Tuesday 25 August 2009

Brighton Big Dog 2009 - Saturday 15th August

Well I've been distracted by other things and entirely forgotten to blog about the best event I've done this year by far! Chris and I were really looking forward to going down to Brighton for this race. Firstly because we were able to race as a mixed pair again which has always worked well for us and also because the guys who were organising the race are reknowned for being great fun and had promised to put all the profits on the bar at a Brighton pub.

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

Chris decided to place himself on the front row with Ruth Mordaunt from the Patterson Training team whilst the briefing was going on so that he could be assured a spot. It worked well and when the race eventually got underway at 12.30pm he was right up there at the front with the big hitters including ex-Tour de France Stage and Paris-Roubaix winner Magnus Backstedt! The first lap is usually quite eventful in these kinds of events and the Big Dog was no different. Somewhere on the other side of the A road on the section of course over the bridge a rider had a put his foot in a wasps nest. The understandably angry insects went mad stinging any rider they happened to come across, including poor Chris who ended up with a rather sore bum! Despite this he had a storming lap coming through in 4th place not too long after our good friend John Whittington who was leading the race. He went out onto a second lap as we had tactically decided we would do a 2 laps for Chris, one for Rachel to start with and then see where we ended up and decide from there.

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!

Monday 17 August 2009

Elegy to Assos Shorts


We’ve been through so much together, you and I.
Every time I look at you I remember the experiences we've shared, the ups and the downs.
We were always so close.
When times were hard you were always there to provide the support and comfort I needed.
Oh Assos shorts... I’ll miss you.


All Trailered Up, and No Place to go (yet...)

So, since my last update, Rachel and I have had a visit from all-round nice guy, and aspiring Jim’ll-fix-it character, Michael. Not being one to arrive without empty handed, we’re now replete with offroad bike carrying capacity courtesy of www.biketrailershop.com, and Michael’s garage is (hopefully) a bit less full. The trailers look ace for riding offroad, and have the handy feature that they detach in the event of a crash. Fingers crossed this won’t be a feature that Rachel and I need too often, but you never know...

It’s been an aspiration of mine ever since i cycled John O’Groats to Land’s End with a bunch of mates from Uni to head over to Iceland and tour the coastal path over there. Not only does it have a general mystic appeal to me as a country, but everyone i know who’s been has loved Iceland, and a place that nurtured Sigur Ros can’t be bad, right?! Coupled with the coffee-shop culture they have over there, there’s something for both me and Rachel. So, we have somewhat nebulous plans that once Rachel has finished the dreaded thesis, we’ll find the time to pootle around with our home in our panniers; the perfect test for our single-wheel trailers. In the mean time, they might have to stick to somewhat more mundane journeys around the Cambridgeshire countryside when we have occasion to carry a lot in one go.

Michael has also been integral in launching some pretty big touring trips, including James Bowthorpe’s big round-the-world adventure that has been receiving extensive coverage in the Independent. You can find out where he’s got to on www.whereintheworldisjames.com; last time i checked he’d just crossed from New Mexico into Colorado, and insodoing taught me that they share a border! Ah geography, always a weakness!

I had a play attaching our new trailers to our bikes, and here are some photos that show the results – i’ll tell you more when we’ve taken them out offroad...


Bike + trailer = rider - sweaty back. Now that's maths I can do!

No danger of these not being seen...


Monday 10 August 2009

Midlands XC round 3 - mud bath

I keep vowing to get better at updating this regularly and have so far not really managed it! However, I will manage this from now on, honest...

The weekend before last (2nd August) was the third round of the Midlands XC series in Cannock Chase. There was also a race on the 2010 Nat Champs course as part of the Southern XC series, but since we have to go round the M25 it takes forever to get to these races and we decided it was easier to head north. Cannock is also an awesome place to ride so we were expecting a good course.

