OTH Racing

BMBS Round 5 Newnham Park, Plymouth

2009-10-03T01:40:00.000-07:00

Well that's it the season is finally over and its certainly been a busy one. Last weekend was the final round of the National Series and whilst Chris headed off the Yorkshire I made the long journey down to Plymouth. I had a quick potter around the course on Friday evening and found it to be really fun, a few steep climbs, a drop, the infamous pipeline descent, two river crossings and one twisty section through the trees. Unfortunately the team I was going to be riding with pulled out of the team relay but this did at least mean I got to chat to lots of people and hang out with the Buick clan.

Saturday dawned cloudy and grey and as I made myself coffee and ate some cereal it was a bit wierd with Chris not being there. I gave my bottles to Sara Flatt and Andrew and went with Imogen to warm-up. We rode up the hill on the road a few times and then joined the massed ranks of female racers going round and round in circles in the centre of the arena. It always feels a bit wierdly ritualistic to me going round and round in circles but it does serve a purpose. It was really exciting listening to the elite women being announced to the line since, this included Gun-Rita Dahle Flesja, multiple world champion and one of the best female racers in the world.

All the usual suspects were there for the Expert race as well as a few folk we hadn't seen before and as the (very loud) gun went off we all charged off the line. We all had the plan of sitting on Emma Smith's wheel I think since she has been the strongest competitor all year. She didn't go storming off as usual but seemed to be taking it steady and I was happy to do the same. Ont eh first hill however, Maxine obviously decided this was too slow and went storming off with Jessie not far behind. I perhaps should have gone with them at this point but decided to stick with my game-plan of steady paced racing since it was going to be a long and hilly one. Some of the masters riders joined us and we managed to keep the front two within sight for most of the lap and by the end Emma had overtaken Jessie with me following closely behind.

On the second lap I took an opportunity to go past Jessie on a slightly lumpy and muddy section and then at the top of the climb before the pipeline had a dig to get past Emma. This seemed to work quite well but I could not quite get enough distance between us for it to really count and on the pipeline she used less brake than me and got ahead again. She didn't get much of a gap on me either though se we continued riding in this formation until well into lap three. At this point I was closing in on Emma again and I was pretty sure I could get past her again on the last lap.

Perhaps I was a bit excited and went for it on the cottage descent but by the time a reached the second river crossing I realised I had a rear puncture. I stopped on the other side of the river and put some air in my tyre hoping the sealant would do its job but by the time I reached the feed on the first hill it became apparent it it hadn't. I stopped and put a tube in as quickly as possible hoping I wouldn't lose too much time. After my tube disaster at the nationals I put in some serious training on how CO2 canisters work and was able to do a pretty good job this time, well after I got the tyre off! By the time I got going again I was in 4th place with 5th closing in so I put the hammer down as best I could in the hope I might just scrape a podium.

Unfortunately I never quite made it back but it was a good competitive race. In the end Maxine took the win, with Emma second and Jessie in third. In the elite race Annie Last (Halfords) outsprinted Kate Potter (Cotic Bontrager) for a well deserved win with new National Champion Sue Clarke (SIS) in third. With so many foreign racers it was great to see the British girls doing so well. Bring on 2010...

Ending on a high

2009-09-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's the last race of what's been a packed summer season, and it came around surprisingly quickly. It doesn't seem all that long ago that the first of the spring greening was appearing on the trees, and i was riding through the dust of most of the Expert field at Sherwood Pines at the first NPS. A lot has happened in the last six months! So, for my final race of the year, i decided to go back to the three peaks cyclocross. In the twelve months since the last edition, the 46th one since 1961, i've managed to submit a PhD and find a job, in fact i handed in my thesis about three days after getting back from Yorkshire last time around. It wasn't ideal preparation, and my lack of cycling and running, and in fact fitness in general, told on my pretty badly as i crawled over the line in 238th place in 4hrs37. I hoped that this year, with life a bit more settled and a few more running and cycling miles in my legs, things might be different...

Rachel was heading off down to Newnham for the last round of the NPS, on what sounds like it was a fantastic course, and a fitting end to the year with something of a carnival atmosphere, but i'm sure she'll tell you all about that in her own post from the weekend. I, however, had had more than enough of Newnham at 24/12 - don't get me wrong, i liked the course, and it's definitely somewhere that plays to my strengths on a bike, but 14 laps does burn a course profile into your brain rather! Anyway, i digress. Rachel left on friday morning to head over for the team relay, but unfortunately her team from AW cycles pulled out at the last minute, leaving her with more than enough time to get ready. I stayed home and packed my stuff, made banana muffins (i'm getting better, but they're still not up to Fenton standards), and cooked dinner for me and a couple of mates who were nice enough to cycle out from Cambridge to keep me company. A few preparatory glasses of wine (one simply has to carbo load on a chateau la fite, dahling) a lot of food and a new, improved recipe Tescos sticky toffee pudding, and i was ready for my wee bed.

Saturday dawned overcast in Cambridgeshire, and i packed up the last of my stuff, and headed off Northwards at about 11am. After a long, but thankfully uneventful drive, i got to Helwith Bridge, in the beautiful dales, and amazingly not that far from the Lake District (my geography was sufficiently bad, i had no idea of this - shameful eh?). I pitched up my tent by the pub as i had last year, but without Rachel and Mark for company this time, and then headed out for a pootle on my bike to loosen my legs after such a long. On my way out of the car park i bumped into Jerry Turner, so the two of us headed off together for a little trip. Unfortunately, little did we know when we parted way that the bridleway that Jerry was taking would bring him right back to the campsite where i was pitched, so we could have ridden together all the way anyway. I got back, de-kitted, read my book for a few minutes and then made some dinner.

Post-food, or actually really during food, Jerry returned, and we headed to the pub with him and a chap i'd met in the camp site, my neighbour in canvas, and one of the guys Jerry was looking after during the race. A nice chat and a pint of the local micro-brew, and of course a quick fuss of the Clarke's rather sweet springer spaniel, and again i was ready for some shut-eye ready for the next days antics. I slept pretty well, and awoke a bit snotty (pretty standard for camping) and then got about the busy business of getting ready. I had my usual super-strength pre-race coffee, kitted up, warmed up, pumped up my tubs nice and hard (60psi i reckoned, i'm not that heavy after all), and before i knew it it was time to head out behind the pace truck.

I lined up on the 4hr line, with an ever-increasing number of people trying to squeeze in in front. Once we'd started to roll out, Owen and I ended up riding together in the slightly terrifying 500-strong peloton where there were almost constant braking waves, including one that very nearly had me off as i locked both wheels to avoid the guy in front. This continued until the pace began to quicken through Horton-in-Ribblesdale, and out the other side in antipation of the start of the offroad that leads to Simon Fell, Unfortunately, a bunch of motorcyclists decided they simply couldn't wait for the group to disappear onto the farm track, and decided to overtake all 580 of us behind the pace van - after last year when a guy on a motorbike broke his leg and had to be ambulanced away in the middle of the race, you'd have thought they'd have learned. On we went, and up into the offroad section.

Straight away, the difference from last year was noticeable - i rode much more of the run in, and even when it became a walk, i was able to keep a good pace, and put in the odd burst of a few steps of running - what a difference a year makes. The wall of grass on the way to Simon Fell wasn't quite such a shock this time, and i enjoyed the opportunity for a chat with the other guys around me, one of whom was wearing a bright red pair of sidis that got him the nickname Dorothy! The new widened stile was a nice suprise, and i was even more chuffed to find that i'd got to the top in pretty much spot on 1hr in 100th place. Things were looking okay! Down to Cold Cotes, and my lack of descending on a cross bike really showed, i felt very amateurish and unconfident, whereas i usually really like it when the course points earthwards. I suspect the dodgy brakes that i hadn't fixed properly (the springs are way too strong, which makes them really difficult to apply, even with suicide levers) and skinny tyres didn't help matters though. Onto the road section, i got into a nice little group that worked all the way to the foot of Whernside, where we were greeted by the dulcet tones of the commentator, a 3 peaks institution in his own right! So this is what i'd missed the previous year - mid race commentary. I got a bit of stick for belonging to a team with "Over the Hill" in the name - not appropriate for a team outside yorkshire apparently, and carried on up towards where the climbing starts on Whernside.

Surely bad brakes make you go faster, right?

The water station at the bottom was a nice surprise, as were the amazing number of people out to cheer - the support this year was second to none and really made you feel so great out on the bike, even when your legs were screaming at you to stop! I hiked on, still feeling good, and picked up a few more places along the way. There were a few people who didn't like being overtaken on the walking sections, and one particular guy sticks in my mind - every time i picked up the pace to pass him, he'd match me, and then walk alongside me poking me with various bits of his bike. This happened three or four times along the way, until i got thoroughly pissed off, and decided to take off at a run - when i got to the summit of Whernside, i couldn't even see him in the distance, so he obviously didn't have it in him to match me all the way - phew! Down the back of Whernside, and again my descending left a little to be desired although i was getting more into the swing of it, and occasionally getting carried away and slamming my poor tubs into the rock slabs - oops! I did have one spectacular "into a ditch" moment i front of a cheering family, who thanked me for the show, but made it to Ribblehead largely unscathed. Zipping along the road at the viaduct, surrounded by hundreds of spectators has to be one of my favourite memories of the whole year. And i remembered to take the man's line down the rock slabs too....

Along the road section i saw Jerry, and waved to him as he sat by the roadside taking photos. I still felt pretty good, probably in no small part thanks to my caffeine gel, and was well up for Pen-y-Ghent. This is probably the scariest of the three hills to me, as the riders near the front are hammering down at a great rate of knots whilst mere mortals like me are trying to hike and ride up. I saw Neal Crampton zooming down at warp speed, and clearly on for a great ride - i later found out he took up the last space on the podium after Nick Craig and Rob Jebb, closely followed by a largely wheelbase chasing bunch! It was a bit of a struggle to get to the top of PyG, but still not as bad as last year, although with my poor pumped arms, and naff brakes, i wasn't looking forward to the descent much. I made it down in one piece, and hit the road section, determined to leave it all out on the course, and dashed back into Helwith Bridge like my life depended on it - the timer on my watch had stopped and i hadn't a clue how close i was to making my aim of under 4hrs.

Still smiling on the way up Pen-y-Ghent - amazing!

In the event, i needn't have worried, as i made it back with 10mins to spare in 3:50! I was still 10mins off the pace of the first singlespeeder though. I have to admit, i don't really understand the mindset of entering events on a singlespeed, even if i do respect the results that people get. Singlespeeds are a great way to train in winter and not destroy your drivetrain, and they have their own events like the UKSSC and even a world champs, which is very cool, and very silly. But to enter an event like the 3 Peaks on an SS just seems daft, and even dafter if you're good - i wouldn't waste my fitness trying to ride a penny farthing or a unicycle over the 3 peaks after all! And if i did, you'd rightly tell me i was stupid!! Unicycling course record anyone?

It was great to do the race feeling fit, and i'll definitely be back again next year to try to knock a bit more off my time - i suspect i'll need to do much much more running, but i'm getting less averse to that in my old age, i'm even toying with the idea of some fell-running events, but we'll see whether that survives the rosy post-race glow! For now, everything hurts, and i'm definitely more beaten up than i have been after any other race this year. And the sickest thing is, i don't want to stop....

Midlands XC round 4 - final

2009-09-23T07:04:00.000-07:00

We hadn't originally planned to race the final round of the Midlands XC this year since it was at a venue neither Chris nor I are particularly fond of - Sherwood Pines. There are just not enough hills here so the races tend to end being more like road races with those who get into the front pack the most liekly to win. When the series standings after round three came out however, it became clear that I was in for the series title in the expert category and Chris had a chance in the expert men's series so we thought we would come along and give it a go. Nadine Spearing and James Hampshire have again put on a good set of races this year. They have been technical and challenging. That said, the women's categories have been a little disappointing on the attendance front and it would be really great to see more girls racing this series next year. It is after all pretty accessible both from the north and the south.

Anyway another reason for us going to race at Sherwood is that we can stay at Chris's parents in Nottingham. So the morning of the race we only had a 45 minute trip up the road to get to the venue. After signing on we went to take a look around the course. It was actually pretty good for a Sherwood course with the usual twisty singletrack as well as a few ups and downs and a good little steep and loose descent. The only really bad bit was a wide track which because of the recent dry weather had become a sand pit and since I generally lack raw power was a really slog.

I was pleased to bump into Ruth Owen-Evans (Yeti/Chris King) when heading back to the car to sort out my drinks since this meant there was another person in my race. As well as Ruth, Jenn O'Connor (Altura Patterson Training) was lining up in the Elite category and Hollie Bettles (XCRacer.com) who I seem to end up riding with at Midlands races in the youth category. At the start we were disappointed to see we were going to be set off behind the Open Male category which meant a few hold-ups in the singletrack. But despite this spirits were high and the 18 or so girls all set off together. At the start I made a real hash up and ended up cutting in front of Ruth (sorry!) but then having got going I was shoulder barged by Danielle Rider. She did apologise but I lsot my rhythm rather. Jenn unsurprisingly took the lead comfortably with Danielle and Hollie following and me behind.

On the podium for the overall complete with tasteful green glass plate
By the time we hit the back of the open men I was with Hollie again and we were working our way towards Danielle. Then disaster, on the sand-pit section I was taken out by one of the male riders and took ages to get up to speed again because of the terrain. For the rest of the race I was chasing down the other girls. I passed Danielle on a corner at some point in the first couple of laps and could see Jenn riding with Hollie on her wheel just ahead of me in the singletrack. She had a lot more power than me on the wider tracks, but it was pretty pleasing to be able to see her going about the same speed through the trees. It was good to have a bit of a carrot even if she did eventually disappear. In the end I finished about four minutes behind Jenn after four laps, winning the expert race and the series. She took the Elite race and series, and Hollie and Danielle the same in the youth and junior races.

