Thursday 10 September 2009

Torq in your sleep

The weekend before Chris's epic adventure in Kielder forest I had a epic outing of my own, albeit on a totally different scale! A friend from the XC racing scene Nick Evans (Beyond Mountain Bikes) asked Chris if he wanted to race 12 hour pairs at the Torq/Gorrick event and Minley Moor. With the K100 coming up Chris decided against racing but suggested me as an alternative. SO there I was entering a long race - not normally my thing but I've done lots of riding right?

With Chris heading to the peaks on the Saturday before for a day of torture with our Elite XC racing friend Andrew Cockburn (Cambridge CC) we decided we would head down to the race on the morning of. Nick only lives a short drive away so was doing the same. What could possibly go wrong?

Well aparently nothing since we both arrived in OK time Chris set up camp and Nick headed to the rider briefing and I went round the course. It was fun, lots of swoopy singletrack, a few short climbs and a bit of slogging through dry loam. It was however, also going to be hard work for 12 hours!

We decided that Nick would do a double to get us going, so just as I was coming back from my course recce I saw him heading out and setting a good pace overtaking on the lap of the field which was required to start. Coming back through after 1 lap he was in a good position and we were second in the mixed pairs - a good start. I started to get ready to go and was ready and waiting in the hand-over area in good time for Nick who had done another good 38 minute lap bringing us into first place - awesome.

Nick coming in to change-over

It turns out though that I was out against some of the male racers from the team in second though so it took about half a lap for them to pass me back again. We were however still in contention and 12 hours is plenty of time right...

Looking rather too relaxed whilst waiting for another lap

Nick did another two laps before we settled into singles for the rest of the race. We didn't manage to get back to first place again. They were just consistently a little faster than us. But we did manage to engage ourselves in a very exciting battle for second place. A team of Nadine Spearing (Patterson Training) and her other half James Hampshire (XCracer.com 29ers) had had a slow start and were gaining on us all the time. Nadine is a fast road racer as well as an elite mtber so when she came speeding past me on a road section of the course I though about going with her before changing my mind and sticking to my own pace. We rode pretty much in formation for the rest of the race, until in the last three hours or so we started to gain time on them again. This was mostly due to Nick staying a pretty much the same speed for the entire 12 hours compared to me and the XCracer team who were all slowing down! Going out on his last lap Nick was about 4 minutes behind Nadine who had just gone out and had been instructed to go for it by our pit crew extraordinaire - Chris! Nick must have given it everything because when he finished - just 18 seconds behind Nadine he was cooked.


At the finish with unavoidable dust-tan

Third place though! Great! Especially since I felt rough for the last 6 hours. I think i need to drink water more and not carb drinks for events like this in the future...

Thanks to Nick for being a great team mate, Chris for being a super pit-bitch and Nadine and James for a great race. We'll see you again at the Midlands series final round in a week or so!


Obligatory podium shot!

Now back to nursing my midge bites from marshalling the Kielder 100 (a suberb event BTW I'm quite tempted by it for next year!). There are loads more pics from the Torq 12:12 that Chris took. I'll get him to upload them to the blog gallery this evening.

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