Dyfi Enduro: I must be the luckiest man alive

Star date: 4 May 2014
Location: Deepest daftest Wales
Event: Dyfi Enduro
Weapon of choice: Carbon 29er with way too many gears
Greatest achievement: Timely deployment of airbags
Greatest weakness: For once, excessive speed
Result: 20th

Warning: 

I haven't exercised much editorial control on this one,

so do feel free just to look at the pictures.

Last year my race effectively ended 20 feet into the first rocky descent. This year it effectively ended about 200 yards later. Oops.

Last year the cause was as mundane as a flat tyre. This year it was a pretty spectacular crash from which I was very lucky to limp away.

Last year I went on to cruise round with the weekend warriors. This year I was still among the fast boys and the whole thing was brutal.

Both years it was absolutely fantastic.

And my wife says I never look like I'm trying...

Great photo by St Peter Jones, co-organiser of the always enjoyable Dyfi Winter Warm Up (which uses some of the same trails, generally in a slightly moister setting - see my reports on 2014 and 2013) and roving marshal extraordinaire, who also found time not only to take hundreds of photos of the event but also to look after me following my crash and, half an hour later, catch me on the quadbike to check I was OK. And men can't multitask?

Learning from last year's mistakes (see here if you're really keen), I not only doubled up on tubes and tools (hoping Sod's law would mean I wouldn't need them - and I didn't) but also got to the start really early - like 40 minutes early - to make sure I didn't get stuck at the back again. Like at concerts where there are always these man-mountains with f***-off tattoos and disproportionately hot girlfriends who push through to the front just before the band come on, I did end up a couple of rows back once the pros arrived, but still in a good position.

The ride out to the forest behind the pace car was four miles of hell - constant testosterone-fuelled jockeying for position as 1,000 riders all tried to push through and get to the front for when we hit the forest. Like on a busy motorway, you leave a safe gap to the person in front and someone will pull into it. And if you don't leave a gap it just takes one clash of knobbly tyres when somebody misses a gear to send the whole set of dominos toppling over. Not my idea of fun at all - I much prefer mountain biking as a non-contact sport, it's hard enough coping with the terrain!

For once I didn't enjoy the first long fireroad climb either (although the bewigged shenanigans near the top helped). Sometimes climbing comes easy and sometimes it doesn't. This time it hurt. But I hit the top in around about 10th place and had loads of space for the first descent, which was fast, fun, dry and relatively easy, and I managed to hammer down it without mishap (see photo above).

This was followed by another big climb onto open moorland. It's lovely out there, all fantastic views and little bedrock ups and downs. The pain of the ascent forgotten, I was feeling good now as we headed back down again, my confidence boosted by my first stab at a gravity-style enduro event at round 1 of the Empire Cycles Enduro the previous weekend (report here). So it was that I launched myself down the descent with a sense of invincibility and a determination not to lose Gareth Jones ahead of me.

This first rocky downhill section of the day is one that will forever command my respect. It's not overly steep or uneven to start with, but last year it ripped my tyre in seconds. Putting this to the back of my mind I opted to test the theory of the faster, the better. The idea being that by the time a sharp bit of slate thinks about slicing through your tyre, you're long gone. And in that respect, speed was indeed my friend. No punctures this year!

Trouble is, my XC bike is not a slack-angled 180 mm full-susser like I borrowed for the gravity event. You tear over rocks at speed and it doesn't stay glued to the ground but skips around like a frisky lamb. As the track grew rougher, it became very clear that I was going too fast. With my new-found DH confidence, though, I managed to stay (relatively) relaxed, riding out a couple of nasty dips and regaining control. Result.

Only then it gets steeper. And I'm still going too fast. Apply brakes. Nothing. I'm not spending enough time on the ground for them to work. Instead I start to accelerate under the pull of gravity. Help, what do I do now? I remember telling myself out loud to drop my heels, get my weight back, drive the bike into the ground. Only the ground is now all flat, loose stones. The bike just skids over most of them, and when the tyres do bite they simply send the top layer of stones skittering over those below.

By now I'm officially bricking it. I'm out of control. I can't slow down. It's getting very bumpy. But wait, there's a corner coming up, maybe I can use the bank to scrub off speed. Yeah, if I was Gee Atherton. But even as I grab at this hint of an impression of a straw, I suddenly realise with horror that I'm never going to make it that far. I'm closing on Gareth Jones at an alarming rate and will almost certainly smack into the back of him first.

