Well this has been an odd season with far too many punctures and retirements. The MTB race season goes a bit quite midsummer so I’ve enjoyed a couple of family holidays and a short cycling break to the Alps with French Dave.
The autumn season is now upon us.
Brighton Big dog 6 hour - 20th August
I’ve not ridden the Brighton Big Dog before but I remember the venue from the 90s when both the NPS and Southern Area Mountainbike Series (SAMS) raced there. I also remember it’s great if it’s dry – horrible if it’s wet. Luckily the race day was dry, the course was excellent and the marshalling the best I’ve ever known. Full marks to the event organizers.
I had entered as a solo and apart from a small mechanical issue on the first climb of the first lap (a broken cassette with 2 lost ratios) and a quite bit of cramp I really enjoyed the event and rolled in a very pleasing 8th in the vets class (40+) AND NO PUNCTURES.
Gorrick Torq In Your Sleep 12 hour – 28th August
The Gorrick team always put on a great event and the Torq In Your Sleep is very popular with Solo, Pairs and Team classes. Last year I entered as a pair with the Postie. This year I entered as a pair (all one age group) with French Dave. Pairs racing is probably the hardest discipline as the laps are 40 to 50 minutes long and it’s a sprint with a short time to recover, eat, drink, get cold, and off again at full speed. With sun, rain and wind it was very changeable. All went well for the whole race apart from one puncture, which I couldn’t fix apart from having a foam canister, 2 air cartridges and 2 tubes, so a bit of running was involved, this made Dave laugh as I ran into the arena waving a tube. A spare tire had me ready for Dave’s return 40 odd minutes later.
We hadn’t been paying much attention the our position but after about 7 hours we realized we were 5th and decided to get a move on and at one point working our way up to 3rd, slipping to 4th at the end. 15 laps in total, more than many teams of 4 riders. Two tired old men – combined age 107!
XTM MTB Enduro 4 hour - 8th October
This is a new event for me; I thought I’d see what the weather was like before committing, so I entered on the day.
The race is 4 hours, not 4 hour + the lap your on.
The race route was a 10K lap with no real technical challenges; it was marked out with 1k boards so you always knew where you were. There were only 4 categories male, female, mail pairs, and female pairs so I had to race against the youngsters.
I lined up on the start line and we were off. As many or you know I often have trouble with cramp and not wanting to risk dehydration and mineral deficiency I planned to change my drink bottle every 2 laps. This worked well and every 2 laps (about 59 minutes) I refueled.
I was quite enjoying this event and with nobody passing me I knew I was near the front, I had a plan to try for 8 laps. I was just keeping under the 30minute / lap + refueling and entered the last lap with 30 minutes to go, I gave it my all but with tired legs came in just over 1 minute past the 4 hour shut off time. So I completed 8 laps and 80K in 4 hours and 1 minute. 6th place in male (I actually came in 5th but the positions roll back to the lap you finished before the 4 hour deadline), and beating all the pairs teams except 2!
Both bike and rider worked perfectly.
Next events:
Gorrick Autumn Classic XC 1 - 16th October
WDMBC – Black Park night race - 22nd October
Gorrick Autumn Classic XC 2 - 13th November
Gorrick Brass Monkey 1 – 27th November
Gorrick Brass Monkey 2 – 18th December
Following on from John below; Ben Conner and I (+ a couple of others) maybe having a MTB holiday somewhere warm in the spring, maybe taking in an enduro event, there’s an event in Gran Canaria in March we are considering, otherwise it maybe Spain – I will keep you posted.
