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pic: Tim Kershaw

The original plan involved me riding over the Lancs/Yorks border, through the Calder Valley and to Brighouse for the ‘cross race, however this wasn’t going to work due to Rachael’s karate lesson. So we drove over, I would then race then ride back. I was really looking forward to the ride home – I’d got the route clear in my mind after I drove home the same way from Huddersfield last week – it included some ace roads, through villages with ace names (like Barkisland) and some big climbs such as Blackstone Edge. I wasn’t really looking forward to the race though, not sure why. Probably the horrendous feeling of nausea I experienced at the Boggart Hole Clough race a couple of weeks ago was pecking my head a bit.

Once we arrived I bumped into Chipps with his Ibis uber-bike, Tim was there with his camera (hence the photo above) and Dave had also arrived, looking ‘full factory’ with 2 bikes

After a rolling start the fun began. The course was dead good – mainly woodland singletrack, short steep ups and downs, slippery off-camber bends, a gravel trap, a flight of wooden steps and plenty of roots to test one’s knowledge of correct tyre pressures…

What followed was an hour of sweat, pain, snot, stupidly high heart rates and the taste of blood in the throat. A bit like interval training but with just one really long interval. I came to grief once, right in front of Deb, Michael and the kids, slamming to the ground with a complete lack of grace and grip on a bend that was threatening me from the start – each lap I was getting more and more confident and as such the inevitable encounter with the ground got closer and closer – the crash resulted in a load of mud up the side of my leg and a bent-inwards brake lever so I had to ride the remainder of the race with a wonky hand.

It was a least lap 5 before I was lapped I think, although that might be wrong. No idea how badly I did because the results aren’t out yet but I don’t care about that really. If I can do a few of these and get better at them that’s great, but it’s good just to do something so intense that it’s hopefully going to improve my ‘top end’ in the long-term.

After the race I had a quick cuppa, a quick natter, a quick change of jersey, put some lights on the bike and set off for home. The route eventually climbed Blackstone Edge, down towards Rochdale and then home a couple of hours after I’d set off. I didn’t need the lights until the last few miles but by then my front brake was completely useless, which made negotiating the roundabouts in Middleton very intereresting.

At the moment the next cyclocross race in my diary is a month away (followed by another one the day after!), but in contrast to this morning’s state of mind I’m actually already looking forward to it….

Warren’s worked his magic again ready for us to start plugging the next race in February 2010. Have a look and when we open the entry (soon), don’t hang about. Last time we sold out in 4 days.

Hit the North 1.5 rev 2.0 (catchy huh?)

This week I’ve properly discovered riding my bike to work.

Yes, riding to work. How long have I been riding bikes? Seems I always drive (because I have to visit a client or something) or I walk, it’s only a mile and a half after all.

If I ride, it takes 10 bloody minutes!!!! The best thing is,  I don’t end up wanting to kill people like I do if I drive.

Down the road, turn right at the tip, along the cycle path through the woods, done. Work. Big sprint home again. Yeh.

Can you still get bicycle clips?

There. I did it. I’ve entered the Strathpuffer 24 in the solo category at long last. I’ve been threatening myself with this race for a couple of years now – in January I’ll finally do it. I stayed up until midnight last night to enter on the website – by 12:07 it was full. Dave’s also in again for double the Ragley awesomeness.

Budge and Phil have entered as a pair. I think they’re going to blame me if they get cold (they will).

I’m picking up the caravan this weekend. After that I’ll be getting it all nice and comfy and maybe I’ll drag it up to the Highlands for the ‘puffer.

Ding Dang Doo.

….or ‘Mr Sparkle and Terrahawk Do East Anglia’

Photo: Dave Franciosy www.davefranciosy.co.uk

I’d been bleating on here about my physical state for a week or so leading up to this race and moaning that I didn’t feel like racing at all, being honest. Simon, my team mate for D2D had also been suffering with a cold for a couple of weeks so we were unofficially ‘Team Crocked’ (this was the first time I’ve raced in a pairs category). We had a plan B that involved drinking beer and spectating for most of the 12 hour race but that would in itself be a huge disappointment as Thetford Forest is definitely A Very Long Way Away Indeed.