I hear this primal scream: SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!! (It never gets as far as the T.) It appears to be coming from my mouth. Part warning cry, part plea for divine intervention. I'm long past the relaxed stage now, I'm tense as piano wire, my body position all wrong, and the bike has turned into a bucking broncho. The front wheel slams into a dip, I fly forward over the bars.

At which point things often go into slow motion. And on this occasion it would probably have been in order for my whole life to flash before me. Only there isn't time. I just go BANG!

But here's the cool bit. My feet are still clipped into the pedals and pull the bike over the top of me as I somersault forward, before releasing the bike and launching it like a Scud missile - straight into the back of Gareth. A bit like this:

Top skills all round! Not only a breathtakingly audacious attempt to take out one of your main rivals for the crown of "Second Fastest XC Racer in Ceredigion behind Gareth Payne", but the perfect soft landing for all that shiny XTR bling on your newish bike. Talk about a double whammy. It's a tragedy nobody managed to capture my effort on film for posterity.

Meanwhile I'm lying in the foetal position right across the trail feeling somewhat discombobulated. A marshal scuttles over and shouts "Don't move!" I have an idea where he's coming from - you go over the bars at over 20 mph on a rocky descent and a spinal injury is a distinct possibility - but oxymoronically I don't feel paralysed. I'm more concerned about lying in the path of 1,000 onrushing riders, and rather than put their bunnyhopping skills to the test I crawl off the line for a little sit down.

Time to count how many fingers, have a nice sweet cup of tea, that kind of thing. I'm a little dazed to be sure, my back feels grated, but... basically I'm OK. So after a minute or two I untwist the bars, hop back on the bike and carry on. Gingerly.

The post-event shirt-off post-mortem reveals (other than what looks suspiciously like a bullet hole) that I managed to land on nature's airbags, the only soft bit on the body that won't snap in a high-speed rocky impact (yes, my arse), before skidding along a bit, roughing up my back and shoulder, and generally having a very lucky escape.

The only downside of landing on my backside was an element of numbness/malfunction in the right leg. Fellow XC racer Alan Colville had a run-in with a lorry a few years ago which resulted in him losing part of one buttock - he blogs as the half-arsed racer (you gotta love it!) - and he had to relearn pedalling a bike. I may now have a vague inkling of what he went through. For the rest of the race I felt like I had wonky wheels on the right-hand pedal stroke. This may also explain why I was battling with cramp from about half-way through. And I hate cramp. Well, everyone hates cramp. But I wouldn't normally have problems so early on. This in turn meant that I couldn't stand up on the climbs like I usually do, so I had to sit down, robbing me of any real power.

So, let's take stock. Overcrowded road section, painful climb, big crash, cramp. You're probably wondering how I managed to enjoy myself. Well, this is the Dyfi, the stuff of legend, must-do bucket-list event famed for its relaxed vibe and zany entertainment (including on this occasion a brass band deep in the forest and all manner of random camp nuttiness elsewhere). It's far from perfect, though. For a start, there are way too many riders - and this year the organisers let in an extra couple of hundred due to a computer error, when really they should have been looking at congestion charging. Let's do the math(s): even at get-outta-my-space 10-second intervals you're looking at three hours to get 1,000 riders down the first descent. So unless you have the fitness to get a wriggle on up that first big hill, the early descents are going to be all Alton Towers - endless queuing for just a couple of minutes of regimented fun liable to be spoilt by the other sardines crammed in all around you. Surely an event like this should be akin to cruising down an empty Route 66 in an open-top Mustang, not taking your Yank-tank for a lap of the M25 in rush hour. And don't get me started on the fireroad climbs - fireroad climb after fireroad climb after fireroad climb, it's the ultimate fireroad hillfest.

And yet... And yet...

Well, it's all about the descents, innit?

Oh, the descents. O... M... G...

There's rocky and there's puddly and there's flowy and there's scary. Proper nowt-taken-out descents, techy or fast or both. No prisoners taken. I've always had a thing for Goshawk, a fun technical climb leading into a swoopy rollercoaster descent that goes on forever - and then some. And of course there's the steep and exposed rough bedrock ridge of the infamous World Cup, not to mention the smoother slipperier rock of Caban Coch just before it. And my new favourite: a short, easy section that doesn't even have a name but where you clatter over these big flat rounded stones that make this amazing racket, clinking and clunking away like a million broken dinnerplates (Greek Alley anyone?). Pure magic.