We stayed at Chris's parents in Nottingham the night before and took in the delights of the River Festival fireworks. It was a great display. The next morning we woke early and loaded the car full of bikes and kit and hoped that the rain which had caught us out the day before on our ride would stay away for the race. It had rained on and off all week and the trails would no doubt be muddy enough without more water. Arriving at the race venue we were reminded of Gorrick races as we drive down a forest road and parked up slighty in the undergrowth off to one side. I quickly kitted up and went down to sign on whilst Chris made up bottles and kitted himself up and we headed off to look around the course. The rain of the week had certainly taken its toll and lots of the trails were sloppy, with some big puddles on either side. Where this cleared the course was typically Cannock, lots of climbs, tight singletrack and steep descents which were made comical by their slipperyness - typical off the back of the saddle let go of the brakes and hope stuff. I loved it. Well apart from about 1km of the 5km loop where there was no chance that riding was going to be possible in the race.

I made it back in time to quickly remove a few layers and line up on the fire road. There was one other person in my category - Amelia Cambridge of Rutland CC, and I had a bit of a chat with her as we were waiting for the youngsters, Vets and Open Male racers to go off and then all the women lined up together and hit the start hill. A couple of juvenile girls and masters racers went off ahead of me, but by the top of the climb I only had the juveniles in front. Going through the first lap we were stuck in a few queues as the Open and Vet met got stuck in bottlenecks. I was riding just behind Hollie Bettles (XCracer.com/Trek) and we had quite a bit of fun getting past people and trying not to loose control on the descents. I was riding slightly faster down than Hollie and came past her just at the bottom of one hill before the long climb of the lap. I apologised for cutting her up a bit to which she replied 'don't worry but I'm just going to try and sit on your wheel to get back up to Beth' - the girl in the lead in her race. With this target in mind I decided to give her as good a slingshot as I could and dug deep. When Hollie came past towards the top of the hill we had definitely made some inroads into the gap.

Coming through the start/finish I was just behind Hollie again and we set out on lap 2 together. It was nice riding with someone for once especially since she was not in my category and we could work together quite well. The second lap was slightly easier since we had fewer people in our way, although the running section at the top of the hill was getting more annoying - I'm not a great runner at the best of times and running in deep mud is exhausting! Still it was more successful than trying to ride and spinning the back wheel round and round and round. I was really enjoying the descents however, and was riding them pretty well, just managing to stay in control and going pretty fast - such fun! I must have gotten a little over confident at one point and caught my bar end round a tree. Over the bars I went with my bike crashing down on top of me. No damage done however, other than a bit of mud everywhere on my LHS. Recovering from this mishap I left Hollie to go in, in second place at the start/finish and headed out on my final lap.

This was a bit of a comedy lap, I slipped off the trail a number of times including once when I somehow managed to twist my bars round and had to stop and straighten them again. But I got round without injury at least and managed to ride the difficult and annoying (ask Chris about this one!) bowl shaped turn down onto the fire-road, only to be so excited I forgot to steer and went straight across the fire-road into a ditch! Despite this I finished first and felt I had mostly ridden pretty well.

We had a good break between mine and Chris's races this time and it was nice to be able to hang out a bit. I also took to opportunity to grab a massage from a great guy who was interested in my tight left calf and right quad and to stand atop the podium and 'do the arms'. After a couple of hours it was time for Chris to go and warm-up for his race. He was not expecting that much, since it was unlikely that he was recovered from the 12 hours of racing the weekend before. Still it was likely to have been a little annoying when, as in every other race this year, the entire field rode away up the hill! I settled in at the feedzone and had a chat with Luke Webber, the newly appointed MTB web editor for British Cycling, who although normally an expert had raced the Open race because he needed to dash off part way through the afternoon to commentate on the World Cup taking place in Canada. It was nice to have some company for the first lap at least!

Chris came through after one lap in fifth place. With no safety in numbers this time he was the last man through, but was not far behind race organiser James Hampshire - a point which I made quite clear to him. Apparently by this point the course was fun, but frustrating since it looked like lines had appeared but they were simply smoothed mud from where walking racers had been pushing their bikes, but it wasn't quite wide enough to ride. It didn't stop Chris from trying and failing every lap however! He tapped out five extremely consistent laps again, finishing with a final lap which was faster than all but the leader of the expert field. He eventually overtook James to take fourth place. Not bad considering the fatigue that was clearly still in his legs from the weekend before.

