After weeks of scouring courier websites for quotes on shipping my bike out to Meribel I finally decided to do things in style by getting a new bike. I made the plunge by getting a CX bike. So far the decision is justified - I've been up and down the roads of Meribel and La Tania and today I went off road (on snow). Think Megavalanche XXLite. Until the MTB trails are relieved of the snow it is undoubtedly the best compromise.
Thanks ever so much to the Psyclewerx boys for sorting out the delivery. All I had to do was tighten a couple of bolts. No thanks to TNT for nearly allowing the bike to escape.
See below for how 6 months of dietary abstinance can be undone in 8 weeks of eating cheese and cake.
26/06/2011 was last time I weighed myself (around about my final BMBS race) before I called time on my season. 28/10/2011 was the first time in 4 months I plucked up the courage to weigh in again.
For me, and I’m sure many other riders, Rd 4 of the BMBS at Margam marked a premature end to the season. The long wait until Rd 5 and the temptations of summertime drinks in the intervening months would prove hard to resist. Coupled with Sarah’s return from travelling, a couple of weddings, a riotous trip to Russia and a damaged ankle, my decision was more or less made to end the season at this convenient juncture.
Some success followed at a couple of smaller events (STWeekender and Brighton BigDog) thanks to a bit of residual fitness but the last few months have largely been a chance to let the inner fatboy enjoy his freedom.
Unfortunately the other side effect of a lavish diet has been the emergence of an inexplicable allergic reaction (kindly diagnosed by my GP via Google!). Six months down the line and after a number of failed attempts at finding the cause of the problem we are slowly ticking off all the potential causes. The latest theory is that it may be tomatoes, although this doesn’t explain the swollen face after eating a blueberry! In the meantime I shall continue popping antihistamines.
The end of October bought the unexpected announcement that most of the Soil Mechanics staff were to be made redundant. Never a pleasant experience but unbelievably jammy timing considering Sarah and I had committed to a winter season in Meribel from the beginning of Decmeber. November was thereforespent riding my Ragley singlespeed, sending my Ghost into winter hibernation, regretfully selling my Spicy after 18months dormancy, and honing a menu plan for our new jobs as smiley happy chalet hosts. We return late April so until then it’s a winter of XC (skiing:)
Mates-/rat-/ghetto- races are nothing new. However, with the growth in true enduro events (not those 100k loops in Mid Wales) the realm of competition has been opened up to those other than all out DHers and XCers. Nowadays people are recreating the Megavalanche magic in their own backyards*.
Having grown up in Bridgend it wasn't until a chance meeting with a couple of the local riders last winter that I came to realise the quality of riding just north of the M4. Throughout the year, come rain or shite, the boys from the Garw Valley MTB Club meet every Wed evening. Such is their enthusiasm that the recently re-opened pub from which most rides start appears to be trading off the bikers' need for beer and chips.
The club's first race - the GarwAvalanche - was to be run off Mynydd Caerau, a mountain just one or two valleys over from Afan Argoed. It is also close to the Bwlch – South Wales' very own alpine style mountain road and training ground for the likes of Geraint Thomas, Nicole Cooke and Big Mag. Anyway, word spread through Facebook of the plans for a Le Mans style start followed by a 20-30min decent with a little bit of climbing thrown in. I convinced a few of my riding buddies in Bristol to make the trip. So to did of few boys from Gwent. A turn out of ~30 for the first edition wasn't bad considering the dank weather. After a couple hours ride/push (plus removal of any eye-gougers from one of the newly cut sections of woodland singletrack) we made it to the trig point.
With my lack of racing since Margam I wasn't confident of a high placing. However, I have been working on my drinking in the intervening months - Ideal seeing that the running start was preceded with the downing of a can (I went for Strongbow figuring the higher alcohol content over the Carlsberg should loosen my limbs in readiness for riding my rigid singlespeed).
One of the quirks of this form of racing is the widely tapped courses. Sometimes this can lead to some imaginative line choices (see video below). Other times it can lead to complete wrong turns (as was almost the case for a couple of the Bristol boys who nearly ended up on the wrong side of the valley when approaching the finish). Coupled with the heavy mist up top it was quite a site to see thirty frothing and burping bikers darting across the moors.
