn't bargain with the complete loss of any semblance of enjoyment (and eventually any capacity whatsoever for emotion) as you embark on yet another stuporous lap, the will to live but a fleeting memory. It was a daft idea, I should've known better, and I will never* do anything like it again.

*Well, not this year, anyway.
Each year the Bikefest brings together around 1,000 riders to race solo or, more sensibly, in teams of two or four at Ashton Court, a large park with fine views over central Bristol and just a stone’s throw from the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge.

With maybe 400 riders on the 10 km course at any one time across four separate distances (12, six and three hours plus a 9½-hour ciderthon) all finishing at the same time, it's definitely not one of those events where you get away from it all. You're almost constantly overtaking and being overtaken, sometimes with less grace than others.

Predominantly purpose-built all-weather singletrack, the trail is blue-graded (easy but fun) with a few red-graded features (mainly small rock steps) which are all easily rollable (and mostly rollroundable). Although perched on the side of a bloody great hill, the course contrives to be almost completely flat, which is great if you don't like climbing but not so great if you want big descents or if climbing is your forte.

The lap format makes for a great atmosphere. Passing through the event village to cowbells and cheering every 30-40 minutes gives you a real lift, as well as regular opportunities to grab more food and drink, brave the portaloos, have a quick cuddle, or just jump in the car and drive home. On the other hand, all those laps do bring a certain sense of déjà vu.

The official event video can be found here. I make a few passing appearances but sadly not while styling it up. There are only so many backflips you can do to get attention.

Laps 1-3: It's not a sprint, you know

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the early stages.
Photo by official event photographer Rob Barker. Thousands more like it here.

I'd been warned about the Le Mans-style start. I expected something grander, but basically we all ambled down a bit of a hill, dumped our bikes on the grass alongside the track and lined up haphazardly at the bottom, ready to sprint back up, jump on and go-go-go to beat the infamous congestion on the first singletrack section. Everyone had the same advice: leave your bike as far down the hill as possible, we're cyclists not runners. Fortunately my preferred approach to advice is to listen politely and then ignore it, so I opted for half-way down (or was that half-way up?).

It wasn't a sprint and it wasn't very far. A 100-metre trot followed by a mad melée as those who'd parked their steeds lower down attempted the impossible task of climbing and staying on amidst dozens of others doing the same plus dozens of runners all desperately trying to spot their bike in the grass rather than looking where they were going. I was near the front and I still had to run round a few fallers. So if you take anything away from this, even if you're on crutches leave your bike at the top!

While the run wasn't a sprint, the first couple of laps on the bike most definitely were. It was like an XC race as we all jockeyed for position, a triumph of testosterone over reason given that we literally had all day to sort out the pecking order. I successfully avoided full-on gridlock but was still caught in an über-frustrating procession through the early singletrack sections, interspersed with pointless short sharp bursts to gain or lose a place or two when the track opened out a bit. I felt like one of the grumpy trucks being shunted around in Thomas the Tank Engine, and it seemed to take ages for the field to thin out enough that you could actually see the trail in front of you rather than blindly trust the rider in front.

I caught one of my main rivals, hyperactive South Wales fireman and newly converted singlespeed nut Paul Slade, half-way through the first lap. "Hi Paul, crazy pace, isn't it?" I called out, while casually accelerating clear up the hill. High five, Chris. On the next lap I caught another singlespeed nut, veteran ultra-endurance junkie Mark Goldie. I knew he was the man to beat, and I had visions of us riding together until I oh-so-reluctantly had to pull away on the final straight to claim victory. In reality, as soon as we hit the next fast singletrack section he left me for dead. Damn, he had skills as well as staying power. So unless he had a major disaster, I was racing for second place.

Laps 4-7: Settling in for the duration

Still smiling.
Photo by kind permission of Graham Haller who has generously given away all his shots from the event. Another 2,000 or so here.

As time went on and the initial adrenaline rush faded, I was acutely aware that a whopping 18 km/h average speed (don't laugh, roadies) was unsustainable. I needed to ease off. Only I felt so good on the climbs, such as they were, and was finally now able to let loose more on the descents, such as they were. Chasing faster riders on the twisty singletrack was a whole lotta fun, but less than ideal in terms of energy conservation, every slightly overcooked corner requiring those extra pedal strokes to get back up to speed. My rigid front end was also quite a handful (oo-er) on flat corners in the damp conditions, and I had to work much harder than riders with suspension forks on the bumpy bits.