The weather during the drive down was wet and windy, me and Michael were not bothered though as we knew that the further South we went, the drier the weather was supposed to be and besides, we had no intention of pitching the tent. I was going to be racing all night and Michael was happy to bed down in the back of the van with the spare bike

As per the weatherman’s prophecy, Thetford was dry, a bit windy and a bit sunny. We’d brought Michael’s bike with us so we went for a practice lap after meeting up with Simon and signing on. That practice lap was pretty cool as we did it wearing jeans and t-shirts whilst everyone else appeared to be wearing all the ‘right’ gear…I don’t think I’ll ever get all the chain lube out of my best jeans though.

Lining up at the start, I’d arrived late, too late to get really close to the front anyway. As it turned out it didn’t really matter because as 8pm arrived and we all set off into the darkness of the forest, a huge gap seemed to open up before me, allowing me to pass rider after rider, only slowing occasionally on narrow singletrack, waiting for an opportunity to put some power down and surge forward across the rough stuff at the side of the trail to continue my tear-arsing past other folk. Mile after mile of grin-inducing singletrack was despatched efficiently as the bike reacted with me to every twisty-turny-wiggly bit of trail and accelerated out of every turn. 29ers? Cumbersome? I think not. Not mine anyway.

I crossed the start/finish to hand over to Simon totally breathless having ridden harder in the last 50 minutes than I think I had done for a long time.

The thing about Thetford, in case you’re not familiar with the area, is that it’s almost completely flat. This makes it sound easy, but it isn’t. There’s no climbing therefore there’s no descending (and thus no coasting). The most appropriate gear is always quite a high one. The vast majority of the course is twisty, swoopy singletrack so it’s a very physical place to ride and it kind of beats you up with the regular dips and bumps sending shocks through your lower back.

The race went on and we’d totally forgot about Plan B, beer, heckling or anything else. We were racing, following the script of Plan A to the letter and just doing as best we could. I was finding the whole ‘one lap on, one lap off’ thing difficult as there’s not much time to rest but plenty of time to get cold and stiff so I was glad that we decided to start riding double laps through the night, allowing time for a proper sit down (perhaps even a sleep), some quality eating and a good faff with the bike. When I was on the bike it was easy however to find myself slipping back into my regular 24 hour soloist ‘maximum 70% of max HR’ pace and I had to really concentrate to make sure that I was riding as fast as possible all the time.

This was where my lack of fitness and fatigue manifested themselves. I’d do my first of 2 laps really fast (such as a fantastic high-speed 10 mile big-wheeled duel with Jo Burt), then I’d need almost half of my second lap to recover, eventually picking up the pace and caning it again before flopping into a crumpled heap in the van with a sleeping back over my head.

I wasn’t sure if Simon was having similar problems as for the whole 12 hours of the race I saw him only at the changeover point. “You alright?” “Yep” “Right. See ya.”, was pretty much it, apart from when I announced that I thought I’d broken my finger in a spectacular over-the-bars crash which probably surprised the bloke behind me as much as it did me. Anyhow, it bloody hurt. It still does. I think it’s broken. I’ve also got a bruise on my leg the size of a Wagon Wheel.

When I eventually bothered to look at the screen next to the timing tent (about 8 hours in) we were one lap behind the leading pair. Looking back at the lap times on the website yesterday we were in the top ten at one point but something happened towards the end – we’re not sure what, presumably some teams had laps missing or something – that dropped us down to 11^th place (out of 84), 2 laps behind the winners of the pairs category. We’re were a bit disappointed by that as we thought we’d finished inside the top 10 but it wasn’t too bad a performance. 14 laps between us was a lot better than we expected in fact.

Racing in the pairs category throws up a load of interesting challenges. Poor rest but also having to go really bloody fast, lack of communication with your team-mate but worst of all, it’s the changing of clothes after each hard lap.

By the end of Dusk Till Dawn I was clashing in a big way – my last lap ensemble consisted of orange gloves with a navy blue base layer underneath a red, white and blue jersey. I hope nobody recognised me

What an utterly ace event though. Great course (even better than CLIC?), great atmosphere, loads of familiar faces and the cheesiest collection of music I’ve ever heard played since 1982. This one’s definitely on the ‘things to do solo’ list for next year.