Much credit to Alex Betts and Matt Pinches for the choice of route – there was a nice mix of rocks, loam, roots, grassland, tarmac, steep, tight, fast and techy. My race all but ended with a puncture after the second rocky chute. Rowan Sorell won, clearly not feeling a top ten at the recent Trans Provence in his legs. He won a neatly engraved slate. Last won a neatly engraved wooden spoon.
Long live boozy racing.
*Literally in the case of Garw resident Matt Pinches.
The Brighton Big Dog has earnt itself a big reputation in a short space of time. It helps to have a vibrant riding scene based around tight woodland singletrack, a good few characters and an enthusiastic event team. All sounds very much like Bristol, even down to the special guest appearances: Big Dog had Big Maggy Backstedt in 2009; Bikefest is to feature Steve Peat later this year.
Since the STW Weekender I had barely touched the bike due to injuries, social commitments and an uncomfortable mix of the two (drinking on a moving bus hurts:( To further excuse myself for the poor lap times I was coming in to the Big Dog off the back of a hedonistic 10 days in Russia.
No worries, I was riding the Mixed Team category with term-time local Euan Adams (Red Kite Cycles) and Sarah Turner (Charge Bikes, girlfriend of fellow Elite racer Trev Allen). Whilst bimbling around on our practice lap Euan was forced to press on in order to make it in time for the start. Glad he did cos I wouldn't have made it. After his strong first lap we stayed out in front all day, ending with a comfortable margin which excused us from a 9th lap.
The course itself was a meandering sprawl through the StanmerPark woods with a cute detour over the dual carriageway. The marshals were really encouraging and the weather was fine. Having driven to and from the event on the day it certainly had a high drive to ride ratio of about 3:1. It was well worth it for the jovial podium ceremony and the neat prizes (Exposure lights and chamois cream!). Props to the event team for getting a host of supporters on board.
Thanks to Euan, Sarah, the organisers and everyone else. Sorry to the camera man for spraying his lens.
Housemate Matt and I are regular users of the Singletrackworld forum. We prefer to take a back seat when reading the nonsense that gets spouted by some of the personalities rather than risk a flaming for poor grammar or daring to pose a 'what tyre for…?' question. However we had heard that past Singletrack Weekender events at Lee Quarry were well received so what better way of putting forum-names to faces??
The format of the Weekender harks back to the early days of mountain bike competitions where one bike has to be used for each discipline: DH, trials and XC (unlike Malvern there was to be no lake jump:) In keeping with the tone of Singletrack's magazine and forum the tone was relaxed, with beer themed sideshows and spot prizes throughout the weekend.
Friday's journey north was typically painful so we took a last minute detour to ride the trails at Cannock rather than sit out the traffic. There was an interesting mix of forest trails which had elements of the riding meccas at Puddletown and SwinleyForest. The occasionally tiresome link sections and climbs were worth it for the beefy main descent which rode like a traditional Welsh trail centre, Brechfa coming to mind.
Back on the road we skipped the lure of Burger King for the delights of steak pudding with Uncle Stubbs and Co. After a couple of Timmy Taylors it was time for bed.
Saturday was trials (balance, hill climbing etc, not the Danny Macaskill/Chris Akrigg form) and DH. The DH course was nicely challenging without being too technical. It was also widely taped to allow for multiple line choice. In light of the furious bursts of rain our enthusiasm only stretched to a couple of DH practice runs. Matt and I both took tumbles in practice, though at least my falls were largely out of site. Typical that I should skin both knees whilst carrying pads in my backpack. Our race runs went without too much drama, Matt finishing a few seconds quicker than me. We were safe if unspectacular in the trials, incurring one penalty minute each for failing to ride a skinny which I'm sure would never be a problem without an audience.
Sunday was the XC race where everybody was gridded according to their penalty points from Saturday. The course preview stated that it was designed to favour an all round rider, presumably to remove the bias of previous events which favoured the lycra lovers. There were two other Elite XC riders in the starting line up. Both were gridded ahead of me and one of them happened to be Nick Craig (Scott UK)! After travelling all that way Matt and I ended up next to each other on the startline, going off in the third wave of riders. The race went well, the rain held off, it was great to be cheered on by my Auntie and Uncle and cousins and on his return to racing Matt managed to avoid a heart attack! I finished in third overall, second in Seniors behind Steve Webb (Singular Cycles) Unsurprisingly Nick Craig won but he wasn't announced as the overall winner, perhaps because he didn’t want to be seen winning a chipper or maybe because he didn’t exactly need the XT groupset from race sponsors Shimano?! I won some handy bits and bobs and an XXL T-Shirt.