What I failed to appreciate at the time was that I wasn't really racing against any of these faster riders. They weren't solo singlespeeders, they weren't even solo gearboys, they were team riders. With eight legs to share the burden, an endless supply of clean dry kit and clean freshly prepped bikes, and probably a Gaggia, a chef and a team masseuse in their fancy trackside marquees, they were only ever out for a couple of laps at a time, so they were always on fresh legs.

Pacing myself against these riders was therefore a big mistake. I should have ignored them and concentrated on my average speed or lap time or heart rate. With so many different categories, it wasn't so much a race as some weird never-ending time trial, only really competing against yourself and having no idea how you or other people are doing. But time trials are boring and races are fun, so I'm glad I made that mistake.

I did ease off a little after about three hours, but this was too little too late, the damage already done, and around four hours in I started feeling peckish, which I know from experience is a BAD SIGN. It didn't mean it was lunchtime (although it was), it meant I was running out of fuel. And just like when the petrol light comes on in your car, you never really know how much is left in the tank.
Hydration and fuelling

Not to put too fine a point on it, how the hell do other people manage it?

Despite drinking so much that I had to stop for a wee four times during the race, each one taking a good ten minutes, my pee still ended up the colour of best bitter and my mouth and throat dry as the Sahara. This made it impossible to swallow solid food on the go and left me at the mercy of sports nutrition products (liquid sugar) which always make my guts antsy.

During the race I consumed:
  • 4 bottles of Torq energy drink (posh squash)
  • 3 bottles of 50/50 orange juice and water (the natural alternative)
  • 1 bottle of water (keeping it simple)
  • 3 cans of Coke (great caffeine hit but triggered belching in sonic boom territory)
  • 1 ham and cheese sandwich (which I almost gagged on)
  • 6 ginger cream biscuits (only palatable once soggy after a lap or two in my back pocket)
  • 2 packets of crisps (source of electrolytes, OK?)
  • 2 tins of fruit salad (find of the century: so easy to swallow)
  • 2 pots of Ambrosia rice pudding (ditto, hot tip from another rider) 
  • 1 Torq rhubarb and custard gel (good pick-me-up, but too many can easily become a puke-me-up)
During the race I ignored:
  • Jam tarts and the rest of my sandwiches (too dry)
  • The rest of my gels (see above)
During the race I really craved:
  • A big bag of chips and a nice cup of tea 
I wish I'd taken:
  • Boiled new potatoes, sausage rolls and some Ready-brek (!)

Laps 8-11: Are we nearly there yet?

The afternoon look - still determined but not entirely happy.
Photo by Graham Haller after he stopped flashing people in the woods.

I therefore decided to take a proper break and have a little sit down while I wolfed down some solids. I also learned my race position for the first and last time. As I'd hoped and prayed, second singlespeed. I didn't expect to catch Mark Goldie, but reckoned that the others must be behind me for a reason, so if I could just keep going then I should make the podium. This was perhaps a little naive given that it was only four hours into the race - and the longest I've ever raced before is, er, four hours. There was still rather a long way to go.

And that preyed increasingly on my mind as I continued to tick off lap after lap. After those early 31-minute blasts, I now settled into a consistent 35-minute rhythm, which was a much more comfortable pace - little more than bimbling really - but my legs and my guts were still starting to complain and the whole exercise was beginning to lose its novelty. The fun was now sporadic at best; it was all becoming a bit of a chore. And somebody must have slipped my dropper post some Viagra, as it was now stuck in the up position, forcing me to be a little more cautious on the fast bits.

I felt like the kids on a long car journey: "Are we nearly there yet?" Obviously I responded with a "No, and the more you moan, the longer it will take!" but that didn't help much. It doesn't with the kids either.

Laps 12-15: Losing the plot

This was as gnarly as it got. That's not ironic trepidation; I can only guess I was passing wind and trying not to follow through.
Another photo by Sir Graham Haller.

When you get past six hours, the battle is not a physical one. It's a given that pretty much every part of you will be somewhere on the scale between rather achy and very hurty. The real battle now is mental, and it was one I was losing.

What I would have given for some proper climbs and some proper descents to keep me interested during those dark days. Ashton Court is entertaining ridden at speed, but at a more sedate pace you might as well be on the road.

That said, I didn't take any suspension to Bristol (lighter, tougher, immeasurably cooler), and even on a course this tame, after eight hours my hands and wrists were like limp lettuce. My human suspension was failing and I was rattling myself to pieces. I began to dread every little step, every root, every lump and bump. God knows what I would have been like on a proper MTB course.