Chris also visited Dave Sutton for a nice mixture of extremely painful massage and a chat about international travel. Whilst we both watched James deconstruct his bike very adeptly it has to be said, to pass it on to his team-mate who had had an unfortunate accident with his!

Thanks to Nadine and James for another excellent race. Shame the weather was quite as helpful as it could have been!

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Bearing the torch

As soon as i had entered 24/12 and seen my name appear on the list on xcracer.com, i had a bad feeling that it was a mistake. Originally, it started out as a training excercise to get ready for the Kielder 100 in September, i’d done Merida marathons before, so i knew what it took to ride 100km offroad, but i’d never done 100miles on the rough stuff before. So i figured the best way to give me an idea of what was to come was to do a 12hr solo. My history here is a little chequered – before i ever really gave XC a go, i tried a 12hr solo at the Bristol Bikefest back in 2005. It didn’t work out well, although i felt fairly strong, and was riding in 4th place at the time, my body and mind packed up pretty much simultaneously at about the 7hr mark – my stomach wasn’t really enjoying the purely maltodextrin diet i was trying to force into it, and i was bored, really really bored. A crash on what was around my 11th lap that killed off my poor, long-suffering mindisc player and that was it, no tunes, just me, a 30min lap and another 5hrs to kill – my motivation totally went and i packed in in favour of going and doing some fun riding in Afan Argoed the following day. So it wasn’t without trepidation and some daemons to slay that i tried again. And what’s worse, because of my disorganisation i had to enter the Torchbearer race that started at 12am and ran to 12pm. I couldn’t really decide at the time whether this would prove the gimmick that would see me through, or the final nail in the coffin of my 12hr racing career!

A couple of weeks out from the event, and things seemed to be going pretty well – i was having fun racing the FNSS races, probably because they’re quick 1hr races on quite testing courses; not scary tech stuff, but hard to ride flat out – they’re a big helping of what i love about ‘cross and mtb rolled into one. I also seemed to be finding some form after a pretty slow start to the season, which did my motivation wonders. So things looked good on the physical front, perhaps the more untested part of the equation was my mind. Deciding i needed something to take my mind off it, i planned a couple of days off work, so i took the Thursday to practice my technical riding under Jenny’s watchful eye – the few things she suggested to Rachel and I made the world of difference to our riding – it was incredible how much i’d been riding below par in the technical department, and how much i’d needed a refresher! Thursday evening we drove over to stay at Rachel’s parents’ house in Worcester, before making the final push on to Plymouth on Friday morning (it’s really quite a long way from Cambridge!). We got to Newnham at about 4pm on Friday, and already the solo camping area was filling up. It seemed from where we were that a lot of teams had realised that the solo camping put you nearer the course, and so they latched onto their one solo rider in order to get a huge course-side spot to cheer their team mates – not quite what the area was intended for, but at least they added to the atmosphere!

Having set up camp, Rachel and I headed out for a couple of steady laps of the course, and immediately realised that our help from Jenny had changed the way we thought about riding offroad, we kept spotting better and better lines in the tapes for me to take. It was really good to have someone riding around with me to discuss things with too – it calmed my nerves and also reassured me of my choices. After that, it was time for noodly-goodness, and then a wander around the arena. We headed for Theresa & Mike’s party for Keith Bontrager, safe in the knowledge that wherever T was, good food and good company could only be close by. Having been helped to food and wine (good way to settle nervous stomachs, right?!) we hung around and chatted to a few people before heading off to hit the hay. It was bizarre, there were still another 24hrs to go before my race even started – what was i going to do with all that time?!

Saturday morning dawned and the sun shone, ready for the off at midday. Trevor Allen, a mate of mine and Rachel’s through doing altogether too much racing this year, was going to be off in the 24hr race up against stiff competition from the likes of Ian Leitch, Matt Page, Ant White and Ian Payne. Watching him come through very steadily towards the back of the field, the enormity of what he was going to do over the next 24hrs hit me, my race would be barely more than a warm up! Getting involved with looking after him with Nick made me feel so much better, and made me feel useful too – bonus! Come the afternoon, i decided the excitement of the 24hr and 12hr soloists was a bit too much, and lay down to get a bit of sleep, over the coming night i was sure i’d be glad of it. I shovelled in an uncomfortable amount of risotto for dinner, and then kept snacking right up to my 9pm cut-off; i was going to have everything ready for 9, then go to bed for a couple of hours, and try to trick my body that it was morning when i woke up by having a bowl of crunchy nut, my breakfast of choice! It was more surreal, but it might just have worked – i felt pretty awake and ready to race by the time i rolled up to the start line at 11:50. Finding the start proved a bit tricky, but we all made it there in the end – after a bit of an anticlimactic whistle, we were off into the night. I slotted in third wheel from the torchbearers with the aim of putting out a reasonably quick first lap, more to remind my body i was racing than for any time advantage.



Feed zone hilarity

Going up the first big climb i had a chat with Nick Evans before he slipped away into the night, it had me rather worried that i was giving a bit much too soon and that he was pacing himself rather better than i had. I let my pace drop a bit for the second and subsequent laps, aiming to maintain a decent rhythm on the climbs, and then let rip on the descents, although even with my helmet-mounted light this proved a bit tricky; all the lovely lines i’d sussed were out there somewhere in the blackness, but try as i might i couldn’t find them anywhere. Somewhere around the 5th or 6th lap i had a particularly bad one, riding like a total spanner through the rooty woods, and fluffing most of the techy bits, and came in pretty frustrated with myself. There were the first hints of light in the sky, and i was struggling to stay on the case – my legs felt good still, and i was putting away the gels, bars and energy drink i needed to keep me going, but i was annoyed at not being able to ride well. I had a good old whinge to Rachel when i came into the pits, and stopped for a minute eating a banana to give me time to think about what to do next. I was very tempted to quit, and as soon as i said this, Rachel gave me the “bad” news – i couldn’t quit because i was in first place. I didn’t have a huge lead, but there was enough there that i could try to extend it.

I headed out for another lap, the sun starting to lighten the sky discernibly now, i knew i would only need lights for the darkest bits of singletrack next lap, which did everything to raise my spirits. Even better, i had flat coke in my water bottle – my little treat to myself for the last few hours. As the race wore on, i found i was missing my tunes so i grabbed an ipod in the feed zone, stuck a bud in one ear and got Calvin Harris going to keep me on it. I needn’t have bothered though, i soon had Nick for company again, and we rode around together for a few minutes trying to work out where in the field he was, we reckoned second or third. At this point i was really excited, i’d just lapped the guy in third – things were looking better, i might be able to hang onto this. As the sun came up properly, i started spotting those errant lines that had escaped in the peripheral blackness not two hours before, and my lap times started to quicken again. I was riding with energy i hadn’t realised i had, i was cleaning the tricky rooty section in the woods every lap, and better still i was really enjoying it. I had one slight scare when, going for it a bit too much i burped the air from my back tyre, and had to make a pit stop to top up again, but apart from that to get the adrenaline going, it all went like clockwork. I spent the last three hours carefully checking and rechecking whether i could stop early and be sure to win, and by the sounds of things so did Rachel and Nick in the pits! Come 11:25am with 14 laps completed, and nearly 2 laps ahead of my nearest competitor, i decided to call it a day – i came through the feedzone to shouts from Nick to zip up my jersey with a huge grin on my face, as much one of relief as excitement. It was a bit of an anticlimax coming through the arch and doing the arms, given that there were only about a dozen people there to see me, presuming that everyone would finish post-12pm, but it did still feel great – my first win!


My first trip to the top step of the podium!

Trevor hung on admirably to get 3rd in the 24hr solo category, even if he did eat my olives! I got some great prizes courtesy of the kind people at Trek/Bontrager, and was even topped up with extra goodies by Mike Jackson on the Trek stand; such comfy socks! It was a great weekend all things considered, and the atmosphere really reminded me why i love mtb events, but i don’t think i’ll be doing another 12 solo any time soon – i’m much more keen for the big loop marathons. So roll on Kielder....