Chris seemed to be having a good time in the pits chatting to Paul from SIP events and Trevor Allen from Bath University and whilst I waited for my podiums and chatted to his parents they went out onto the course for a warm-up lap. At 2.30 the boys were off. There were six guys in Chris's Expert race and about the same number in the Elite race, so not a massive field but there were a good number of sport riders. Chris as usual did not have the best start and I had a nervous wait to see whether he would make any places up early on. After less than twenty minutes the lead elites came through in a group and a few minutes behind them the lead expert. As usual Giles Drake had ridden a storming lap and was off the front by some margin. Chris came in a couple of minutes behind him but was looking pretty good and took another bottle - something most riders weren't bothering with. He was less than 10 seconds behind James Hampshire. They have been battling it out a bit this year so this was definitely a good sign!

Status normal for Midlands XC Expert Men - James and Chris off the back!

Over the next four laps the situation did not change much, but as usual Chris was getting closer and closer to James through the singletrack. Unfortunately on the 4th lap his saddle rail snapped and fearing a saddle spearing Chris decided to stop and not take the risk. When I spoke to James at the end he said he had been looking forward to a last lap battle so it was a shame. As Chris was having a massage, Nadine informed me that he had managed to scrape third in the series. So, despite the disappointment of not being able to finish the race there was something to be pleased about. The winners of the men's races were Rob Friel (Raleigh Avanti) Elite, Giles Drake (MSC bikes) Expert and Serge Hunt (Petracycles) in the sport race.

Some consolation for a broken rail :).

Thanks to Nadine and James for organising the series. Hopefully it will continue to be a fixture for years to come.

Autumn's Coming

2009-09-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official, the football season has started (although that seems to get earlier every year), the trees are starting to shed on my local trails and there are reports of the first 'cross races of the year up on British Cycling. Autumn's pretty much here. In spite of what you might think, i quite like autumn - it's a time for a bit of 'cross, which i find fun and stupid in equal measure, time to kick back, relax and take stock of the year. Autumn leaves weekends open for things other than racing, which after a summer as busy as mine and Rachel's can be a bit of a shock - if you're not away racing in some far-flung corner of the country, what do you do?!

You can also tell it's getting towards Halloween, Bonfire Night, and all those things that we associate with falling leaves, temperatures and rain in this country by the fact that it's now a little over a week until the 47th (i think that's right) annual 3 Peak Cyclocross. I've spent the last week dusting off my 'cross bike, truing wheels, gluing tubs (i've decided on the rather suicidal tactic of using Tufo hard-as-nails tubulars for this years race after last year's little experiment with tubeless 'cross tyres didn't go entirely according to plan) and generally sprucing it up and getting used to riding offroad on skinny little 34c tyres. I've also spent a week trying to get to the bottom of a very annoying squeak. Last night, it got so bad that i decided i couldn't just ignore it, so i decided to strip the chainset off the bike. Baaaaaad plan! It transpired that the cup on one side of the chainset had worn out - not a problem until i realised when removing the cup from the frame that i must have cross-threaded it when i put it in this time last year - it was harder than holy hell to move. So now, having planned everything meticulously, i have to find myself a replacement set of Truvativ GXP cups asap, and also get some kind soul to re-chase the threads in my BB shell. First port of call will be the ever-helpful Jerry Turner in Ely, a legend of East Anglian cycling and a wheelbuilder extraordinaire. Hopefully he'll not be too sick of me coming in with daft problems to help!

So the bike preparations have been alright barring this (ahem) minor glitch - how about body? Well, i've been doing some long offroad runs which tend to leave me feeling pretty beaten up; case in point was the last one on thursday which has left my calves still sore today! Unfortunately, there's nothing in these parts than even remotely approximates the wall of grass that's going to confront me for a second time on the ascent of Ingleborough - i remember last year not being able to believe my eyes. At least i've done some preparation other than sitting in a chair and writing a PhD thesis, so hopefully this year should be better (or at least over more quickly!) than last year was.

For those of you who haven't done the three peaks, you climb and descend the three highest peaks in Yorkshire, Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-Ghent; it's a 38 mile round trip, of which 34 miles is rideable, and 4 of which you have to walk/run. It's a truly crazy race, where you climb above the clouds with your bike over your shoulder, and then descend at breakneck speed down the side of very big hills with only useless cantilever brakes working over a tiny patch of rubber to slow you down. Possibly the most terrifying bit is Pen-y-Ghent where you climb and descend on the same track, so you spend your whole time going up hoping that some loony doesn't hit you, and then spend your whole trip down trying not to be that loony! It is nothing at all like your average cyclocross race, and yet almost everyone on the 'cross circuit does it because everyone else does! The last ten years have been almost totally dominated by fell-runner Rob Jebb, who just run away from everyone up the wall of grass and is never seen again - it's pretty amazing to watch even from the back-row seat that i had last year.

This year, there's a curious mixture of people entered, some old faces like Rob Jebb & Nick Craig, and some newer-comers like Kielder 100 winner Neal Crampton and American NUE series winner Jeremiah Bishop. It probably gets said every yearm but it'll be an exciting battle, and interesting to see who comes out on top.

With the 3 Peaks very much at the forefront of my mind, i'm off to my last MTB race of the year tomorrow, the final round of the Midlands XC series at Sherwood. Not exactly my favourite venue, i'm not sure i could explain my preference, but i just don't like the flat-out speed and tactical nature of the racing there, i think i prefer the terrain to decide. But, worth a trip up there when combined with a trip home to see my parents who it feels like i haven't seen in ages. Hopefully my calves will ache less by tomorrow!!

After that, it'll be time to strip down the trusty MTB, and start slowly acquiring replacement bits for things that are worn out/in need of a bit of TLC - there are definitely plus-points to autumn. So long for now,
Chrispy

Torq in your sleep

2009-09-10T02:02:00.001-07:00

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.

A Big Day Out

2009-09-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Possibly even a massive day out. I'm referring to the first Kielder 100 race, i say first because i hope it is the first of many. It certainly felt like something special, from the moment i arrived and saw the size of the terrain around Kielder, a place i'd last visited as a shy, long-haired seventeen-year-old about to head out on a Duke of Edinburgh's walking expedition, to seeing 230 people all gathered in the courtyard of the castle, it was clearly a serious undertaking. It was all a pretty groudbreaking idea, the first 100mile race in the UK, the first enduro to cross the border into Scotland, the first single loop race (as opposed to that oft-used get-out "challenge"). And the earliest start of any race i've ever heard of in the UK at 6:30am - ouch.

In the week running up to the event, the weather in Cambridge decided it was going to turn decidedly autumnal - gone were the sun drenched, breeze tousled summer evenings to be replaced by harsh winds, cold rains, and less daylight. It almost sounds ridiculous to admit it, given that officially at least there are another couple of weeks left before we even get to the beginning of autumn, but the start of the football and cyclocross seasons do sound the knell of summer to me, and try as i might, i can't help but start counting down the days and weeks until halloween when the winds start sweeping in across the fens from Siberia (at least so the urban legend goes...). Whilst i was being blown around in the flatlands, biblical amounts of raining were falling on the borders, soaking the Kielder peat even more and swelling the local rivers and burns almost to the point of bursting.

I took the friday off work, not fancying starting the 300mile journey north on a friday evening on the A14, and Rachel and I made a day of getting up there. We stopped off in Oakham, the county town of Rutland (according to Steven Fry the second smallest county in Britain, after the Isle of Wight at high tide) to grab some cash and some food, and to have somewhere nice to eat our packed lunches. We then carried on North, making it to the border town of Kielder, set in 250 square miles of man-made forest shortly after 6pm. Rachel headed over the the castle to help out Sara and the sip-events team, and i tootled out over the first few miles of the course to see if there were any bottlenecks to worry about, and to spin my legs out. We reconvened for the age-old favourite of noodly-stir fry at about half-seven, and then went back over for Rachel to get to the marshall's briefing. Unfortunately, and this won't suprise any of you that know us, we got to the castle too late, so helped out with sign-on instead.

I made friends with a beautiful weinmaraner (sp?) dog, who was intent on licking my face, but wonderfully well-behaved and belonged to the chap doing the kit checking. In spite of her best efforts, Rachel didn't manage to get a photo of me making a fool of myself over my new canine best friend! 9:00pm came around amazingly quickly with all these distractions, and it was time to head down to the courtyard to be told of what was in store. I have to admit, when the reality of what i was planning to do hit me as Sara ran through the details, my stomach did tighten - i can't have done 100 miles on a road bike more than half a dozen times in my life, and every time it's been an experience. The closest thing in terms of effort and concentration i'd done previously was the Ardechois cyclosportif in the summer of 2006. That experience had left me so tired that i managed to stagger to the event village, buy a 1kg jar of ratatouille and a 2litre bottle of coke, eat entire jar of veg with the only utensil at hand; a piece of cardboard i found (it's amazing unhygenic you are when you're that hungry!), drink the coke and then fall sound asleep under my bike! I woke up three hours later with one of my mates tapping me on the shoulder with his foot...

Hydrate or die...

Post briefing, i headed to bed, mindful of the 5:00am start i would need to be ready in time for the roll-out, and with every intention of getting a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, my pre-race nerves had other plans, and i tossed and turned restlessly in the sleeping bag until long-gone midnight before finally getting some shut-eye. If anything, the arrival of the alarm was a relief - i could get up, and occupy myself with getting ready. It was pretty chilly so early on a september morning, and i kitted up and then put all my clothes on over the top. I forced down a couple of bowls of crunchy nut, a coffee, and then headed over to the line, pain-au-chocolate in hand. The sun was poking his head over the trees, and starting to warm the air, unfortunately bringing out clouds of midges that were out for blood on the start line (as if they hadn't feasted enough on the assembled throng whilst we were being briefed the night before!). We headed out on a neutralised start at 6:35, riding behind the lead car at a fairly sedate pace intended to keep the bunch together until we hit the first climb.

As soon as we did, all hell broke loose and the guys at the front started tearing strips off each other. My legs were already feeling a bit heavy, and didn't thank me for trying to get them going faster, and i floated back through the group from about 10th position to 60th or 70th as the climb went on. Bugger, losing contact so early on, not a good sign i thought. I decided it was too cold and too early to start worrying, i'd just ride a steady pace and see what happened as the race progressed. The first descent was a bit sketchy, covered in muddy water from the previous week's rainfall, and by the bottom i couldn't see a damn thing through my oakleys - so it was going to be like that was it?! As we carried on, i caught up with the guy who designed the graphics for the numbers, Dean who was riding for VC Moulin, and as if the event wasn't hard enough had decided to singlespeed it too. We rode to the first feed, where i grabbed a bunch of gels and a refill, and started to feel a bit better, and picked up the pace a bit. Further on, i came across Rachel marshalling a "three arrow" descent which transpired to be nothing more than a steep rock slab you could roll down or drop off, although apparently lots of people freaked out at the idea that it deserved three arrows, got off and ran! She shouted to me that i was about 20mins down on the leaders - 20m in three hours, not so bad i thought.

I pressed on, passing group after group of people who seemed intent on riding really gently along the flat fire roads, and then hammering up the climbs; not the most efficient way to ride such a long event. Just by riding steadily, and descending reasonably confidently i seemed to be making up quite a bit of ground. The slog up to the piper at the bloody bush bridge was worth it just to see the quintessentially Scottish sight of a man in a kilt standing in the rain piping. Good work, sir! By the time we got to Newcastleton at the 65mile point, i was starting to suffer though - the riding kept me going, being fun swoopy descents, and then i got another boost from seeing Paul of sip fame who told me i was nudging the top-15. He very kindly put some oil on my poorly, creaking chain, as I dashed inside, grabbed a couple of handfully of jaffa cakes and some more energy drink, and then headed out to try and catch a few more people. The remaining riding is a bit of a blur, i remember really enjoying my bottle of flat coke from feed 4, and riding down the slightly wet & slippy boardwalk with the abandon of someone who no longer cares for their safety, and the enthusiastic marshalls who told me there were only 6 miles left to ride. Oh joy, i was nearly back. Sadly, most of those 6 miles consisted of horrible, half-finished tracks that felt like riding over the foundations of a wall - apparently they were no less rattly and horrible on a full suss, and they even caused my saddlebag to come unhitched. But it didn't matter, i was so nearly home. I exchanged pleasantries with Mike Powell over the last couple of km, and we came in almost together, me for 9th senior, and him for 2nd vet in a bit over 9hrs.

It was a big day. I didn't feel too bad straight after, and wandered around for a bit chatting to the guys at the finish, and then catching up with more peeps at the castle. I had some food with Si Ernest and Neal Crampton who'd come first and second, and then staggered back to give Rach a sandwich (she'd been finish-timing quite a while by this point!) with the soreness really starting to set in to my legs. The rest of the evening's a bit of a blur, probably aiding in part by Ian Leitch, purveyor of fine pale ales, but the experience did nothing to dampen my post-big-dog enthusiasm for the idea that all races should end with a party!

So, in short, a superb event, and definitely a proper man's race (none of this lapped nonsense!) - one that will definitely be on my list to do again, in spite of mud, rain, wind, cold, wheel-swallowing puddles, and nasty unnecessary boulders. Maybe i need my head examined...

Brighton Big Dog 2009 - Saturday 15th August

2009-08-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

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!

Elegy to Assos Shorts

2009-08-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

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...)

2009-08-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

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...

Midlands XC round 3 - mud bath

2009-08-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

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!

Bearing the torch

2009-08-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

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....

Moving forward

2009-07-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

I guess I was more annoyed by my slight disaster at the XC Nationals a couple of weekends ago than I thought, since I've only just decided I should write something about it! The whole thing didn't really start very well, when my forks went missing after being sent off for servicing and despite the best efforts of Magura Germany were not returned in time. I therefore spent the few days before I left for the race trying to find forks or a bike to use. Thankfully Theresa Jackson came to the rescue lending me her Gary Fisher hardtail and I definitely owe her big time! Then the weather forecast was terrible. The weekend was set to be a soggy one and exhausting so I was glad to have organised myself a lift up to Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders in the AW Cycles van as well as nabbing one of the beds in the flat they had rented. It would have been a bit miserable in a tent on my own.

