Sunday 5 June 2011

Bristol Bikefest

Turn up the BASS

Here's one for you fact fans… the inaugural Bikefest celebrated Timberland's sponsorship of Ashton Court's trails whilst this, the tenth edition, marked the first phase of the SW1 funded (re-)re-development of our trails. If the new look Quarry section is anything to go by then the once niggly rooty trails will soon be replaced by beautifully flowing singletrack.

I recall the very first Bikefest was won by 'Volvo Canondale'. Hmmm. I have since entered every one, sometimes in a team, sometimes on a singlespeed and sometimes on my own. In that time some things have remained constant: the fine weather, the laid back atmosphere, the cheery Cadets, suicide dog walkers and the inane PA ramblings.

This year I drew the short straw for the Le Mans style running start. Basically I can't run. I am slow, it hurts my legs and it makes me look silly. Once onboard the Ghost Lector 9000 :) a mighty shove from housemate Matt got me on my way and I had a clear run (bar the dog walkers and joggers) for the entire lap.

Through the early stages we built up an overall lead of a few minutes which was never quite comfortable enough to allow for a mechanical. During the evening our lead was very slowly whittled away by Cycle Coaching Wales, a real handy team comprising a few national standard boyos. With Robby feeling the miles in his legs from his recent Gran Fondo in Tuscany we re-shuffled our order to try and hold off second place. It seems they did the same and on the penultimate lap they took the lead. Unlike Mountain Mayhem the rules of Bikefest are that no laps completed after the cut off count. So, after a mammoth tussle Roadie Rob came in at approx 8.38, just behind one of the Cycle Coaching Wales strong boys which meant that in order to win we not only had to re-take the lead but put in the fastest lap of the day so as to beat the cut off. That we did thanks to lots of caffeine, our vociferous support, Ghost, Gaerne shoes and Mart from Hotlines. High fives to the rest of the Psyclewerx team: Robby, Rob and Scott Easter.

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