I have always been a bit disparaging towards Margam, questioning why so many love it. The annual showing of blue skies, deer herds, rhododendrons and the contrasting backdrop of the steelworks makes for a very photogenic venue. However, past experiences – the numerous crashes, the mud, botched tyre changes and thigh length bruises – have tempered my enthusiasm for my home event.
This year was to be a 'Best of' for Margam; the mud of 2010 coupled with the stifling heat of previous editions. Despite the forecasts for sun, there was no indication of what was to come. Grey skies and rain preceded the event and even the morning of the race was overcast. Yet in the 15minutes it took to drive from Mum and Dad's the sky had cleared and I had a sweat on. Whilst muddy, the rapidly drying course posed an interesting predicament for tyre choice. However, after the panic of last year's last minute indecision I stuck to my guns with the middle ground option of Maxxis Advantage up front (good grip for the claggy off camber but struggled to clear on the fireroad climbs) and Aspen out back (surprisingly grippy for the damp rooty climbs and happily ungrippy for the fireroad climbs:)
The start of the race was nuts. It's always a shock to go from resting to max heart rate inside a hundred metres but in the heat to which no one was acclimatised it felt dreadful. People were popping within the first lap and it was these retirements that were the motivation to continue. Lap 1 was rapid (for me) where I struggled against some unfamiliar mid-pack riders, laps 2 – 4 were a lonely war of attrition whilst lap 5 saw the bait of a tiring Jon Pybus (GT Racing) upfront and the fear of a fast finishing Matt Page (Wiggle) and George Budd (Salsa) coming from behind. Normally I'd have resigned myself to being passed, happy enough to settle for my first top 20. However, with a vocal Matt & Amy and JB doing a stellar job in the feedzone for myself AND Scott Easter I tried to up my pace on the final lap. This amounted to a few fleeting moments out of the saddle and some ungraceful re-mounts following a run through the mud. With tiring arms I had to take the descents carefully, particularly the final chute where a loss of line can lead to some comedy wheel-slap in the ruts. Relieved, I pulled away to finish a happy 17th. Hardly ground breaking but a significant step forward.
I feel it slightly devalues your result when it is achieved by default, either through others retiring instead of beating them outright or when the regular international riders are absent. Nonetheless, to look at the positives, it is pleasing to overcome the indifference of my ride at Wasing by digging deep and refusing to bow to the more experienced riders. It also shows what is possible off the back of a favourable week at work, a couple of beastings on the road bike and a nice bit of rest.
Like any impressible glory supporter I can now say I'm a fan of Margam.
As a Bristol student, prior to becoming a fair-weather biker I would ride in all conditions. As such I gained a pretty sound education in the quirks of muddy, rooty singletrack. This served me well at a stinking Margam last year where I was on course for my best Expert result (until I fell off on the flat - see below :)
With all the races having been dry this year I was actually looking forward to a wet Wasing. As forecast, it did rain, (un)fortunately the real heavy rain didn't fall until the end of the Elite race. Therefore I would like to blame the consistency of the mud on my woeful performance - had it been real greasy then maybe I would have done, I don't know, 10% better and finished in the top 30 instead of 33rd. Not a good performance but like I say it's the mud's fault, not mine.
Next up is my home race in Margam, a much loved old-school course with grassy drags and big climbs. Why people love these old courses I'm not sure. In fairness there were a few tricky sections last year, not least the flat part on the approach to the arena where I managed the impossible and fell off on a straight section and ended up with the handlebar in my groin and the feeling of having had a new ass ripped open...
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.
A very pretty Fforest Fields played host to the 2011 Welsh Champs mid-May. Set on a wooded hillside resplendent with all its bluebells, the full extent of the course could be seen from the arena snaking up, down and across the hill. It was real nice and understated and could have been a real pig in the wet due to all the off camber rooted sections.
There's not massive strength in depth in Wales and with our only regular World Cup rider present, first was a formality for Lee WIlliams. Without Matt Page or any crossover roadies I figured a podium was a possibility should any of the other contenders puncture or catch a root. Poor Ant O'Boyle (Torq) had a host of problems which saw him DNF from a guaranteed second and bumped me up to 4th for most of the race. Towards the end the unrelenting climbs took their toll and a tenacious Ed Roberts passed me going in to the final lap. Still, 5th in my first national (regional? sub-national? state?) champs is alright.