They picked me up from the services close to Worcester where my parents had dropped me off a couple of hours earlier on the Friday before the race and we had a very steady drive up in absolutely horrendous rain (well done to Simon for dealing so well with it). I had a very enjoyable journey chatting to Simon Ernest's wife Mel about PhD's, since she had just finished her writing and of course I'm getting there! Anyway we arrived about 7pm, had dinner in a local pub and curled up for the night. On Saturday morning the weather looked to have cleared and I pottered about in the flat waiting for 1.30 pm when the course was open to pre-ride.

When the time arrived we cycled up to the course HQ - a two minute ride. I signed on and then met up with Andrew Cockburn from Cambridge CC before we all headed out onto the course. I decided to let the boys go and just pottered up the climb at my own pace. I was very aware of how much uphill there was and did not want to exhaust myself. The climb was pretty varied, a fair amount of fire road of course, but also some muddy and steeper singletrack and some woodland linking trails. Once you hit the top though it was all downhill. A steep, muddy and rooty descent which was going to involve hanging off the back of the saddle the whole way. I managed to ride all but two parts of this and was pretty pleased with myself. Realising my steady climbing and the queues at various points on the descent had meant my pre-ride was an hour long I decided to call it a day there and headed back to the race village to watch people change their tyres and catch up with friends.

Race day dawned and looked pretty similar to the previous day, sunny periods with the odd shower, and not too bad considering the weather of the previous days. Was packed up out stuff and headed out to the course to watch the vet and masters race. The beginning of the course and the main feed zone was in a field off to one side from the race village. This was going to be the worst part of the course and looking at the early racers slog round at what appeared to be minimum speed I was not looking forward to it. After a good deal of cheering I decided I had better go and get ready for my race. A spin up and down the road for warm-up and frequent stops back at the van for the various things I had forgotten and I was lining up ready to take to the start.

The elites lined up first and the rest of us made up the second and third lines. There is no expert category for National Championship races, we all race in the same championship race, so it was the only time this year I would be lining up against the faster girls! Its always a little scary, but I like the challenge and the opportunity to see how I measure up. A little after 1pm we took off, again at 2 miles per hour around the tea-cup field. I watched as most of the field plodded ahead of me, but stuck to my plan of taking it easy and seeing what happened as the long, hard race went on. Pleasingly my competition from expert this year was just ahead of me and not gaining much ground so I sat back and just kept going at a steady pace. On the first little bit of downhill linking two bits of climb, Emma Smith had a tumble. I asked if she was ok and after "No!" as a response shouted at the first marshall to go back and look after her. I didn't see her again, so I hope she is ok!

Towards the top of the climb I was coming back to Maxine Filby as well and as we headed into the descent was hoping to be able to make up a place or two on the way down. But here disaster struck! My rear tyre suddenly felt spongy, so I stopped and tried as calmly as I could to put some air in hoping that the sealant would take effect. Darn the tyre was unseated, presumably by me riding it a little flat. So I grabbed my tube and tried to put it in and pump up the tyre again. I got the CO2 canister going, but no air seemed to go in, darn. Anna Buick, who was unfortunately not feeling well stopped to give me another tube and CO2, but I still could not get it to work! I still don't have any firm idea what happened, but it might be that there was some kind of a seal in the new tube which I neglected to break before I tried to inflate it. Or, I was just being incompetent in the heat of the race. Anyway, that was that. Race over. I walked/slid back down the hill, withdrawing on the way and took a spot in the pits to watch what was happening at the front of the races. It was pretty exciting and Sue Clarke (SIS) won the women's race with Jenny C (Look RT), who also had puncture issues, a couple of minutes behind in second and Sharon Laws (Halfords) in third. Liam Killeen took the jersey in the men's race and Annie Last and Scott Thwaites in the under 23 races. Congrats to them all!

At the time I was not too upset, since I would not have been up there winning the race, but it did annoy me that I didn't finish because of my inability to fix the wheel. I am over it now but I have vowed to make sure I can work everything absolutely before the next time I race. I did however make some good friends in the AW cycles crew so thanks guys for the company.

This last weekend I spent an enjoyable night looking after Chris in the Torchbearer 12 at Bontrager 2412 which I will let him tell you about! My next race is the Midlands XC in Cannock Chase this weekend and I can't wait.

Another Busy Day

2009-07-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

I’m back in front of the computer, trying and failing to watch the highlights of today’s tour stage to Verbier on ITVplayer (I’ve spent all day insulating myself from any talk of the tour so I have no idea of the results!), so I figured what better time to write another blog entry! Today, I spent the day racing the first race of the new Eastern Series at Danbury country park. Having never been down to that part of the world (I’ve never been to Chelmsford before, I realise this morning as I was driving down), I didn’t really know what to expect. Having got there early to make sure I got a ride (in practice that wasn’t really an issue apparently, but never mind – good to have time) I had plenty of time to preview the course. Too much time, it transpired, as the course itself was only around 15mins long! I ended up doing four laps just to fill the time before my race at 1pm!

I also had a nice chat with marshall extraordinare Tony Williams, and the organisers were nice enough to warn me that there was a pretty serious competitor also entered in my race (but not who it was!). It became apparent when I went to line up that I would be racing, amongst other, Alex Dowsett, who’s road- and time-trial exploits I’ve read about many a time on the British Cycling website. As long as he could stayj upright, it was pretty clear it was going to be a race for second!

As race time arrived, I quashed my usual instincts and lined up on the front row for the downhill start that went almost immediately into the singletrack, as I was concerned about the possible bottleneck this could cause. I ended up in a nice little group of four riders at the front of the race, but after a couple of minutes of sitting in, I started to worry about the faster guys behind, and decided to strike out alone. I led for most of the first lap until Alex came flying past me at a totally unmatchable pace on the gentle fire road climb towards the start-finish. So it remained for the rest of the race, with the marshalls giving me ever-increasing time checks to Alex (they even seemed disappointed every lap when they realised I couldn’t close a six-minute gap!), and the guys behind remaining a pretty constant distance back.

I crossed the line for second place feeling really pretty pleased with myself – I hate to say it, but it’s probably an indication of the lack of strength of the field that I came second, but it was nice to get to stand on the podium and spray champagne (Essex champagne, no less!). My back is now killing me from all the lumps and bumps in the course – it definitely wasn’t hardtail country, but with only one bike I didn’t have the luxury of a more comfortable machine!

Once I’d finished, and picked up my prize, I dashed back to the car to ring Rachel and find out how her race had gone. Sadly, she’d got a puncture at the top of the climb on the first lap, and been unable to get any air into her tyre, in spite of the help of Anna Buick, and pulled out. In fact, it sound like only one Expert woman managed to finish the Senior race! In the men’s U23 race, the guy who’s been leading expert all year, Scott Thwaites, managed to overhaul Dave Fletcher to get himself a nice stripy jersey, and Sion O’Boyle who’d been pushing him all the way came in 3rd, which makes me feel rather better about the torrid time I’ve been having in Expert.

Now I’m going to head back to the sofa to watch the remains of this very-slowly streaming video of the high mountains, so ta ta for now!

New things, and a two-race weekend.

2009-07-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I’m sitting here nursing my slightly sore legs and watching today’s tour stage on ITV player. In spite of, or perhaps because of Rachel being away in Innerleithen at the national champs this weekend, I’ve been keeping myself madly busy the last few days, and not to be outdone, I’ve also made sure I’m doing more races than her (that said, I wouldn’t swap with her for the world!).

Part of my busyness has been getting used to all my new kit – thanks to sponsors Ben Hayward Cycles, I have a lovely new pair of specialized mtb shoes that I tried out on the road bike today.

It’s amazing how comfortable they are; you’re very aware of how stably your feet are being held, but at the same time they feel like slippers in terms of general comfort. A weird and wonderful feeling. The only worry I have is that they’re too pretty to wear except when it’s bone dry! Along with a new pair of cleats to go one them, I also invested in the crank brothers sole savers – little machined bits of stainless steel that stop the metal wings on the eggbeater pedals that I love from eating their way into your carbon soles. They’re not cheap, but they’re beautifully made, and as long as they do stop my shoes from eroding, I reckon it’ll be money well-spent.

I guess we’ll soon see if I manage to talk myself into wearing the new speed slipper at 24-12!

My other new acquisition from Hayward’s is a pair of the lightweight ergon GR2SL grips; Rachel has raved about her ergon grips for quite a while, and having had odd numb sensations in my hands after long rides, I decided it might be time to invest too. Being an incurable weight weenie, I went for the light ones with lovely little ergonomic carbon bar ends integrated into them, and in spite of the slight hit on weight compared to my old ritchey foam grips, I definitely don’t regret it!

My first outing with them was the FNSS race last night at Delapre Abbey; it poured with rain all the way there, and Jef and I talked ourselves out of, then back into, out of and then back into racing again on the drive over. Handily, we arrived just late enough to avoid getting our bikes dirty by pre-riding, but the downside was that we both felt a bit dodgy after the starting sprint with no warm up. I had started getting into things, and was really enjoying the tricky mud, when I dropped my chain and it jammed between my chainrings and my crank arm. Helped by the marshalls, I eventually got things untangled (I first tried to prise the rings away from the arm with a twig – it’s amazing the dumb things you do when your heart’s beating three times a second) by undoing the quick link. I spent the rest of the race chasing back to where I’d been in the field, but alas didn’t quite do enough to get me back to Ant White in 3rd, and so missed out on a prize. It was a bit annoying losing 3 minutes through something so dumb, especially when the nat champs had thinned my competition rather, but never mind! Aside from chain issues, the bike worked perfectly, I loved my new grips (especially the bar ends) and my rocket rons (bought a couple of weeks ago from other supporters Clee Cycles) made the bike handle like it was on rails in spite of the slippery mud on the course.

Coming up next is the first round of the Eastern MTB series down in Essex tomorrow, and I going into it without any real idea what to expect! It was a choice between that and the next round of the thetford summer series, but to be totally honest I feel like I’m done with thetford as a place to ride, and I really want to see an mtb league in the east return and survive, so reckon it’s worth supporting. Hopefully, this video of Billy-Joe Whenman riding the course will be representative, and I’ll still feel I made the right choice tomorrow evening!

I went for a bit of a leg-loosener of a ride this evening, or at least it was supposed to make me feel a bit less achey after yesterday’s exploits; I was only intending to ride for 30 mins or so, but it was such a lovely evening, and I was so enjoying I ended up riding for two hours – whoops! I figure it’s a good sign for my upcoming effort at 24-12 that I feel motivated to ride for longer than planned at the moment; all I have to do now is store up all that motivation so that it’ll last me the full 12hrs! Which brings me to my final bit of new kit – I splashed out on an exposure joystick; such a neat helmet mount and such a powerful but small light seemed like the perfect option for racing 6hrs under the cover of darkness.

Obviously the most euphoric bit will be when I can switch it off and embrace the new day, I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that I still have 6hrs to ride at that point….

Rachel will be back from sunny Scotland on Monday, more than likely full of exciting stories of endless climbs and hair-raising descents to put my eastern racing to shame, until then adios amigos.

Regime Change

2009-07-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's actually been quite a while since i felt the need to document my life on two wheels to friends, wellwishers, and total strangers, but here i am again in front of a computer to give you the latest installment in my mtb saga. I guess i've actually been pretty busy since Crow Hill, but because there's been relatively little racing to punctuate it, it does leave me bereft of reference points - it's actually quite scary how life can start to revolve around racing! Needless to say, to follow on from Rachel's post, Crow wasn't really much fun for me - mostly compounded by my own inability to maintain my kit properly. All it took was a week of me using my decent spd shoes to commute to work to wear out the cleats on them to the point where my right foot would release from the cleat as soon as i tried to pedal hard, et voila - an extremely annoying race. At some point fairly early in the race, i tried to crank out of saddle coming out of a corner in the woods to haul my way back towards the tail of the expert group, and bang - foot comes out and down i go in a heap of dirt. At first, full of adrenaline, i thought i was ok, jumped back on my bike, and rode on a bit with Brodie Gardias, gradually picking my way back into the tail-end charlies, but as the race went on, it became obvious that my knee wasn't in a good way from the fall. Having had to dismount for a muddy section of trail, and realised that there was a bad bad burning feeling in it, i decided to call it a day after 3 laps of my race (although stupidly, i forgot to go through the timing caravan, so looked even worse on timelaps!!). So, my first DNF - not a pleasant feeling, and not one i want to have again any time soon.

Post race, i had a couple of days to reflect, and decide ultimately that XC racing just isn't my thang (at least for the moment) - i like to be able to compete with people around me, so when the whole of the expert field leaves me for dead on the start line, it rather sucks the fun out of racing for me. So, more speed in future! Anyway, to regroup and refocus, i've decided i'm going to start doing some more events that i actually enjoy, and try a few things that otherwise i might not have allowed myself to do. So, up on the list so far we have: 3 Peaks Cyclocross (did it last year with absolutely no training in my legs post-thesis, and still loved it), 24/12 12hr solo (there's a few guys i know doing it, and the idea of a 12hr solo scares me - good thing to confront i reckon!) & the Kielder 100 mile race (definitely scares me, and also the sort of thing i'd really like to see succeed in the this country). I'm also going to do a bit of regional XC, another round of the mids, FNSS & some of the eastern mtb series just for good measure - hopefully there'll be people who're slow enough for me at some of them!).

My other south-coast-induced revelation was that if it's going to work for me, training has to be fun; earlier in the year, i'd been doing a lot of speed work on the turbo trainer through a lack of time (what with job hunting, moving house etc etc) and not really been out on my bike enough. I love riding, even when it's cold in the depths of winter (you can keep rain, though!), so just letting myself do what i want to and having fun on the bike has been really nice the last few weeks. I've been out on a couple of excellent epic rides around the region with Jef, John and the other guys from Ben Haywards/OTH, and it's been wonderful - i never knew such good riding was to be had right on our doorsteps. Yesterday, Andrew and I headed over to the Ridgeway for some new and different riding, and were rewarded with 65km of really varied terrain, from classic mint sauce white singletrack across grassy hills, to natural whoopy forested trails with plenty of tree-stumps and logs to hop and avoid. It wasn't super technical, or massive height-gain and -loss territory, but it was great fun and just what i needed, even with the intermittent rain showers, and our muddy bikes at the end. It was one of those days when you don't realise that time is passing, you're totally content to live in the minutes between the corner ahead and the top of the next hill - magic.

