The plan was to travel up to the 2010 Dusk 2 Dawn with brother Brian but with good family reasons he pulled out, leaving me with a solo drive to a solo event. Final training was a 300 mile road trip the weekend before so I was feeling good about some sort of result for the "southdownsbikes". Checking out the weather before I left confirmed I was going to get a soaking so mud tyres were packed along with all my winter riding gear, two Maxx-Ds, a Diablo with triple piggyback and a joystick. Journey to Norfork went well and soon arrived to a new side of the forest for 2010 including proper toilets, showers and cafe all seemed perfect including a blue sky. On the start line with 1000 other riders the first drops began to fall, its only rain how bad can it be?? First lap was a treat fast, flowing single track with only a few bits of fire road on the 11 mile route. Lap two and now the rain had really kicked in seeing me back to solo tent for waterproof coat and bottle change. Back out for no.3 saw a massive change in the race course as it was quite a challange to trudge round,bomb holes became unrideable and more and more rain, still I felt good and keep on plugging away. Lap four came round and the pits looked a right mess, thrown down bikes and long mud covered faces with the change over area thinning out. By now the rain had taken it's toll and the track was only part ridable, trying to plough on became impossible as chain suck struck every ten rev's in middle and granny ring and after what seemed like a lifetime lap no.4 was over and so was my race. Very disappointed, wet and cold I climbed into my sleeping bag at 0230.Home by 1300 on the Sunday, that was one to forget.
Cheers Alex.
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