The good, the bad and the ugly - carnage on the Caban Coch descent. I made a hash of this bit myself, although I didn't fall off and luckily there was nobody there to see it. 
Great video courtesy of Shem Llewellyn.

Right, time for bed, said Zebedee. Anyone making it this far will probably assume that the title of this piece refers to the crash. To some extent it does, but actually it's stumbling into mountain biking and getting to ride the Dyfi (rather than spending the day down B&Q or watching telly) that makes me the luckiest man alive. And long may it continue!

And for the record:

Gareth Jones wasn't hurt and didn't come off his bike despite my best efforts. In fact he didn't even stop - until struck by a couple of punctures later on which enabled me to pip him to the post - ha! However, the title of "Second Fastest XC Racer in Ceredigion behind Gareth Payne" went to Dylan Stephens on this occasion. Amazingly the three of us finished within one minute of each other in 19th, 20th and 21st places. We could see Dylan up ahead on the final painful, interminable climb that was the surprise sting in the tail after the free bar, but just couldn't close the gap. Gareth Payne finished seven minutes ahead in 10th. The winning time is astonishing, even for a pro.

I missed a sign half a mile from the end (I blame the concussion) and went shooting down the Builth descent rather than a new muddy descent through the trees, thus cutting out a couple of minutes and officially finishing 14th. Oops. I was 20th really. Either way I'm pretty pleased with that, especially in the circumstances. But ultimately I don't care about the result. It was all about the journey, man.

1	Dan	Evans	2hr 35min 52sec
2	Neal	Crampton	2hr 40min 29sec
3	Sean	Grosvenor	2hr 45min 5sec
4	Phil	Holwell	2hr 45min 50sec
5	Nic	Smith	2hr 46min 29sec
6	Tom	Ward	2hr 50min 38sec
7	Scot	Easter	2hr 51min 6sec
8	Jon	Roberts	2hr 51min 53sec
9	James	Thompson	2hr 52min 25sec
10	Gareth	Payne	2hr 53min 39sec
11	Mark	Fidller	2hr 54min 57sec
12	Chris	Metcalfe	2hr 56min 5sec
13	Ian	Palmer	2hr 59min 5sec
14	Chris	Schroder	2hr 59min 12sec
15	James	Green	2hr 59min 21sec
16	Dafydd	Roberts	2hr 59min 46sec
17	John	Buchan	3hr 0min 19sec
18	Huw	Thomas	3hr 0min 39sec
19	Russell	Hall	3hr 0min 59sec
20	Dylan	Stephens	3hr 1min 16sec
21	Gareth	Jones	3hr 2min 16sec
22	Daniel	Godwin	3hr 3min 16sec
23	robert	jones	3hr 3min 45sec
24	Aled	Roberts	3hr 4min 5sec
25	Matthew	Jones	3hr 5min 53sec
26	Rich	Holmes	3hr 8min 39sec
27	Matt	Mountford	3hr 9min 0sec
28	rashad	sadat	3hr 9min 5sec
29	Ben	Gadley	3hr 9min 36sec
30	Mike	Harper	3hr 11min 35sec

Strava:

Dyfi Winter Warm Up: Got me all wet

Star date: 26 Jan 2014
Location: Deepest darkest Wales
Event: Dyfi Winter Warm Up
Weapon of choice: Carbon hardtail 29er with gears
Greatest achievement: 5 minutes shy of first
Greatest weakness: 5 minutes shy of first
Result: 4th overall / 2nd vet

I spent Christmas umming and erring about whether to grab a Ryanair bargain and have a crack at the Lanzarote four-day stage race at the end of January with its promise of challenging climbs, rough-and-ready descents, stunning views, good company and awesome weather:

And then I remembered last year's Dyfi Winter Warm Up and realised that I could have all that and more without having to renew my passport, find a way of cramming 29" wheels into my hand baggage and trawl the Internet for suitably garish gender-bending Lycra. No contest really.

That said, if I'd known just how bloody wet I was going to get, again, I might have had a change of heart. We certainly know how to do weather in Wales, don't we? While at least the trails didn't literally flow this year, it poured it down the whole way up to Corris in the car, it chucked it down the whole way through fettling time, and it pissed it down the whole way out to the forest. At which point, as Sod's Law dictates, the rain stopped, just like that. But by then it was too late.

Despite my best efforts at waterproofing myself, what started as a vague dampness sitting in the car became a steady trickle down my neck on the start line (what would I have given for a sou'wester?) and turned into full-on immersion as we aquaplaned down the main road behind the pace car, dodging confused salmon, the spray flushing away contact lenses, mascara and any last vestige of dryness and warmth and giving one and all instant wet nappy syndrome. It was something like riding a log flume while being hosed down by the fire brigade, at the south pole. By the time we reached the forest I was soaked to the bone, if not beyond, shivering uncontrollably, speaking in tongues and feeling utterly miserable. Next year I take a wetsuit.

Rain pretty much stopped play in terms of pre-ride faffing. The naked man had stopped running around by the time I took this.

Luckily the course starts with a 250 metre climb. That's not a sentence you'll hear very often. And for the record, that's 250 metres of altitude gain (which is quite a lot). It's a steady climb, though, spread over about 2½ miles, and there was a tailwind, and it was just the ticket to warm you up, like a nice cup of cocoa and fluffy novelty slippers fresh off the radiator. Kind of. Anyway, I didn't feel cold again until the finish line, when I reached for a flapjack and it was like somebody flicked a switch, and I was a-shiverin' and a-quiverin' all the way back up the road to base camp and for some time afterwards.

The course was a variation on those of previous years, a little longer than last time but still somewhat shorter than advertised. Caff-to-caff it was 42 km, but ignore the gentle lead-out and the pootle back and the actual course for those doing the full distance was only about 33 km, taking the fastest riders just over two hours. This makes the event more XC than endurance, so you can just go hell for leather and not have to worry much about pacing and nutrition, which is a Good Thing. Also, unlike the Dyfi Enduro proper in May, which is one big loop, the Warm Up is three laps of a shorter loop. (Strictly speaking it's more like a lollipop with two sticks where you go up one stick and then round the sucky bit almost three times before heading down the other stick, only the start is a little way up the first stick, the finish is just before you get to the second stick, and on a map the course looks more like a toddler's random scribbling than a two-sticked lollipop. Got it?) This format gives you the chance to get to know the descents and lap people, making you feel like a full-blown riding god by the end, albeit with growing tiredness presenting a very real risk of the Welsh slate then puncturing your overinflated ego.

Cracking shot from Dan Wyre on a really murky day. Mud levels and confident look suggest final lap - riding god territory!

Despite it having rained for forty days and forty nights, the course was in remarkablly good shape. Yes there were plenty of puddles, and yes there were numerous official and unofficial stream crossings, and yes there was a fair bit of mud about (much of it attached to me by the finish), but the trails in the Dyfi Forest are generally a pretty free-draining bunch and held up well. Everything was rideable, both uphill and downhill, bar a short, sharp bedrock climb that has always beaten me in the dry anyway.

I'm proud to say that I led the race from the off. Unfortunately, this lead was rather short-lived, as I was passed after only 50 yards by eventual one-two Phil Morris and Matt Page. I'd hoped to stick with Matt on the climb after the Frozen Devil earlier in the month (what with now having 30 times more gears), but Phil is a top XC racer and set off at a fearsome pace. Matt went with him, but I decided to hold back (the Warm Up may be only 20 miles but it's a tough 20 miles) with a couple of other riders. The long drag up to the top (the 250 metre one) takes around 15 minutes in the dry, a couple more in the wet. The front two gained maybe a minute by the top and I never saw them again. I in turn had a small lead on a guy in blue and a biggish gap on a couple of others.

At least we didn't have to worry about dehydration.
Photo by Mark Wood.

I was expecting now to drop back down onto the main loop of the lollipop on one of two descents used in previous years, but there was a twist this year as we immediately headed even further up on a section of undulating singletrack from the Climachx MTB trail, ridden backwards. Well, not literally backwards, you know what I mean (but there's an idea if I ever do get round to organising an event). It didn't go much higher really, but it was hard work on legs already burning from the fireroad climb. Thankfully it led onto a never-ending descent. Yay! The top part was new to me, fast, rough, typical Dyfi. The middle section was familiar enough for me to know there was a big hole worth avoiding; I still contrived to pile straight into it, but managed to cling on. Note to self: Learn to bunnyhop! The last part was the famous Builth descent - fast swoopy curves, stream crossing, slickrock corner, loose rocky dash to the bottom. Fabulous, darling. Despite my best efforts, the rider in blue caught me right at the end, so I pushed hard up the next climb - and never saw him again. Result!

 
I don't remember it being as wet as it looks in this nice headcam footage of the two big descents by Ian Edwards but I suppose it must have been.

Soon after that, though, I rashly decided to challenge the routing of the trail by bulldozing my own line off to one side. With my head. A tree stump had other thoughts. Ever wondered what actually happens when unstoppable force meets immovable object? Well, you see stars, lose an inch in height and have headaches all week, but you don't bloody well stop when you're racing. You get straight back in the saddle and press on!

Sadly this bravery/stupidity was not enough: at the bottom of the next big descent (Dicko's 3-in-1) I was caught by another rider, Sean Grosvenor. Cue something of an epic battle for third place for the rest of the race. We were well-matched: I had half a minute on him on the climbs; he had half a minute on me on the descents. And we made a good team parting the Red Sea of back-markers on the last lap, Sean calling "Riders!" and "On your left/right!" and ploughing straight through, me calling "Thank you!" as I followed in his wake. I have to say I felt much more comfortable in the Good Cop role, as I wouldn't normally have the nerve to barge through like that. I do apologise if we upset anyone!

Two things made the difference between us in the end. First, I had a minor mechanical problem when my front derailleur stopped responding due to a freak cable failure. Stopping to investigate this and manually set the bike up in the middle ring lost me all the ground I'd gained on the preceding climb.

 

I believe the technical term for this is "buggered".

Second, I made the mistake of doing a gentlemanly thing when we approached a descent more or less together and I let Sean go first. I could, perhaps should, have stayed in front and held him up down the narrow descent before pulling away up the next hill. But that kind of Schumacher tactic doesn't come naturally to me so instead I tried to follow him down the descent, which went pretty well - until I fell off. That basically gave him a 100 metre lead starting the final hill, and I just didn't have the strength to close that kind of gap before the final descent, so fourth place it was.

What with this not officially being a race, there are no official times, but I've managed to cobble together the following results based on Strava and hearsay:

1. Phil Morris
2. Matt Page +2 minutes
3. Sean Grosvenor +3.5 minutes
4. Chris Schroder +4.5 minutes
5. Huw Thomas +9 minutes

Assuming I haven't miscalculated, then wow - I'm really beginning to mix it with the big boys. Last year I finished 11th; two years ago Matt Page lapped me. Strava tells me that I was 1-2 minutes quicker than last year on every climb and, more amazingly, 1-2 minutes quicker on every descent. While I have to give the bike some credit, I think it has more to do with bigger balls than bigger wheels. Which can only be a good thing.
 

Being chased down by Sean Grosvenor - again.
Photo by Dan Wyre.

Despite the initial soaking, my third Winter Warm Up was as much fun as ever. Top trails, a friendly, laid-back vibe, plenty of man-against-the-elements camaraderie, a good result, a proper carpark and a nice warm café - they just needed to unblock the drain in the gents as we might as well have pissed straight on the floor. Good job I'm not as German as my surname - it was not the place for socks and sandals...

Fingers crossed I'll be back for the Dyfi Enduro proper in May. All 800 places normally sell out in about 20 minutes and entries open in less than two hours - time for me to stop rambling and go set a couple of alarm clocks!

Dyfi Winter Warm Up: The Dyfi Winter Soak Down

Star date: 27 Jan 2013
Location: Deepest darkest Wales
Event: Dyfi Winter Warm Up
Weapon of choice: Carbon singlespeed with dropper post, suspension forks and big tyres
Greatest achievement: Keeping the big boys in sight on the first climb
Greatest weakness: Getting carried away on the first climb
Result: 11th overall / 2nd singlespeed / 1st veteran

That sinking feeling when your waterproof socks fill with water you know won't find its way out again. Photo by CameraGav.

All week, of course, the worry had been snow. Would the event go ahead, and would I be able to get there if it did, but on the day almost all the snow had melted, leaving a very different problem. I knew it was going to be a wet one when I hit a 10-mile diversion to avoid flooding on the way up to Corris. What I didn’t know was that I was about to get my first taste of white-water rafting.

The snow had been a lot of fun, if hard work. It was my first proper experience of riding in the white stuff, and I was disturbed to find that in anything more than about three inches you have to pedal twice as hard to go half as fast - and that's just downhill.

Now, though, the combination of the Great Thaw and the preceding Year of Nonstop Rain had created a rush of water down the hillsides, alternately half-inching the trails we were about to ride and carving its own lines straight through them.

Reminds me of that old joke: What do you do if an elephant comes through your window? Swim for your life!

Now officially the Dyfi Winter Warm Up is not a race, and last year I did actually do it just for fun. This year, though, I wanted to go for it – my first chance to tackle some proper hills, wild descents and a decent distance on the singlespeed in anger. And I was not alone. Besides 200-odd sane riders clad in appropriately heavy-duty wet-weather gear and safety padding, some of Wales' fastest riders lined up in wafer-thin lycra, including eventual first three Johnny Pugh, Ryan Bevis and Matt Page. Arriving at the start a little on the late side, I somewhat reluctantly weave a path through the throng towards the front behind fellow Lampeter-based racer Gareth Payne. "Won't people object?" I ask. "Nah, you'll be fine," comes the reply, "as long as no-one hits you."

The non-competitive nature of the event meant no times, no prizes, not even a finishing line, and the informality extended to a refreshingly short briefing at the start: "Right, better get on with it, then." And off we went.

I love this picture. It sums up perfectly what the event was all about - if not what mountain biking in Wales is all about. Hills, speed, concentration, trepidation - and mud. Photo courtesy of Mark Wood.

The first section took us about a mile downhill along the main road behind a pace car (well, a bloke in a Land Rover). Last year I politely started near the back, which always makes the start an anticlimax. The whistle or klaxon or whatever goes off and - nothing happens. It feels like an eternity before everyone in front gets moving, and then the congestion means you're stuck behind hundreds of equally frustrated riders going not quite as fast as you or they would want to. Last year this was compounded by having the few, ahem, larger gentlemen behind me temporarily capitalising on the law of gravity and gaily freewheeling past me as I pedalled along - and then, thanks again to the laws of gravity, holding me up on the first climb. This year, though, having started near the front (unlike Gareth, I didn't have the nerve to go all the way, so to speak), I was just about able to keep up with the leaders by raising my cadence to a mere 6,000 rpm - think Benny Hill on a bike.

Leaving the main road, we were let off the leash and embarked on the first climb, a long fire-road drag to the highest point of the course. And I mean long - more than two miles of steady climbing with a vertical gain of over 250 metres. A group of riders shot off the front and I let them go, settling straight into my steady singlespeed rhythm. Singlespeed does, of course, refer to having only one gear, but on long out-of-the-saddle climbs I find there is literally only one speed you can comfortably go. Pedal any faster and you run out of puff in no time; pedal any slower and it puts too much strain on the body. Like a car stuck in third, there's a certain speed you have to go or you'll stall. Now this turned out to be about the same speed as the leading pack once they settled, so I tracked them up at a discreet distance, eventually passing a couple of riders dropping off the back and reaching the top only about 100 yards off the pace in seventh place. So far, so very good.

But then I compounded my usual poor start on the singletrack by forgetting to drop my saddle and turn my suspension on. D'uh. Stopping to sort this out promptly cost me the two places I'd gained on the second half of the climb, but at least enabled me to make it down the first descent unscathed. It was rough, loose, rocky, rooty, muddy and fun - and fortunately nowhere near as steep as the first descent last year when I completely lost control and went arse over tit in the middle of the trail with, oh, only about 6,000 riders immediately behind me.

Next up was the main circuit, a 9km loop with two main climbs and two main descents, which we had the option of completing once, twice or, er, thrice. Last year I only just made the cut-off time for the third lap, thanks to an early pinch puncture due to inept riding. Slashing the sidewalls open on the Dyfi's slatey trails is also a very real danger, so I opted for some serious rubber for this event in the form of Bontrager XR4s. Weighing in at about 2lbs each, they are twice as heavy as my normal race tyres, but did a great job.

Dame Edna lives! The glasses had to come off as soon as we got into the forest as I couldn't see a thing. Photo courtesy of Mark Wood.

The first descent on the loop proper is known as the Builth and starts off all fast and flowy curves before turning right over some tricky, slippery, polished bedrock steps onto a long all-out blast down a loose-cobbled gully which eventually spits you out onto a fireroad complete with waiting ambulance. And today half the meltwater in Snowdonia seems to have been channelled in this direction and was running down and across the trail. I'd have been better off bringing a canoe than a mountain bike. Hell, I could have piloted a gondola down there.

Keeping your feet dry was not an option - waterproof socks or not - so the big decision was whether to blithely follow the route taken by the stream of water or try to ride alongside it where possible. Now in theory water will find the shortest, fastest and easiest path down the hill, which is exactly what you're after as a rider. The danger, though, is that you never know what lurks beneath - holes, rocks, Nessie, whatever. I decided to take the plunge and plough through the water for the most part, and it worked a treat. Plenty of riders had problems with one of the stream crossings, though, by being overly cautious, as can be seen from the rather amusing video below from event organiser Peter Jones. As Si at my local bike hire emporium always tells me, speed is your friend... (Apart from when it puts you in hospital, of course).

Besides heavy-duty tyres, I put suspension forks on the bike for this event, and boy was I glad of them on the second half of this descent (especially on the third lap when my body was no longer responding to instructions from my brain). Human suspension is all very well, but when it's that relentlessly rough, even with suspension forks it's like riding a road drill.

The second big descent, after another steady fire-road climb, is known as the 3-in-1 (I assume not due to sponsorship – this is Machynlleth FFS – but because it's split into three parts by two fire-road crossings). This one wasn't rocky but was rather muddy and a whole lot of fun, barring the fake puddle at the beginning of the second section which caught me out on the second lap. Now either the Viet Cong established a hitherto undiscovered line of defence in mid-Wales or it was a relic from World War II. “Hey, Fritz, ze Tommies vill never guess ve spearhead ze invasion of Britain through ze Dyfi Forest on our MTBs – aaaaaahhh, a booby trap! I appear to have been katapulted over ze bars into a kunningly koncealed gunge tank! Gott im Himmel, isn’t zat Noel Edmonds?”.

Still, no damage done, and the reward at the bottom was the feed station, one of the highlights of 2012 – and I'm delighted to report that the flapjacks were just as good as I remembered them.

Next up was the climb back to the top of the first descent. On the first section the water had carved a winding channel down through the fire road a metre across and almost as deep, as though it were built of sand, not rock. Someone had clearly been on a health and safety course, as we were ordered to get off and push for about a hundred yards rather than being trusted to make our own risk assessment. To be fair, though, I can see the insurance implications of having half a dozen mountain bikers washed out to sea, desperately trying to inflate their spare tubes as impromptu life rafts. More sobering, though, were the odd remnants of police tape on the next part of the climb left from the hunt for April Jones. Everyone seemed a bit subdued on that section.

You'd have thought laps 2 and 3 would be more of the same, and indeed they were, but they were also very different. I was on my own for most of the first lap, but now I was regularly lapping slower riders (think me last year) and swapping places with fellow singlespeeder Sion Parry. We ended up riding quite a long way together, but from halfway round the second lap I was struggling - I still haven’t learnt to pace myself properly on (or off) the singlespeed. Sion very sportingly slowed a few times to give me a chance to keep up, but halfway round the third lap I had to insist he went on ahead – I was now properly shattered. The last big climb I was riding 50 yards, walking 50 yards, riding 50 yards, walking 50 yards.

Still, I had enough energy to enjoy the final descent and free flapjacks one last time, and then it was back to the very welcome warmth of Corris Craft Centre (albeit with a bit of a detour as we weren't sure whether we were supposed to get back there using the main road or a back road).

A year ago I would've panicked on muddy steep ruts like this and fallen off. Photo again courtesy of Mark Wood, who took hundreds of photos of the event and gave them all away for nothing.

All in all, a really enjoyable ride. Got very wet and very muddy but never got cold, as the weather was surprisingly clement bar a couple of light hail showers, and a hot drink in a proper cafe at the end was the icing on the cake. All proceeds went to charity, too, so a full-on "we're not worthy" to the organisers. I look forward to doing it all again next year - not to mention riding these descents again in the dry at the Dyfi Enduro proper in May (how's that for tempting fate?).