At the other end of the riding spectrum, on Friday i headed over to Desborough (near Northants - at the top of the A14) for a fast-and-furious round of the FNSS. Rachel was there supporting, and she had me, Jef & Mike to cheer for from Over the Hill, plus selected other people she recognised! A quick ride around with the guys showed it was a bit of a tricky course; some really bouncy doubletrack sections across the fields led to swooping sections through the trees, where most of the corners where flat-out affairs, with just one or two errant trees to catch you out. It was pretty flat, with just a few short, steep climbs to sap your momentum, and some serious ruts to catch you out if you were cocky enough to try to overtake! Jef had Paul Ashby to duke it out with in his race, and there were some pretty good names in my race too (although mostly masters racers i notice - Matt Barrett, Chris Rathbone, Adi Scott...you obviously get faster when you hit 30!!). My race plan was, as before, try not to get caught by Jef - it didn't quite work out this time (i'm not sure if i had less of a head start, or if he's just got even faster!) and he got me on the penultimate lap. Somehow, i found the energy to hold his wheel, and he towed me clear of the guys i was fighting for 5th, so we both crossed the line after just under an hour for prizes! Unfortunately, a timing error, and my disbelief that i could have done that well worked against me, as the timers thought that someone had placed between Matt B (directly ahead of me after a puncture) and Adi (two places ahead). I didn't (foolishly) challenge it on the night, not wanting to be "one of those people", but hopefully it'll be all sorted at the next round next friday.
Cue gratuitous photo of me looking a bit nervous pre-race

Rachel's photos from the event are now up in our picasa gallery here

Feel free to have a look! Next race for me is the FNSS next week, which i'll be heading to all alone (sniff, sniff) because Rachel's off to the Nat Champs at Innerleithen in search of more UCI points! I'm sure we'll both bore you with our respective exploits soon enough!

BMBS 4 Crow Hill New Forest

2009-07-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit slow off the mark writing about this race, partly because I didn't feel I did as well as I could have done and partly because I've been pretty busy this week. Whilst the weather was amazing the weekend didn't exactly go to plan for the fedder/penton pairing this time around.

It started off on slightly the wrong footing when I was late picking Chris up (due to a cat missing in the attic!) and then we got stuck in traffic on the dreaded M25 and were late to the race venue - ergo no pre-ride. We ate dinner with the Buick family and John Whittington, who had ventured down on his own this time from Bristol and then after being eaten alive by midges got a good nights sleep. Saturday morning we got a good early start and were ready to go out and look at the course at just after 8am. We got to the entrance and were promptly told the course was closed until 9am, a whole hour before my race started and 45 minutes before they start gridding us. It was a bit of a nightmare. We should have just sneaked onto the course somewhere else in retrospect, but we decided to be rule abiding and waited until 9. A quick potter round the course showed it was going to be a hard race, roots were everywhere you didn't want them to be and you seemed to have to slow down and speed up again all the time as the flow through the trees was not great. Despite this I was still feeling pretty positive and lined up on the front row of the grid ready to hit the race head on.

At about 10 past 10 we went off. I got into pretty good position at the front of the pack and going into the singletrack was about 3rd wheel, just where I wanted to be. But then on one of the rooty corners I spun out and ended up in entirely the wrong position and lost a few places. I then spent the rest of the first lap trying to get back up to the front, which won't have helped my energy levels I guess. I caught up with Anna Buick going into the second lap and thought we could have a good ride together. She was riding really well and had some good lines to follow through the trees. When it opened up a bit I went to the front thinking we could keep the same pace and try to get to Maxine Filby and Jess Roberts, who were not that far ahead. However, I must have done this at exactly the wrong time, since Anna was not feeling too good and decided to conserve her energies for later. So I was on my own again.

Towards the end of the second lap I caught up with Maxine and managed to get past when she made a slight mistake. This gave me a good boost and I rode pretty well for a while after that, but on the third lap I really felt like my legs were made of lead. Maxine came back past me and I just had nothing. I was also making loads of silly mistakes in the trees. I survived the rest of the race, but annoyingly could see both second and third place in front of me for a lot of the time. I think I really slowed in the last lap and only just held onto fourth spot. So not a bad result, but not a great one either!

Chris also had a torrid time in the Expert men's race. He is generally a patient racer who is slow out of the start and has to work back to people through the race, but this year it has been really difficult for him to get forward since the Expert field is so fast. This, combined with a crash and a sore knee meant that at Crow the whole thing became a suffer-fest. He sensibly decided to call it a day after 3 laps and I can't really blame him given the size his knee was later on in the day!

Chris racing hard!

There is now a natural break in the NPS scedule, but we are still racing quite a bit! I am off to the Nationals in Scotland in three weeks and will be trying not to be last and Chris has decided to go endurance for the rest of the season, combining the Torchbearer 12 at Newnham Park in Plymouth, the Kielder 100 mile race and hopefully the 3-peaks cyclocross with a few local XC races for good measure. No wonder we never have any money!

FNSS

2009-06-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

For a bit of a break from the usual diet of evening time trials and intervals on the turbotrainer, Rachel and I decided to head to the previous round of the friday night summer series. The race venue was based around the tracks in "Boyes Toyes" which had previously been used for round 1 of the midlands series, and made for a superb short track XC race. There were a few short climbs on the course but we seemed to make the most of the limited elevation, the course definitely seemed to go down more than up, and there were some superb sections with 180-turns and a choice of ruts to use to get around them. After a busy day at work, it was so nice to let of steam by going around the course as the sun got lower in the sky, and even better to see most of the Over the Hill guys at the race too.

I signed on, lined up a little too early with the other guys, and then ended up not making it onto the front row for my race, so had to make a few "unorthodox" overtaking manouevres to get forward in the group. My main aim in the race was to try to lap Rachel and to avoid getting caught by Jef who was starting 3mins behind me. As i edged forward through the over-excited crowds, i did come across a couple of people who were less than happy to let me pass - including one guy who made a huge effort to speed up when i tried to pass him before a narrow, nettle-lined section of the course. After a brief burn through the nettles, which stung a surprising amount, i made another effort to get past, which he couldn't answer, and by the time i got the tree-covered section of the course, he was way back and holding up a long line of other riders. I never understood the mentality of people who try to sandbag you regardless of obvious differences in pace, it seems so unnecessary and egregious - i don't think i even put the guys in my own category through that kind of a nuisance. But maybe i should....

Anyway, having survived the starting lap, i settled into a decent rhythm, pushing a lot harder than i usually do in an NPS (the FNSS are half the length) and really enjoying riding each section of the course as fast as i could. As i started the last lap, i saw a flash of red following me through the trees - Jef was closing in - we passed each other and gave shouts of encouragement, and i concentrated on trying not to get caught. and just made it to the line with a few seconds to spare (more i think because Jef wasn't trying very hard, rather than through any last lap heroics i had left in me), and Rachel was waiting there looking a bit pink from her efforts - not quite, but nearly!

We hung around in a field for a bit eating ginger and chocolate biscuits, watching the sun go down, and waiting for the prizes for Jef and Rach, and then pootled home for a nice dinner and a well-earned sleep, in my case to dream my way around the course one last time! I loved what was really my first grass-roots racing experience of the year, and i'll definitely be back for more later in the season.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of gardening and riding my MTB around cambridgeshire, punctuated by memories of a weird white, lumpy bridleway, apple pie with ice cream in Saffron Walden, and my first crop of raspberries from the canes in our garden. I do love summer time!

Midlands XC Champs – Hanchurch Woods, Stoke on Trent

2009-06-16T10:43:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the second round of the Midlands XC series incorporating the XC champs. Chris and I, as midlands registered riders, headed over there to see whether we might be able to pick up some points and maybe a placing in the champs. Unfortunately the weekend didn't get off to a brilliant start when we had to do a mad dash across Cambridgeshire to get a headset for Chris's bike and the cleat bolts drilled out of the bottom of both our shoes. Mission accomplished however, we went for a spin on the bikes, ate dinner, packed up the car for the race and headed over to Nottingham where we planned to stay in Chris's parent's house. Upon arrival we realized there was a slight issue, the Pedders were on holiday, there had been a new alarm fitted and we didn't know the code! We rang around a few travelodges but it soon became apparent that we could not afford the prices and it was too late to find a b&b, so we decided we had no option than to bunk down in the car.

After a night of rather interrupted sleep, we woke to see a brilliant blue sky – it was going to be a dry day thankfully. We found a Co-op to stock up on water (although we didn't buy quite enough – lesson learned!) and food in the rather brilliantly named Fenton and headed to the race venue. Driving down the narrow road to the start it was already apparent this was not going to be a flat course so when we parked up in the field and kitted up to pre-ride I was not sure how my body was going to cope with riding. The course was brilliant however, and a credit to Martin Brookes riding and trailbuilding skills. A combination of short, sharp and rooty climbs, steep descents, twitchy technical bits through the trees and sandy/muddy slogs meant that the course was relentlessly challenging. I finished my practice lap feeling not at all ready to race but keen as mustard to ride the trail again!

So I did a brief warm-up, made my way through the sport men to the start and come 11 am we were off. Jenn O-Connor (Patterson Training) thankfully gave good advice on the start line for us not to go hell for leather on the fire-road start so we might survive the first sharp corner. We obediently followed her and the other elite riders at a very steady pace until we rounded that corner, when the race really began. I was in an alright but not amazing position up the first hill with Maxine Filby (A5 Rangers) visible not too far in front, but then as we entered the first bit of singletrack realised I was behind a rider who was really not going as fast as I wanted and the gap to Maxine was growing. Reacting quickly I found a suitable place and jumped past and for the rest of the first lap steadily decreased the gap between myself and Maxine.

Coming into the second lap, I caught up with Maxine and overtook her. I decided to try and get clear and so hit the first hill hard and kept going, but unfortunately didn't drink or eat enough as I was concentrating on riding hard. So when I was caught again going into the third lap, I had nothing to follow with. In fact I felt quite rubbish for the whole lap only talking myself into drinking lots and taking a gel about half-way round and picking up the pace again. Going into lap four however, Chris shouted at me from the feed zone that the race wasn't over. This was exactly what I needed, so I concentrated on riding as well as I could, found a great guy to follow and pushed myself all the way round. I made up about a minute and a half on this last lap but it wasn't quite enough to take first place in the race. Maxine said after the finish that she could see me through the trees and had been really worried I would catch her, but my lap three dip slowed me down too much. I felt terrible at the end and thought I was going to faint. I really must remember to eat and drink lots more next time! Despite all this I did end up being Midlands Champion for my category, and it turns out overall since no Midlands registered riders finished the Elite race! Madness…

After a little bit of a rest and a stop at the burger van to spend all my available cash on small bottles of water, I actually had some time to help Chris out before his race – something we are not used too. I ended up with four sets of bottles to give out since fellow Cambridge graduate Andrew Cockburn (Cambridge CC) was also racing in the Elite mens race and a couple of guys from Bath Uni, John Whittington and Trevor Allen persuaded me to help. I was hoping they would spread themselves out a bit! The men's start went a lot faster than ours had and by the time they came through for their first lap a number of them had had mechanical problems. Andrew had a great start coming through 3^rd a little behind Dave Collins (SIS Trek) and Rob Friel (KTM Pod) followed a little later by John. Chris apparently had a terrible start in the Expert Men's race having drunk milk, which wasn't sitting well in his stomach, because of our shortage of water. But he grabbed his bottle without a problem and headed out onto the second lap only a few seconds behind James Dalton (Salsa). We were surprised to see Lee Williams (Team Wiggle) running around the corner into the start finish. He has been having an amazing season this year becoming Student Champion in both 'Cross and MTB XC and coming fourth in the last NPS at Margam, but had broken a chain on his apparently borrowed bike. Quite admirably he fixed this and went out, albeit a little behind to try and make up as many places as he could. He ended up finishing 8^th and we were all really impressed that he carried on despite everything. At the end he said that since he had paid his entry he was determined to get his five laps in!

Andrew continued his storming ride to take third place, just behind Oli Cox (Pedal Power). Chris seemed to improve as the race went on and yet again put out some scarily consistent lap times – I am quite impressed at how he can do this – finishing 9^th in the Expert race. Amusingly enough we discovered that because so many expert racers had come from far afield to race in a champs race, he placed second in the Expert Midlands Champs. So we drove home with a couple of sparkly trophies, not bad given the race preparation we had!

MTFU Training

2009-06-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

Whilst i was out on my post-work tootle through the hills of Herts this evening, it occurred to me that it might be quite funny to put together a catalogue of all the most wide of the mark training advice i've ever been given. I decided that, given the in joke between me and Andrew that we were one day going to set up a training consultancy in the style of "the clamp" (god rest his poor axed-by-the-comic soul) and call it "MTFU Training Inc.", that might as well be my title for the day too! Incidentally, if you're not familiar with the term "MTFU", wait about half an hour on the singletrack forum and you'll see it used in a context that should make it clear! So, in no particular order, here are the core concepts of MTFU training....

1. If you're riding after work, and it's still light when you get home, you're not done yet.

2. Miles in the rain count double.

3. Miles in the sleet/snow might count triple or quadruple, but they'll also make you pretty ill...

4. The best moisturising facepack you can get is Cambridgeshire mud (more on that later) so riding in winter offroad will give you the complexion of a newborn.

5. All you need for a 3hr ride is 500ml of water and a couple of espressos.

6. Stretching weakens the muscles, so if you feel tight somewhere, just tighten the muscle opposite - you'll end up super-strong and in perfect balance.

7. If you want to loose weight, ride before breakfast until you bonk.

8. Cheese is the ultimate low-gi food, so it must be good for you.

9. Riding slowly only trains you to ride slowly, so base training's a waste of time - you should ride hard all the time

and finally, advice given to a couple of Scottish mates of mine by an old duffer in their (Glasgow) cycling club... "water's for f***ing puffs, toughen up!".

I'd love to be able to say that all that was said to me with a wry smile and a wink, but alas some of it was deadly serious. In fact, i have to say, it's one of the things that makes training for bike racing so difficult, the bewildering array of advice you get on how to train from well-intentioned fellow cyclists.

In true MTFU style, Rachel came to meet me for a spot of offroad riding after work yesterday; the weather forecast suggested showers in the morning, and then a nice dry afternoon for a bit of a harder ride in the woods. Oh how wrong it was - the deluge began shortly before i left work, and only stopped after we got to the end of the offroad section of the ride. The rest of the time, it was biblical. I couldn't see through my glasses, but i couldn't see without them because of all the lumps of mud flying about, and more than once i ended up ditching it into the crops at the edge of the bridleway. By the time we headed home after just an hour and a half, we both looked like creatures from another planet. Like this in fact

And if you though Rachel and our bikes looked bad, you should have seen me...

Finally, i also have some thanks to give - firstly to Just Riding Along. I bought a pair of maxxis rendez tyres to use for training on last summer (mud tyres, last summer, make sense?) but never got round to using them. After i took them out for their first outing a few weeks ago, i realised that there was a wobble in the tread on one of them, and dropped them an email on tuesday evening. Not only have they sorted everything out, and posted a new tyre to me, but they've also refunded the postage i paid to send the original back to them without me even asking! Now that's what i call customer service.

Secondly, Jerry Turner has, as ever, done a super job of rebuilding my roadie training wheel with a new mavic ceramic rim, and is rushing in a replacement headset for my mountain bike to replace the rather haphazard mess i ended up with when trying to fit a semi-integrated headset myself. Were it not for his efforts, there'd be no chance of me racing at the Midlands race on Sunday!

A day in the downs

2009-06-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

It doesn't seem long ago since i last posted on here, but i guess quite a lot had happened in a short period of time. After a week spent gently pedalling to and from work, with the occasional attempt at hopping thrown in of an evening, it came time for my first hard session back after Margam at a local evening TT run by the Cambridge Cycling Club. I rode to work on my nice bike, and then Rachel swung by in the evening to pick me up and drive me out to the Sawston course for the TT itself. Last time we tried this manoeuvre was my birthday, and things didn't really go to plan. When i say things didn't really go to plan, they went fine for me - i was a bit tired from having done the local chaingang ride (and been dropped repeatedly) a couple of days earlier, and i didn't exactly do the fastest "10" of my life (25 minutes something on normal drop bars), but it was a good threshold training session, which was what i was after. And as a bonus, the big dark cloud that had been threatening us all stayed away until after the race finished It was only after i got back to the HQ that it became clear that things hadn't been quite so rosy for Rachel - i knew that things had gone ok to the turn where i passed her, but sometime after that her pedal had fallen off. And flown off into the bushes at the side of the road where it was totally impossible to find. D'oh. To make matters worse, when i'd picked her up, we totally forgot to collect her windproof from the start, and ended up driving back out to the course from home and missing the reservation for my birthday meal. So, really, things could only improve from there.

The TT course itself is quite a fast one, even by the flat standards of the Cambridgeshire roads, there's barely an incline bigger than a slip road in the whole thing, and there were some guys out for a good time before the national 25 on their swanky TT bikes. So turning up in a slightly natty skinsuit on a normal drop-barred bike perhaps marked me out as a non-tester as much as the peak on my helmet! Nevertheless, i went, raced, put in a good steady effort up to where i thought the finish was (i was wrong - i started soft-pedalling about 300yds too early - d'oh! That said, i did go a minute quicker than last time), and what's better, Rachel finished incident free for her first 10m TT under 30m (26:22 i'm reliably informed!). Result!

Today, we decided we fancied a bit of a change from our local trails, so we headed off to the North Downs for a bit of a spin from the picturesque little village of Sheer. We were set on following a route from the guide book for riding in the North and South Downs, with the possibility of adding in an extra loop over to Box Hill if we had time.

A bit of heavy traffic on the M25, and a late start later and we didn't get to the start of our route until 2pm; not really the ideal time to start out, and what's worse it had started to rain as well! We put our bikes together by a lovely little stream in the centre of Sheer, surrounded by loads of white ducks, and then set out onto our planned route. First up was a long, steepish middle-ring climb up a rutted track popular with 4*4s, which kind of set the tone for the day. Whilst the riding wasn't super-technical, there were plenty of rough tracks and rooty sections to keep us interested, at least interested enough to check the map all the time to find out where we were going...

As we went on, there was only one section the really stuck in my head as being less than perfect "mint sauce"-riding, where the nettles were crowding heavily into the trail, and Rachel and I had to stop to put our leg warmers on for what little protection they would afford us! A bit of on-the-trail shuffling, and we were through the worst of it, and back onto a nice wide trail with the occasional root to hop or hip-jump to fly off - nice. Muddied and happy, we headed back to the car in the village in the hope of tea and cake...

Sadly, we missed the tea shop, probably through a series of misadventures and minor disagreements (ahem!) about which way to go, and also through Rachel's back tyre mysteriously deciding to go flat about half way into the ride (in spite of tubelessness and sealant gunk!). But it was a great day out, and to be totally honest, it was nice to ride somewhere a bit less predictable than the usual "play park"-styled trail centres. Maybe i'm just getting old and beardy in my sentiments, but the whole joy of our hobby to be is getting out there into the big wide world on our bikes, not just bombing around a by-the-numbers rollercoaster (although i do admit that has a place too!).

Up-coming excitements include, but are not limited to the next round of the Midlands series run very ably by Nadine Spearing and James Hampshire - i was sorry to only do one of their races last year (at Sherwood - not my favourite venue as you might already have picked up!); an error i'm keen to try to rectify this year. I like the sound of the course at Hanchurch; although given that it's designed by Martin Brookes, i don't fancy my chances of making it through the lap without having to dab! The weekend after that, i'm keen to get out to one of the FNSS races; we'll have to see if i can escape from work early enough! And then it's crow hill - my oh my, not a moment to draw breath! But now, to bed to be ready for my big day out on the bike tomorrow...

"Big wheel up. big wheel up"

2009-06-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

I guess it's been a while since i wrote anything on the blog, i've been madly busy settling into my new job, and training around it at the evenings and weekends. I'm now settled down on the sofa with a nice piece of chocolate and the Wire on DVD, so it must be time to update my virtual diary. So, since i last wrote, i've done quite a lot of riding on the road and the rollers, and arguably not enough offroad (you can never have too much right?!). It was all leading up to the third round of the NPS at Margam Park in South Wales; in theory a really good course for little scrawny people like me, but you've got to have the power as well as lacking the bodyfat. I guess that's where i might have been a bit lacking, as although i really enjoyed the climbs, descents and sunshine out on the course, i didn't really turn in a great result to be proud of. On the plus side, thanks to Rich's sage advice, i "tickled" the course, and didn't blow up, which is more than many people managed through the course of the day. I was tempted to race the marathon champs the day after, but margam is a place that easily gives you enough rope to hang yourself, and 100km there is not something to undertake too lightly. So in the end, given that i'm not in great shape at the moment, i'm glad i didn't do it; there's always next year, or even better the big single-loop euro marathons.
On the Sunday, we headed back to Rachel's parent's house in Worcester for a barbecue, and decided to make something of our day off in terms of skills. Now, i'm not proud to admit this, but then those of you that know me know that i didn't really come into the sport in a way that could be considered conventional. So, i'll just say it. I can't bunny hop. Not even slightly. I can hardly clear an ant on the trail. It's ok though, because neither can Rachel :). Anyway, it made for an obvious thing to work on for the two of us. So we headed down to the local laying fields, all kitted up, and practiced first lifting the front wheel, then the rear wheel, then following one with the other. Whilst neither of us was much cop, even by the end of the session, it was some of the best fun i've had on a bike in a long time. So much fun, in fact, that in spite of the fact that i was aching all across my shoulders and arms, Rachel and I headed out to do it all again this evening on a little gravel road near our house. And better still, we were both getting airborne, the proper way, no cheating with the spds. We had a go with hopping a log, and then a bigger stone, which we were both clearing comfortably, so i guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. Ever since, i've been thinking that wheelies are next...maybe like "the maggot" from the GLC i can do a wheelie on a penny farthing next...!

BMBS Round Three - Margam Park, Wales

2009-06-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

After the problems at the previous National Series Race and my subsequent injuries, I was simply pleased to be able to go to Wales for the third round. Most of the aches and pains were nearly gone and Martin Salt had been kind enough to roll over Chris and my entries so with the brilliant weather forecast in mind we packed up the car and headed for my parent's house in Worcester on Thursday evening. We arrived in Margam around 1pm on friday in time to have a bite of lunch, sign on and go and look at the course.

It was slightly different from previous years, but still featured a massive amount of climbing and the kidney shaker descent at the end of every lap. In the middle were some really muddy sections in the trees where Chris and my semi-slick tyre choice was definitely put to the test, and a double stream crossing. I was really nervous of falling off and hurting myself again so decided that it was going to be better for me to run the two steep drops on this occasion (although I will definitely be working on this from now on). The rest of the descents were ok although I did not feel as confident as I have previously done. So, although feeling a bit disappointed in myself I concentrated on my fortune in being at the race at all.

Whilst riding round we bumped into Phil Buick of the Salsa Factory Racing team so after finishing we had a lovely few hours drinking tea and sitting with him and the rest of the Buick family outside their Hymer motorhome in the sunshine. We then cooked our usual stir-fry dinner and settled down in the tent for the night, drinking gallons of water since we seemed to have dehydrated ourselves sitting in the sunshine for too long!

Race day mosrning was as hectic as ever. Since Chris and I race back-to-back we have to get everything ready for both our races before I go to warm-up. Mixing enough bottles for both of us and making lunch so we both survived the afternoon as well as eating breakfast is always going to be a challenge! At around 9.15 I headed out to warm up, not on the course this time because of the massive hill and by 9.50 was in my pen waiting to be lined up. I still love the fact that all the women race together at the same time. It means we get a great comradery going and the expert field is starting to get to know each other pretty well.

I got a great start for once and think I was in the lead for about 50 metres before around four people came round and shot off. I could not quite close the gap to them, but looking back could see a good gap behind. Knowing this was going to be a long race, i concentrated on settling into a rhythm and trying not to let them get too far ahead. First lap was uneventful, although every time I looked back there was a different person behind me. As soon as we hit the main climb however I was able to pull out a good gap and found myself as usual on my own in the middle of the field. I nearly missed my bottle in the feed zone, when it came up rather faster than I was expecting - sorry Chris! But headed out on lap two feeling pretty strong and ready for anything. As I went round this time I suddenly began to see the people up ahead of me from my category in the distance. Maybe this patient racer thing was going to work after all. I was still riding the climbs in middle ring but saw that the girl ahead was labouring rather in her big gear, so decided to try granny ring and see what happened to my speed. It worked, I was suddenly gaining much faster and able to pass Jessie Roberts close to the top of the hill. Holding it together on the descent and across the fields I found myself in third place at the start-finish.

Just after the feed zone Jessie passed me back again and I decided to sit in and follow her, confident that I could pass her on the climb later. In hindsight this was a dangerous tactic since Katie Collins was closing behind, but I didn't know this at the time. About a third of the way round the final lap, Ruth Mordaunt of the Patterson Training team passed me, giving me a push. Realising I really could go much faster I jumped on her wheel passing Jessie again and followed almost all the way to the top of the hill. On the last bit of fireroad I spotting 2nd place from my race pushing her bike. Realising I could mke another place gave me a burst of energy, I passed Ruth and the other expert rider picking up Carla Haines on the way. I hit the final descent in 2nd place. Before I could question how this had happened I put the hammer down not wanting anyone to catch me back over the fields to the finish. My wrist was killing me by this point, but wow it was worth it to finish on the podium! A totally unexpected good result felt really good.

Chris was waiting at the finish with Rich, our coach Jenny's partner both ready to race later that afternoon. I advised them both to drink lots, use granny ring and pace themselves, having seen what had happened to people towards the end of the race and hurried off to get changed and returned to see the start of the men's race. Chris seemed very jolly on the start line and was mid-field after the start. He rode a very consistent race and always seemed pretty happy. As the race went on he did seem to be going pinker and pinker - it must have been nearly 30 degrees by this point. Towards the end of the race he too began to gain places, finishing 20th in the Expert men's race. I am sure Chris will be keen to give more details of his race later on.

The weekend was great, surely helped by the weather, and the event felt like a festival for bikes. Thanks to everyone who makes these trips so enjoyable! I am now finding it very difficult to get back into writing my PhD!

What a pansy!

2009-05-18T02:07:00.000-07:00

I definitely feel like a bit of a wuss now. Although I have felt all week feeling like I've been beaten up it is clear that my injuries are not that serious and it looks like there were various other people who hurt themselves last weekend including Mel Spath and Jen O'Connor who both race in Elite. Mel definitely puts me to shame since she managed to race on Sunday even having spent a good deal of time in Scarborough A&E on Saturday too with a suspected broken collarbone. I think pre-riding earlier next time might be a good plan so we don't end up without a place to stay at midnight! Not that I plan on leaving A&E at midnight again if at all possible.

Having abandoned the race plan however, we did manage to do a bit of work on the garden at our new cottage. Well, Chris did some work and I moved things around with one arm and supervised! It's all coming together now and the pond looks so much better now we have removed the years worth of beech leaves from the bottom. In the process we've discovered hundreds of frogs, which have entertained Chris who seems to like to catch and pet them! The veg is growing well too. Rocket should be harvestable in the next week or two and we have courgettes, aubergines and tomatoes almost ready to be planted out in the newly cleared veg patch. Hopefully by the end of the summer we will be pretty self sufficient in veg. As it is we have rhubarb in abundance so will have to make some jam and puddings soon!

Enduro6 and other happenings

2009-05-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

Having not actually read Rachel's magnum opus that she's composing with such vigour on the computer next to me, i'll just have to guess what she hasn't written about to fill in the gaps. I'm guessing that the two major absentees are going to be Enduro6, where we got second place in the mixed pairs, and my discovery that there's actually some half-decent offroad riding in the flat, windy fens. So, to begin at the beginning.

Last year, it's fair to say, Rachel and I fell in love with Enduro6; we raced as a mixed pair back then too, and i remember pushing myself that much harder simply because i knew that if i did give it 100% every lap, i'd be letting two people down and not just one! Whilst Catton Park is neither the hilliest nor the most technical course available to event organisers, it does seem that for one weekend at the end of April, Pat Adams has the ear of the weather gods, and it stays dry, warm and dusty. And let's face it, after last year's summer that's reason enough for it to stand out in the communal memory as an island of pleasantness in a sea of mud. So, we were keen to go there again this year, with the aim of improving on our fifth place of last year (we had a fantastic ding-dong battle with Ruth Mordaunt and Simon Young, I would pass Ruth, Simon would pass Rachel, and it was only pretty close to the end that it was clear they had the advantage. In fact, the mixed pairs was pretty stacked with talent last year, with Sue & Barrie Clarke, Luke & Paula Moseley, and Gareth Mongomerie & Amy Hunt all racing, so we were probably hoping for less competition too!!).

Catton is a fairly short jaunt in the grand scheme of things for us; it's about 2hrs up the A14 from Cambridge, and it's probably just as well, because the morning of the day before the race, i was off to do some finger-holding to get my PhD degree! Fully carbo-loaded from Friday night's graduation dinner, which included some (maybe a bit too much) rather excellent wine, a Stilton the size of my head (no really) and then snuff to finish, it's fair to say i felt a bit fuzzy in the head sitting on the park and ride bus in my suit, gown and academical bands. Fuzzy and surreal. And maybe a little Harry Potter. My folks made the trip from Nottingham to come and see me get my degree (i actually got two in one go, kind of like BOGOF as i totally forgot to collect my MA a couple of years ago!), and do the proud parent thing which was really lovely. Such a superb morning, and a slightly bizarre lunch in the main dining hall with all the undergraduate students, as we stayed too long at the senate house and missed the main event in my college (Trinity). Then home to change into my civvies (i'm not sure whether it's memories of school, or just some innate anarchic tendency in me that means i can't stand wearing formal dress for too long - i'm way more at home in jeans and a jumper!) have a cup of tea and a slightly flat scone, and then pack up the car and head for Catton.

We got to the park just as the sun was going down, and the racers were heading out for the night time trial - one lap of the course as fast as possible once the sun had set. I was glad i hadn't bothered, and saved my legs for the sunday, as it was really quite chilly by the time the elite guys were setting off (i know i'm only an expert, but i don't really believe that entitles me to race in the "fun" category!). It got colder again as we wandered over to say hello to our pals at the Salsa encampment, and by the time we were curled up in our sleeping bags, i was beginning to wonder if i should have brought a second one. One extremely chilly and sleepless night for both of us later, and the sun rose to reveal frost on the grass. Man i hate camping sometimes.

With surprising efficiency, we ate, built our bikes, filled our bottles and lugged an amazing amount of crap over to our pit in the parc ferme area. Before i really had time to think about it, i was lining up for the run with a bunch of other guys, and seemingly all too quickly, we were off on a lap of a shortened course around the arena. For a good 100yds, i was up with the front runners, and then my lack of running legs started to show, and i dropped back - i got on the bike maybe 50th, and stormed around my first lap feeling really strong until i was back up in around 10th by the end of lap 1. Lap 2 went much the same, although i didn't gain any places, i still felt like i was keeping it drilled, and with about 55m on the clock i handed over to Rachel for her turn out on course. We kept taking double laps, oblivious to where we were in our cat until the first results were announced a little over 2hrs in. Apparently we were winning, by a margin of around 10m.

Suddenly things got serious in my brain; i started making doubly sure i had enough liquid for each lap, that i ate properly when i got back, that i stretched my knee just in case it might start to complain. We both worked super-hard to open a really big gap, so that should an unthinkable disaster happen, we had enough of a buffer. The guys around us in the pits were also racing mixed, and were really nice and supportive offering nice relaxing conversation and advice for us when we were back from laps, and too shattered to think too much! We kept the momentum up right the way to the finish, until Rachel handed over to me for the last lap which i thought was a bit of a parade - there weren't many people out on course so i just went for it with all my remaining energy managing a lap that was only 1m slower than my first one. I came through the finish arch to shake Pat Adam's hand (that man does the personal touch so well!) thinking that we'd won. I was over the moon, i've never won any physical competition in my life before, and finally aged 26 i'd done it.

We had the obligatory interview with Joolze, and i have to say it was all an experience i could get used to, and it was only when we went to check out the results before the podium presentation that we discovered that we were 2nd. Another pair, two Elite cat XC racers had entered the men's pairs by accident, and had only been moved to the right category after the race, which kind of sucked. So, we were second. Had i known all the way through that we were 5m down on a pair of elite riders, i'd probably have been almost as elated as i was about winning, but somehow thinking you've won only to be told "oh no, clerical error" at the end takes all that away, and you can't help feel a bit robbed. What's worse is that it's clear that the credit crunch hit the prize purse too - we got a £30 wiggle voucher each for our efforts, when the entry cost £40 for the pair of us. I suspect 3rd place only just got the price of their entries back, which is pretty poor for such a big event. Still, the weather was good, the people were lovely, and 2nd place is still a decent improvement on last year, so can't gripe too much!

It's now half-eleven, and a schoolnight, so being a working man, i'll have to leave stories of long, sweeping fenland descents until another night. Tune in soon, Rachel and I have a month of pent-up blogging to get out of our systems, so there's bound to be more updates soon....

Long time no blog...

2009-05-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well its been a while since I had enough time on the internet to actually add anything to this. But finally, no thanks to certain satellite TV providers, we are connected at home and able to update. Boy is there lots to update!

Chris and I are well settled into our little cottage now and have almost everything we need to live (dining table and chairs to arrive soon!). We have managed just about to sort out a routine of working, eating, training and sleeping. But have also not let ourselves off with the easy option and have done quite a bit of gardening and some racing!

I have been putting my aero helmet on quite a bit recently (well not mine, but you get the idea!). Firstly there was the student 3-up TT champs about three weeks back. This was quite an experience. I have done two 3-ups in the past and neither has been a total success. The first was years ago when I was just a newby on a bike and was towed around a 50km course by an already pretty fast Emma Pooley, and one two years ago where our third rider was late to the start and we didn't finish together - not great precedent really. I was hoping this year would be better! I was riding in a team with another two girls from Cambridge, both mostly triathletes and with varying experience. In our practice we had worked out that one girl was likely to be the weakest and she was very gracious in acknowledging she might need a bit of helping around. We actually had a very good ride until, about two-thirds round the second lap of the course I managed to clip the wheel of the lass behind me, who had overlapped, and took her out. She was amazing, jumping straight back on the bike and finishing the race despite quite a bit of bleeding. We finished as a team, and managed to win the student event so not a completely smooth ride but a good team effort none-the-less. Thanks to Willow and Hannah for that one!

Last weekend was the student 25mile TT champs. Much less fun than a TTT but I was defending champion so was persuaded to enter. I went pretty well and I managed to win again somehow. Although I renewed my dislike of TTs, getting incredibly saddle sore on the second lap of the two lap course. I was super glad of the hills which meant I pushed harder on the pedals and raised myself out of the saddle a bit!

The weekend inbetween these two excursions to the dark-side was much more fun! Chris and I raced the Enduro 6 as a mixed pair. This was a really great event again, great competitors in general and the weather turned out amazingly well. We were both feeling like we had good legs, were motivated and really enjoyed the course (even if it had been sanitised a bit through the beautiful bluebell woods!). Anyway I'm sure Chris will have more to say about this one, but we finished in second place just over 5 minutes behind the winners.

My other outing on the MTB recently has not been quite so successful however. We went up to Dalby forest near Scarborough this weekend for the second round of the National Points Series. Having done a slightly silly thing fitting my new bottom bracket I had to make a visit to lovely Jerry Turner at his shop in Ely on Friday and we ended up going via there again on the Saturday. We therefore arrived in Dalby later than originally intended all-be-it both with working bikes! After a cup of tea with the Buick's in their camper we headed out on the course to take a look. There had been some scare stories about drops so I was, I have to admit a little nervous. The first bit of the course was great fun, fast and rolling, with some steps in the descents and one rock slab-type drop. I thought that if that was it, everything would be fine. I thought too soon!

We soon came upon a bigger drop - Worry Gill - and there was a big group of people checking it out even at gone 6pm on the night before the course. Chris took a little while to ride it but was fine, but I hung around watching and tried a few times, but couldn't quite get up the nerve. Everyone was very encouraging, but I know when my mind has got the better of me and had wasted quite a bit of time, so decided I needed to carry on. We rode up a quite steep and switchbacky climb and then came across the next techy section - a rooty, run-down with a few little drops here and ther. It definitely looked nasty. Stu Bowers was there and gave Chris some great advice which saw him clean it first time. I stalled couple of times but on the same instructions eventually took the plunge and made it over the top. Unfortunately this is where it all went wrong! At some point further down, my back wheel lifted up and I braked more with my front brake - biggest mistake. I flew straight over the bars and landed chest first on a tree-stump. Ow!

Anyway to cut a long story short lovely Chris had to dust me off and walk me back up the hill since I was convinced my wrist was broken - again. He then packed up the tent and drove me to Scarborough A & E. Here we were very surprised to see Carla, who I had been riding round with, and her parents. Apparently she also took a tumble on the same descent and had speared herself on a root. We hung out in the waiting room for what seemed like hours, with some slightly nutty people (although not too many drunks for a Saturday night!). I was eventually x-rayed and found not to have broken my wrist - thank god! But I have broken my finger and bruised my ribs, so a few days off the bike at least :( Chris was an angel and after we got out after midnight and had nowhere to stay and little chance of me getting into a tent drove all the way back to Cambridge. I owe him big-time especially since he lost his chance of being able to race on what was a great course because of it all. Thanks Chris!

So what to take away from all this? Well my considered advice based on the last few weeks has to be do not use the front brakes when going down steep descents! Oh and TTing is quite painful in a completely different way....

Roubaix Roubaix Roubaix Roubaix

2009-04-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

So it’s Easter weekend already! Where does the time go? And of course, it’s also the weekend of Paris-Roubaix, my favourite one-day classic event in the calendar – it such an exciting race to watch, and it’s not as tactical as a lot of road races are – you have to be strong to win. It definitely appeals to the mountain biker in me, the idea of having to make the right compromise in equipment and training to ride a 260km road race with bike and body still able to survive over 50km of punishing cobblestones. It’s an odd favourite to pick for someone who has a delusion of being a climber (I think I only believe that because I’m quite light, sadly I don’t yet have the power or results to back it up!), but it’s just so enchanting. For people who I’d like to see on the top-step, it has to be Haussler – he’s been so close twice already this year, it’d be great to see him finally get the reward for his hard work in the Queen of the Classics. But it all depends…that’s the joy of bike racing!

I seem to say this every blog entry, but it’s been a busy few days since I last wrote anything. Most of my time has been taken up packing box after box with things for my new home in Orwell – I’ve become quite a dab-hand at taping up shipping crates now, although my careful organisation in packing the first few boxes has turned gradually into organised chaos, and then just chaos. I still have a sofa-bed to deconstruct, and the usual pile of odd-shaped things that don’t fit the crates, but I’m more or less ready for the removals men to come. It’s very weird to think that in 48 hours, I’ll be packing most of what I own into the back of a truck to head back to the county where I have spent most of the last eight years. I definitely view it with a mixture of excitement, trepidation and occasional dread. The cat, by contrast is aware that something exciting is going on, and wants to be in on the ground floor – I’m sure he’d pack himself if he could!

I went out for my last long ride around Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire yesterday; perhaps not the best of days to remember it by, given the grey skies and constant rain. For most of my four hours it was like a heavy scotch mist that soaks you to the skin without you even being aware that it’s raining. Every time I looked down, the water would run off my visor into my shoes – euch! I also got my second puncture of the season (my first one was sometime in January, but thankfully not on one of those days where it’s so cold you can only get the tyre off with your teeth!), probably from the grit washing off the verges into the road. I spent a happy fifteen minutes sitting in a ditch picking flints out of my tyre to make sure that I didn’t get a second one (I only had one tube in my saddlebag, bad plan – there are two in there now!) and watching soggy horse-riders go by. I managed to get home just in time to see the podiums for the World Cup XC in South Africa, which was quite exciting. It looks like it’s going to be a year dominated by the old guard in the men’s racing, with Hermida, Absalon & Sauser on the podium, along with fresh-star Burry Stander and surprise 5th place Wolfram Kuschat, who seems to have suddenly hit his stride in his mid-30s! For the women it’s all change, with Liz Osl on the top-spot, which is somehow more exciting. It’ll be interesting to see what the rest of the season brings. It was also good to see the brits scooping up some UCI points; hopefully we’ll see a few more brit women racing this year…

Whilst I was out riding, I also had a bit of a revelation when it comes to road safety for bikes too – when it comes to looking out for us two-wheeled brethren, white lines are no help. Aside from the recent controversy caused by riders crossing the solid white lines on the road at a recent Premier Calendar road race, and ultimately the race being cancelled by police as a result, white lines are not our friends in a more obvious and mundane way. Some of the roads out in the wilds are un-lined, and I often find that drivers pull wide to overtake on these roads, using the whole width of the road to pass me. But in the same situation, on a similar-width road with a while line down the middle, suddenly the drivers don’t pull as wide. I’d pondered this for a while, and then yesterday the answer hit me – people don’t like crossing the white line! If they can overtake, and stay within the line, even if the other side of the road is visible and clear for miles, then they will. I put my theory to the test, and sure enough, sit far enough out that drivers have to cross the line to overtake, and they’ll start passing wide again (albeit maybe with a grumble at “lycra louts” under their breath). Then it’s a case of taking a leaf out of the horse-rider’s book, and giving people a cheery “thankyou” wave and voila! – safe overtaking, and non-pissed-off drivers! Result!

Today, happy easter by the way, I’m off out to spend the day with my parents; today’s efforts will have to wait until this evening on the rollers, where the only hazard I ever have to deal with is falling gardening equipment. Quite how Rachel and I are going to fit all of our cycling stuff and the gardening tools into the shed in our new house is a mystery, I suspect it’ll involve quite a lot of box-tetris, but I’m sure we’ll work something out. Maybe we’ll have to find somewhere else to put the lawn-mower!!! I just have to figure out the best way of getting Eurosport hooked up in there for added inspiration...

A good start

2009-04-07T10:35:00.001-07:00

Having just logged on to write about our racing this weekend I see that Chris has, helpfully, beaten me to it and so I don't need to write anything in particular about the course. I will however add that it wasn't really my cup of tea either, with the fire-road climbs a little to short for my liking and the twitchy bits through the trees were for some reason a real challenge. That said I have done well on flat courses in general so I definitely went into the race not knowing what to expect.

The unknowns continued as I lined up on the front row of the grid with 10 other girls, a somewhat unprecedented number in my experience (congratulations Martin!). There were a good few faces I knew and it felt great to be lining up at the start of the race with so many familiar faces from the last couple of years. But equally there were a few faces I didn't recognise!

After the elite women, junior and youth boys headed off we were brought to the front of the grid. One start missed, then bang we were off. My start wasn't too bad and I went past Chris in 3rd wheel apparently. Once we hit the fire-road however I decided I wanted to be in the lead so I put the hammer down and got myself there. As we went up the first climb Jess came alongside me but I dug deep and went into the singletrack still in the lead. This was perhaps my first mistake since then as soon as we hit the next fire-road Jess came past me and I had little to respond with. Soon Emma Smith, the eventual winner, came past me as well but I was able to stay with her for a little while. I was a muppet through the trees however, stalling all over the place and not feeling very at home on my bike at all and she got a little bit of a gap.

For the rest of the first lap and the second I could see both Jess and Emma ahead of me and I seemed to gain on them on the hills but loose them through the trees. On lap 3 I lost sight of them and that was that for the rest of the race. It was at this point I starting making mistakes. I swept wide on a fire-road and hit the deck grazing my arm and a bit later caught my arm on a tree. Another nice bruise to come there! Like Chris I was also going for the hop and hope option with the log and by the third lap this was looking very messy and I stalled here too, damn! As I came through the start finish for the last time I spotted Lydia Gould behind me. I know she has a strong finish from previous experience so had to put the hammer down again to try and hold her off. Thankfully I did, although perhaps more due to her bad luck than my skill and I finished in a strong third.

There was some confusion over where I did finish but Phil Buick managed to convince me to hang around for the podiums and I sent him off to Chris with a bottle (would be great to have a little more time between races I think!). The podium was a bit of a damp squip as Emma didn't show. However, I got a voucher for a photo from Joolze (thanks!) and a nice trophy, so all in all not a bad day. The next two races were really exciting and it was great to catch up with so many friends.

One down, four to go...

2009-04-07T09:28:00.001-07:00

So, believe it or not, the first NPS has come and gone already! The easiest way to tell, for me at least, is the fact that all i've had to do since this weekend's racing is lightly dust down the old frame - you never get weather like that later in the season. In fact, since i started doing the NPS races with my first one at Thetford a couple of years ago, there's been a definite trend of unseasonably warm weather for the first round. That, and a flat-out, fast offroad road-race style course. Well, 2009 was no exception!

Rachel and I headed up to check out the course on Saturday before the big day on Sunday, arriving mid-afternoon from my parent's house in Nottingham. After a quick chat and "check out how little my new bike weighs" session with Jenny (all three of me, Rachel and her had new steeds to show off!) , we headed off to spin around the course and see what awaited us. It was a pretty typical sherwood course, with the occasional energy-sapping little roller rising up to spoil your speed around the rest of the course. For my taste, there was a bit too much freshly cut trail, and not quite enough of the best of sherwood; there are some great fast, twitchy sections of trail that would really have added to it. However, i suspect they were sacrificed for the arena-return leg of the course, which made it a whole lot more spectator friendly, and were great when you were actually racing.

The only real noticeable technical interest in the whole course was a log-hop, not really my cup of tea, since i've been too lazy/useless to ever learn to bunny-hop properly since i started riding offroad (it's no fun when you have noone to learn with, and everyone i've ridden with is able to demonstrate perfect hops at will, which makes me even less likely to bring up the fact that i can't execute a single hop worth talking about). Having tried to hop it, and given myself a saddle in the kidneys to show for it, i decided i'd go for the "try and get over the low bit" approach when the time came in the race. It wasn't pretty, but it worked (more on that later!). There were some tight sections in the trees that i knew would be hard to ride fast, but being a little person these things always bother me less than most other guys (i seem to be developing some sort of inferiority complex here - everyone on the start line seems to be taller than me these days!). The only other bit of the course that stuck out in my head was the last 1.5km, which all seemed to be awful lumpy singletrack that was hard to ride smoothly, and unrewarding if you did, but maybe that's because i remember the same trails in the opposite direction (riding with gravity rather than against her!) being a lot more fun! Having been around once slowly with Rach, i then went around a second time with a bit more pace. Then it was home time, for a stir-fry dinner, an episode of the Wire (the most addictive series ever made) and an early night.

Race day dawned, there was no sign of any of the overnight rain that metcheck swore there would be and so the super-slick tyres stayed on. We got to sherwood just before 9am, perfect timing for Rachel to hit the course again, and get warmed up for her race at 10. I headed over to the pits with a bag of bottles, some tape, gels, a chair and a copy of "The Death of Marco Pantani". Having dutifully taped gels to bottles so that Rachel was the guinea-pig for the auto-opening gel technique and not me, i got down to a bit of reading, and just as i was getting to the stuff about hematocrits of 60%, i heard the call-up for the elite women. I headed over to get Rachel's warm kit, and give her her race bottle before the start, and got back to the feed just ahead of the field sprint of the elite women. Rachel's cat, expert women, went off next, with her sitting pretty in third wheel, and looking pretty comfortable (well, as much as could be expected). Third wheel was also where she finished, although Dan J. caused a bit of confusion by announcing her as fourth as she crossed the line!

By this time, i was out of the pits and getting kitted up - i felt a bit over-keen leaving before Rachel's race had finished, but i was ultimately glad i did, as i discovered from Simon we kicked off at 12:30, and not 1300 as i had thought. That could have been bad! I rode the course again with Andrew at midday, although unfortunately he ripped his shorts 3km from the end of the lap, and had to dash off to change asap (if i had a pound for every time Andrew has had a wardrobe malfunction at a race, i'd have at least four pounds! Probably the most memorable was at a thetford winter series race shortly after i started riding offroad, where he finished with one hand on the bars, and one hand holding what remained of his shorts together...the man's an exhibitionist i tell you!). I carried on, and headed to the pens to be gridded to be met by Rachel's proxy, Phil Buick who kindly took my leg-warmers and gave me a fresh bottle. Before i had time to think too much about what was coming, i was on the third row of the grid watching the elites start. Unfortunately, there was a touch of wheels and an almighty crash somewhere mid-pack, which brought down John, my mate from Bath - he's not had the best of luck lately, but hopefully that's the last of it for him. Once the carnage was out of the way, we were off!

The pace was pretty hot from the start, but i felt like (for once!) i didn't totally embarass myself with my start, and got into a decent position to cope with the dust clouds of the fireroads. The air was so thick at times, you felt like chewing your mouthfuls, but as the pack lined out as the pace at the front got hotter, it was less of a problem. I focussed on trying to keep with Eric, another friend in my category, figuring he'd be a good marker of pace. It was all going pretty well, and i was keeping pace with my little group including eric quite well until i overcooked it on a gravelly corner and ditched the bike (which kept going sideways) and ended up standing in the middle of the trail sans-bike. Damn, i'd lost the wheel. However, as fortune would have it, help arrived in the form of junior Kenta Gallagher, and i got rather a second-wind being towed along behind him, passing a couple of the experts i'd lost with my slip-slide. It seemed that selection had already been made on the little hill in my group, however, and Eric was gone. I kept up chase, but it's so much more mentally tough when you're chasing people that are out of sight.

Coming through the feed the third time, i grabbed a bottle from Rachel (i wanted to tell her to switch to the other, uphill feed, but with all the confusion over where she finished, i never got the chance) and whilst trying to get it into my bottle cage, hit a dip and went over the bars - bummer. What's worse is, i saw Mel Spath do exactly the same thing in the elite women, and made a mental note not to make the same mistake. More places lost, i set off with a throbbing right elbow, and a bit more adrenaline in my system. Sadly, it didn't make much difference, i picked up a couple of places in the last couple of laps, but then was gutted to be pipped right on the line by a guy from Pedalon who'd done much the same thing to me and Nick Evans the week before. I might have fared better had i been able to get into big ring, but still, he got me fair and square. Damn. So, all told, 28th place - not a flying start, but a good place to improve from on a course that doesn't really suite little 61kg whippets like me. I did get a front row seat for the amazing sprint finish in the elite men though; the speed Jody C came through at was incredible, and it was cool that the local lad came in 2nd in what looks like it could be the start of a good season for him. Andrew did as Andrew does best, and wheel-sucked his was to 15th place, which is a pretty superb start to the season for someone who was worried about being lapped before the start.

Talking of crashes, there at least a couple on the first lap in my race, as you can see from this excellent youtube video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XISobBbAxgs . As far as i know, Henry pulled after two laps as a result of his tumble, and poor Alex is nursing a broken collarbone - fingers crossed they'll both be ok in the long run. It might have been a good place to have a first-aider all things considered, especially given the lack of skill of the experts (myself included!). Here's hoping for some less contrived tech sections next round!

Now it's time to focus on moving - i spoke to the movers today, i'm all set to move out on Easter tuesday, so it's time to get packing the 30 or so boxes i have been given. It's pretty miserable seeing your worldly possessions all packed up in boxes, it can easily lead you to thinking "is this it?" but i'm sure i'll feel differently once i'm out in the countryside. It's also damned expensive this moving malarkey - hopefully this'll be the last time for a little while at least. Anyway, back to the parcel tape...

NPS apprehension

2009-04-03T01:33:00.000-07:00

Well its finally come round to the first NPS of the year and I'm starting to feel a little bit nervous. It looks like the women's elite race will be something to watch, which is great, although it does make me think I need to be sure I can at least hold my own before I try and make the move up. People should definitely try and get to Sherwood early to see how the race unfolds. It's really great that all the girls are going to be racing at the same time. We have a great selection of girls racing elite now and a number of them I think are going to race in europe this year with a view to getting enough UCI points for us to have a 2012 olympic spot. I have thought for ages it was a shame no one was trying to do something about this so well done BC for finally listening, fingers crossed we get a slot!

It's also going to be great to watch the main men's race and means I can support Chris properly. He had such a good start last weekend at the Gorrick I really hope he can do the same this time round. The key is I think, not to think about the competition and just to focus on your own race, but this is easier said than done. I've done my fair share of googling!

I'm off to Nottingham in a few hours and we'll then head up to pre-ride the course at Sherwood Pines tomorrow. I fear its not going to be a massively technical course which means the pace will be high. I've done well on these kind of courses before but I am not sure I enjoy them as much as more technical ones.

Shiny things and first race in Expert

2009-03-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

It's been another busy few days, mainly for Rachel more than me. After househunting exploits on friday, she then headed back to Worcester to collect some shiny things from the post office for us courtesy of the nice people at Clee cycles. Cue obligatory photo of shiny things...

I was so glad to finally ditch my rather heavy, and rather unreliable superstar seatpost, which was bought in a moment of uncharacteristic carbon lust on my part, and replace it with the 140g beauty in the photo. The gold seatpost clamp added a bit of bling to my otherwise rather plain-lookinh bike, and the gold i-link cables will go on once the current XTR numbers have had the comprehensive "english summer" treatment!

New bits fitted, today was my first go at racing Expert, and i managed to pick a pretty competitive one to start with - the 4th round of the Gorrick Spring Series at Porridgepot Hill. It seemed like everyone was out fine-tuning their race form before the first NPS next weekend, and i can't pretend i wasn't rather intimidated lining up with the likes of Ade Lansley and Gareth Montgomerie. I pootled around the course with the man largely responsible for my racing addiction, Andrew Cockburn, and was rewarded with probably the best Gorrick course i've ever ridden. The only downside was, it was a bit short and lacking in places to eat/drink, and stories of 15m laps from the fast boys earlier in the day made me think i'd gone for the right option to get a decent training race in.

The start was pretty fast, i settled in behind a super-charged Nick Evans (he's always pretty good at shifting it off the line), and somehow found myself quite high up the field for the first couple of miles, and able to keep an eye on the faster experts.

Sadly, the situation didn't last, and my lack of hard session told on me as i dropped back through the field. Paying for my fast first lap, i managed to hit something in the trail on a really innocuous section of the second time around, and do a huge roly-poly into the shrubbery! Having straightened my bars, and shaken the stars circling my head in true cartoon style, i went off in pursuit of the place i lost whilst taking my close-look at the vegetation.

As the laps went by, i started to feel the crash and the high-pace of the opening lap more and more, and by the last time through the longish climb was proving hard to get up in middle ring (in spite of Nick's jibes about his "big ring" - read that how you will!!). In spite of the fact that i was the second-last person to finish, or put a more flattering way, 23rd in the expert race, i still feel like i had a good race - i felt pretty comfortable on my new bike, my descending didn't seem to suffer unduly from the hardtail experience, and the guys ahead of me provide something to aim at!
Full results are up at www.timelaps.co.uk/ if you're interested in seeing how badly i really did. Andrew C. did well to come in 10th in what was a very competitive field (if i do say so myself!). Whilst at the race, i also picked up a nice new set of tyres - thanks so much to Jenny for them, and Richard for delivering them - and sorry i didn't get to meet up with you to say thanks! Hopefully, the weather will be dry enough that they're all i need for the rest of the season (oh, i do make myself laugh sometimes!).

Next up is the Sherwood round of the NPS, the closest thing i have to offroad riding on the doorstep, hopefully i'll be a bit better prepared for that one...can't let Rachel edge ahead!!

Moving home

2009-03-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

That's right, it looks like i'm going to be heading back to the flatlands shortly, to relive my formative years of riding through cabbage fields into headwinds. Cambridge is beckoning, and with the start of a new job a mere month away, it's all looking a bit hectic. Rachel and I have done some internet research, looking for places to live, and in fact she's down there right now with some viewings ahead tomorrow. I can only being to imagine how we're going to get all those bikes down there in one piece, let alone into one house...

Meanwhile, i've been making the most of my last few weeks with relatively decent hills to ride, although i kind of got the riding the wrong way round. Yesterday was another lovely lactate session on the rollers - indoors on a nice, sunny and not-too-windy day, with the added disadvantage that my time off the bike with a cold meant that i couldn't even finish the session i had planned. Today, a day of blustery winds and freezing and hard rain was the day for a 4hr ride. Possibly a little optimistically, i headed out in the sunshine with a gilet, but no rain jacket, and of course it wasn't to last! On a nice fast downhill past the entrance to Belvoir castle, the heavens opened, and i was drenched. I gradually dried out on the way back, but freezing cold hands (i was only wearing track mitts - error number 2) did make every minute seem to drag. No matter, i got back in one piece, and thankfully didn't puncture (ever noticed how they happen when you can least be bothered to fix them?).

Tomorrow is a day off the bike, just a bit of core work to stop the Thetford back from striking again, so i'm hoping to head out with the parents for a day out. Fingers crossed for better weather...

Famous at last!

2009-03-24T10:05:00.001-07:00

Well not quite, but my "View From the Pack" is now live on: www.xcracer.com/content.php?pid=2555
It looks like I might be coming down with what Chris was suffering from last week. I've an annoying sore throat and am not feeling quite right so am taking it easy at the moment, whilst obviously planning my thesis! Hopefully I can shake it off before the weekend when I get to return the bottling and cheering favour to Chris at the Gorrick this Sunday. Its looking like its going to continue to be busy for the next couple of weeks with visiting old friends over in Cambridge and trying to find a new house for Chris and I, but then I wouldn't have it any other way!

BUCS Photos

2009-03-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

I've now put up a load of my photos from the BUCS race on my picasa page - annoyingly i couldn't get the normal picasa uploader to work, so i had to do them five at a time through the website or run the risk of my computer crashing! Argh. Anyway, if you want to check out my decidedly amateur photography, have a look at http://picasaweb.google.com/chrispy913/BUCSMTB2009# . Alternatively, you can see the much more pro efforts of Joolze who was there doing her usual super job of documenting the weekend's acitivities at www.joolzedymond.com . Next race for me is the Gorrick next weekend, which should give me a good chance to catch up with some old mates - looking forward to pinning on a number on a non-Thetford course...especially on my new bike!

Busy few days...

2009-03-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

As the title says I've been pretty busy the last few days. I built my new bike on Friday, a little close to the race this Sunday for my comfort. Only had to adjust a couple of things after pre-riding however, so although it wasn't a perfect build I am quite pleased with my efforts. As Chris posted below I had a good race today at the BUCS Champs 2009. I am pleased with the result but we'll have to see how it translates when we get to the NPS in 2 weeks. I have written a full race report which should go up on XCracer.com in the next few days. I'll post a link to the report here when it goes up.

BUCS

2009-03-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

Just got back from an awesome Student Champs race, Rachel got Silver in the women's champs, and team silver with team mate Lindsey Hamilton, and the boys took home a team bronze for the first time since 2005. The weather was excellent all weekend, and the course at UK Bike Park in Dorset (check them out at http://www.ukbikepark.moonfruit.com) was superb. Tired now, so will leave you with a photo.

Good things come in boxes...

2009-03-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

...Boxes that look like this. That's right, my new frame has arrived, and of course that means that being a bit of a bum at the moment, i've spent today building it up. It's been an emotional experience, involving rudimentary headtube facing, endless inserting the semi-integrated cups, and then removing them again, then putting them in a little further, and the addition of a longer rear-brake hose as highlights. But it's done, and ready for the weekend, and looks like this...

I'm quite looking forward to taking it for a spin around the BUCS course on saturday, and experiencing the student champs for the first time since i became a grown-up (read old fart). It'll be nice to hang out with the guys from Cambridge Uni, who i feel i don't see nearly often enough since i moved home. And there's always the comedy of watching the downhill on the saturday, although i'm hoping for better weather for that than last year.

Sore throat is going away, i'm tempted to go for a short jog this evening, just very gently - it seems like a while since i put some running shoes on, and it's a glorious afternoon for it now. Hopefully i can put in some decent training miles before my next race in ten days time at the Gorrick Spring Series. Watch this space...

Bad things come in threes...

2009-03-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Today's been a bit of a trial, it has to be said. I've been on tenter hooks since this morning waiting for a nice new hardtail frame to arrive with the couriers, but sadly i'll have to wait another day. It feels in a minor way like christmas has been postponed - i'm not someone who goes through loads of frames; when i find one i like i hang onto it and ride it until either me or it cracks; so getting a new one's a big thing to me. Never mind, at least it's going to come tomorrow, which is still really exciting - no doubt i'll get overexcited again, build it up tomorrow, and have photos on here by tomorrow evening! So anyway, that's disappointment number one.

Number two, i woke up this morning with a really bad sore throat - i was a bit snotty yesterday but this was definitely worse, so i'm now onto gargling antibacterial and gallons of lemon & ginger tea. I almost believed that i'd made it through winter without getting sick once, but alas it's not quite to be - at least it's not been like years gone by when i've gone down with throat infections like this time after time. Every time it happens, i wonder if i should have my tonsils out, and every time it goes away fast enough that i decide not to bother - maybe i should get it sorted when i have the time! Nah...

Bad thing number three came courtesy of Nottingham City Council, who towed my car away from right outside my parent's house! I moved it out onto the road so my mum could get out, and in my sickened state forgot to move it back in again before the 1pm parking regulations come into force. Apparently, the dreaded £70 fine has been replaced this week with instant tow-away, so at 1:09pm they towed "ermintrude", my beloved fiesta, away to the local pound. And then charged me £140 to get her back. I can write my sob story to them, and maybe hopefully get some money back - i sure as hell can't afford 140 smackers for such a stupid mistake!

On the plus side, thanks to those lovely folk at Paligap, i did get a new one of these today- it works perfectly, and i can read my HR as well as my power now without wearing my HR monitor separately. Hopefully tomorrow i'll wake up feeling a bit better, with a nice new frame, and my parking ticket will just be a bad dream. Even 2/3 of that would be nice....

Spring has sprung

2009-03-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Spring arrived well and truly today and the weather was absolutely perfect for riding. Having had quite a few days indoors this week doing hard sessions on the turbo trainer it was absolutely wonderful to be outdoors. Chris and I rode together for the first time in a while as he was in Worcester to see "Waiting for Godot" starring Ian Mackellan and Patrick Stewart at the Malvern theatre with me and my parents (highly recommended by the way!). When he is about in Worcester he is always keen to cycle over to Malvern as he is somewhat addicted to riding hills and the Malverns Hills are some of the best you get in this area. The views are beautiful from the top, you can see into Wales on a clear day such as today, and the climbs up to them steep and pretty long for the UK. For some reason I don't often ride in the Malvern direction from Worcester so it was a different ride for me too. It was a great ride with both of us stripping down to short sleeves at some points and the big climb up to the Wyche cutting didn't seem nearly as hard as I expected it to! Hopefully the weather will stay this way for at least the next week.

After a family roast, I fixed a number of things on my training bike that have been needing doing for a while. A little bit of advice and supervision from Chris was required but eventually I had a slightly less broken rear wheel (this one just needs new bearings whereas the other rim was about the collapse!), well adjusted brakes and some new pads on the rear (this required a hacksaw as a previous attempt had rounded the bolts holding the pad inserts in!). All in all a productive day!

Job hunting and crit racing - not perfect bedfellows!

2009-03-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

So i'll pick up where i left off - after sore-legged wednesday, i tried out being a bike mechanic for a day on thursday at a shop in Nottingham. Turned up at ten-ish in the pouring rain to be greeted by the store manager, and get my t-shirt and all-important name tag. The workshop was pretty amazing, all the tools you could possibly need, and the other guys in there were great fun - i didn't really notice the time passing thanks to the stream of bikes i had to build and the workshop chatter, and suddenly it was nearly 7pm. That said, i was pretty shattered when i got home, and having done my sums i don't reckon i could really live on the salary they were offering, which is a real shame - otherwise i'd have jumped at the chance.

Yesterday was another trip down to my old home of Cambridge for more job hunting activity, more on that another time. My day started at 7am, with a bit of a dash to get ready and get on the road before eight and join the ranks of the long distance commuters on the A1, oh the joy. Got to Cambridge, had interviews and lunch with some guys, and then dashed on to see a friend of mine who's been in the hospital in Cambridge since monday. Thankfully, she got the all-clear to go home whilst i was there, so a humanitarian mission to move several tonnes of flowers an chocolate ensued. Got home late, tried my best to pack and prepare for my weekend away and the race this morning, then hit the hay.

This morning was another 7am start to get to Darley Moor in time for the race at 10am. I'd never been to the racing circuit before, but i knew the area was pretty hilly, so i hoped that maybe there'd be the odd climb to help me out. As soon as i got there, i realised my hopes were going to be dashed - it was pan flat, and with a roaring headwind on the back straight - not the ideal way to break yourself into circuit racing if you're a 62kg stick insect! I rode the course a few times to get used to the corners, and the feeling of going backwards in the headwind, and then lined up with a huge bunch of 110 others ready for the off. The race itself was a bit of a blur, and my memories are a bit disjointed. In no particular order i remember an amazingly fast start, which caught me a bit by surprise, i remember being astonished that i kept making up places in the corners and losing them in the straightaways, i remember thinking it'd be an hour long and that i wouldn't need to drink, then looking at my watch and seeing an 1h20m, i remember in the closing laps looking round and seeing noone behind me, and i remember the series of last lap crashed that scuppered me getting back onto the group! I rolled in at a sedate pace with another guy, pretty amazed by how brutal my first 3/4 race had been - 1h24m at 176bpm. Hopefully, with more sleep and less dashing around i won't get gapped next time. At the very least i did finish, which is more than quite a few people managed!

I get a bit of a break next weekend, it's Rachel's turn to race hard at the BUCS champs, while i get to pootle around on my bike and hand out bottles - tough times!

New routes, same old legs

2009-03-11T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to make the most of what could very well be my last few weeks of freedom, and today was (i decided) the perfect day to try out a new route sans map. Because of where i live in the city at the moment, i only have one way out which heads along the Trent to Radcliffe, where the options widen a bit more. It does mean that the first 45mins or so can get a bit samey - it's ok on the way out because you have the rest of the ride to look forward to, and actually on the way back it can be quite nice to find yourself on familiar roads to wobble home. Anyway, having slipped off my usual route, i headed out east in search of hills, and was rewarded with some of the quietest roads i've ever seen in Nottinghamshire. And some steep little hills around Belvoir. And even a bit of sunshine. Boy am i going to miss this when i join the ranks of the wage-slaves.

Legs are a bit tired this evening, probably from a combination of long intervals last night (i should have known it wouldn't go so well when the lawn trimmers leapt of the wall and tried to impale me mid-way through the first rep) and then a 4hr ride with quite a few steep hills in today. Easy day tomorrow, and an opportunity to try out life in the working world, i'll keep you all posted as to how that goes! The weekend is looking pretty busy now, as i've got a race saturday morning in Derbyshire, and then i'm off for a cultural evening at the theatre in Malvern - my carbon footprint just got bigger. It's a good thing i cycled everywhere as a student, or i'd probably be justifiably called a carbon terrorist now. Now it's time to go in search of the last slice of lemon meringue pie - there's no such thing as "empty calories" right?!?!

Travelling and training

2009-03-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

I would first like to add my welcome to anyone who interested enough to read this blog and thanks to Chris for setting it up and making it look so nice. Chris and I, well mainly me in breaks from writing my PhD, have been reading other people's and thought we would like to add our experiences to the pot.

I've not been in the UK for the past few days as I have been at a conference in Copenhagen. After an exhausting series of long days filled with interesting lectures and chatting to colleagues I returned this morning more tired than when I have been training hard. Well a different kind of tired! I planned to try and run once or twice when I was there but the weather was not good and I thought it best to preserve the little energy I had. One of the perks of having had a few days off the bike however, is that when I returned this morning I was raring to get going with my planned cruise interval session. I spent the day eating (for some reason I found fitting in eating enough very difficult at the conference, non athletes really don't eat as much as I need to now!), had a nap and got on the bike this evening for an exhilarating workout. It makes me really excited for the start of the season when I have a productive hard training session. Its not long now though and I can't wait. My first race is the Student Champs and its only a couple of weeks away. On that note I had better get some sleep ready for a hard days writing and training tomorrow.

Welcome!

2009-03-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Blog - i'm feeling unduly proud of myself for working out how to link picasa albums, so you can be bored by the holiday shots of me and Rachel training in a variety of places, mostly cold and snowy ones. So apologies for the smugness...

Training-wise, today was a bit of a dull one for me - sweating copiously on the rollers in front of videos of the Tour from years ago is not really my idea of fun, but with race season not long away it's sadly a necessary evil. First big race of the year is now less than a month away, and not far from home for me at Sherwood Pines - it's a shame really, as having been in Nottingham for the last six months, i think i've got a bit bored with Sherwood; i find myself riding around yearning for climbs and descents, but then maybe the grass is always greener. No doubt the adrenaline of my first race in the NPS at Expert level will make it altogether more interesting come race day!

This afternoon, i discovered what it's like for less "minority sports" than mtb xc - i went to watch a cross country running race that was being held in Nottm, and boy is it a different experience to what i know. Okay, so people do camp, but there are quite a lot more motor homes, and more amazingly supporter's busses too. Even at the national xc mtb champs last year, there was hardly what you'd call a massive supporter turn out, but these guys had hundreds of people (including me!) out cheering for them - amazing. Having done a bit of xc running as cross training this winter (let's face it, the weather's required a few innovations for everyone!) i was pretty impressed at the pace of the front guys who were running too; it was enough to put paid to any ambitions i might have had of doing one of these events, at least for now. It's all about the two wheels...

I'm planning to get out into the real world on my bike tomorrow, assuming the horrendous winds that are predicted don't blow me straight back through the front door...get a few miles in before my first effort at a crit next weekend over at Darley Moor. From what i've heard, horrendous winds are de rigeur there, so it's all good.

Chrispy