Boredom gradually gave way to hatred, and I seriously considered giving up. What's the point in doing something if you're not enjoying it? Then again, did I really want to throw away all my hard work over the last 8-9 hours? I was too tired to continue the argument though, and for want of a better idea I just plodded on. As Magnus Magnusson always used to say: "I've started so I might as well sodding finish."

And then the unthinkable happened. Mark Goldie pulled alongside with a cheery "Hello, my singlespeed friend." Bastard. Utter bastard. He'd only gone and lapped me. Shame I was just too knackered to administer the five point palm exploding heart technique...


Laps 16-18: The end is nigh

By now I was in a right state. I was struggling to see and struggling to steer. I couldn't give two hoots about my position - no longer was I checking out every passing rider's rear end* to see if they were a rival singlespeeder. I was in a trance, a zombie - the pedals were turning but there was no-one home. I was also having a little sit-down in the pits at the end of every lap, filling my bottle and scoffing Ambrosia in painfully slow motion. Was this lethargy down to poor nutrition or was I just plain knackered?

The drizzle from the first eight hours of the race was also back, the army cadets on marshalling duties had finally stopped calling out "Well done, sir!" and all I could hear was the distant tolling of a funeral bell...

I did at least have the good sense to stop counting how many laps I'd done and start counting down how many I had left. This felt much more positive. I was also able to tick off a number of milestones: 160 km (100 miles), 10h18m (the longest I'd ever ridden before), 169 km (the furthest I'd ever ridden before)...

*For a derailleur!

This one says it all. It's getting dark, I'm plastered with mud, absolutely knackered and still fucking going.
Photo by Rob Barker.
 

Laps 19-20: The end is nigher than expected

Those precious minutes trying and failing to find a spoon for my Ambrosia and then having to scoop it out with my fingers like a punch-drunk chimpanzee at the end of laps 17 and 18 were not without their consequences. At the start of lap 19 I suddenly realised in a brief moment of mathematical lucidity that I wouldn't now quite have time to complete my target of 20 laps.

I briefly contemplated going all out for a fast final lap but decided I couldn't be arsed. To my credit, though, I did remain pig-headed enough to keep on riding the only stiff climb on the course, which had the "fun" riders walking three laps in.

Despite managing to ride straight off the trail a couple of times as the light faded, I eventually limped over the finish line, and 11½ hours of Mizzrle Drizzle in Brizzle was finally at an end.
Lessons learned
 (apart from 12 hours is a stupid idea)
  • Try to organise or share a pit crew - someone to hand you food and drink, give you encouragement, track your position and times, and above all keep you on your bike and moving
  • Don't neglect your home comforts - I could usefully have brought suspension forks, extra arse cream for saddle sores, and more than one spoon
  • Keep fuelling right to the end - I clearly didn't get enough fuel in during the final third
  • Train properly - breaking your collarbone two months beforehand is a bad idea, as two eight-hour training rides just ain't enough

The after-party

The 12-hour singlespeed podium: 1st Mark Goldie, 2nd Me, 3rd Paul Slade.
Photo courtesy of Paul's mate.

I was in a bad way at the finish - wobbly as hell on my feet and shaking uncontrollably. So much so that a kind lady even offered me her burger. It took me a full half-hour to get changed, shivering and quivering and trying not to keel over. I must've looked like I'd gone ten rounds with Mohammed Ali. I certainly felt like it. Utterly, dangerously exhausted.

But I made it to the presentation, dressed for winter, hoping for the best, and was delighted to find that I had indeed clung on to second place - but only just. Paul Slade had been steadily reeling me in over the last few laps and was only five minutes behind at the end. That might not sound like a narrow margin, but if I'd bought one more pot of Ambrosia...

Now if my dropper hadn't failed, and I hadn't had to stop to retighten my cleats four times or have all those wees, and if I'd had suspension forks and gears, and remembered an extra spoon, fuelled better, not lost a month of training to injury and not started tired from work, then... Mark Goldie would still have beaten me. Well done, mate. Total legend. You wouldn't have bloody lapped me though!

So, a rematch next year? Oh no, NEVER AGAIN!!!!!

Then again, never say never, eh?
Special thanks to Louis Preece, third in the three-hour race, for checking my race position; to his dad Brian Preece, winner of the "proper old gits" category in the 12-hour race, for being as welcoming and unintelligible as ever; to Paul Slade for the podium photo and not catching me; and to Graham Haller for the free photos.
Results:





Full results here

Strava: