We arrived rather late on friday evening after a few frustrating hours crawling along the M25 around the Dartford Crossing and quickly put up the tent (in the wrong field we later discovered but the signage was not great!). I made a rather bland dinner, since I forgot a large number of the ingredients (ooops!) and we hit the hay. Saturday dawned grey and damp. We gathered all we needed for the race, debated with the camp-site owners whether we needed to move our tent and headed off to the venue - Stanmer Park. We were greeted by a queue of cars at the entrance, clearly the organisers had not been lying about the event being sold out. Getting out and joining another queue for sign on we were excited by the atmosphere. There were all sorts of people pottering about, various old bits of bike piled on rugs on the ground to be sold to anyone who wanted them and a stash of rather yummy looking cakes, which I discovered, rather too late, were free!
Having signed on we kitted up and managed to sneak out onto the course- apparently pre-riding wasn't meant to be happening! The course was brilliant, the first third was packed with little short and pretty steep climbs followed by some equally steep and loose descents. We then crossed over a small road and meandered through a little bit of singletrack. Crossing back over the little road we hit another singletrack section which was really twisty and narrow with holly bushes carefully placed to cause maximum scratchage. The most amazing section of course however, was accessed via bridges over a big A road - quite an awesome experience. Here again were some steep descents and a very steep climb featruing the occasional step created to make walking up the paths easier. We crossed back on another bridge, bombed through some more single and double track, down a final descent and slogged across a field before we were finally back in the arena.
We were slightly concerned that we might not make it back for the rider briefing,but it turns out we had little reason to be concerned. The first aiders were late to arrive as was the PA system so the briefing and the start were delayed by half an hour. At most events this would cause an uproar as people who had carefully planned their morning, eating breakfast at the right time and trying to fit in the perfect warm-up, were suddenly in turmoil. But at the Big Dog there was no such issue, the atmosphere and the great selection of people who were there meant that we just enjoyed the sunshine which was starting to burn through and waited for everything to be ready.
Chris on the front row at the start
Enjoying the singletrack
Chris seemed to be going pretty well and I didn't really have that much time to wait before he was around again and it was my time to go. It took a few minutes to warm up but once I was into my rhythm I found I was riding the course pretty well and really enjoying it. Much to my relief they had now routed the course around the wasp nest and my lap was uneventful. After what felt like no time at all (but was actually around 45 minutes) I was back and it was Chris's turn again. Not sure whether he was planning to go and do 2 laps again I filled my bottles and hung around by the pits chatting to the guys at USE we met at 24-12 and one of our competitors James Poole from Beyond Mountain Bikes. Chris had planned to go out again and flew through so I had a little more time to waste and decided to go and watch out for our results in the timelaps tent. I had an inkling we were in the lead because Chris had come through 4th with the male pairs riders and I didn't think anyone had passed me, but it turns out there was a team in front of us from the Magnus Maximus coffee company. James and I thought this was a little odd since their mixed team was clearly behind both our teams so we decided we needed to look out for this mystery leading team from now on!
Concentrating whilst navigating a rooty section
Chris came back in again having done two more pretty quick laps but was complaining about needing more rest so we switched to single laps for the rest of the race. My second outing was again uneventful and I surprised myself by doing almost exactly the same time as my first lap and as Chris headed out again I did some quick calculations and worked out that one more lap for me and that was that, race over. In a lot of endurance races you do 6 hours + a lap, but in this case any laps finished after 6.30pm didn't count. We had a ten minute lead over 3rd and I would finish at around 5.40 meaning that Chris definitely could not fit in another lap. James and I had spent a lot of time by this point looking for the team who were supposedly leading our race. I spotted someone with the right team number riding around in Colnago kit but he didn't seem to have a female partner so we suspected something was up. However, I headed out on my last lap knowing that whatever happened as long as I did about the same time we had at least 2nd place. I felt rubbish at the start of this lap, but by now the course was really empty (the joy of a race with the correct number of competitors!!) I gradually got going and by about half way through was throughly enjoying myself and felt like I was out on a hard ride in the lcoal woods! Towards the end of the lap Charlie Eustace passed me. I knwe he had been entered into our category and panicked, thinking I had lost 2nd place. Jumping on his wheel I was determined to try and get the place back and ended up finishing by trying to out sprint him - not that he was probably aware of any of this! Understandably given our size difference, I failed.
Dejected I apologised to Chris for having lost the place. He didn't seem too worried and we concentrated on enjoying the atmosphere and congratulating our friends John Whittington and Trevor Allen who had also done well placing 2nd in the men's pairs. We sat and looked at the results and it turned out I was wrong. Charlie had not raced in the end and was just doing a lap. We definitely had second! James then came up and said he had queried the first place finishers in the mixed pairs as he was convinced there was not a woman involved! So over the next few minutes we finally found out that UK based road pro Yanto Barker had taken up one of the Maximus coffee places and had changed the category but this information hadn't got through to the timers. We had won!!!
On the top step
So we got to stand on the top step of the podium together and Chris successfully sprayed Cava everywhere! Thanks to all the guys who organised the Big Dog. Surely the best event this year for me by far, even with the wasps and the delays and topped off by a trip to the seafront and a few beers!
Woohoo!
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