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September and the start of October are always a crazy-busy time of the year for me, in a bicycle racing sense. There seems to be a number of really enjoyable and ‘special’ races at this time of year, a time of year when many of my bike racing friends are getting ready to have a bit of a break, or in the case of the cyclocross crowd, are just getting started.

I’m torn at the moment, as I was this time last year, between a need to continue to train hard in preparation for Relentless 24, the totally ace 24 hour race in Fort William – and taking it easy with a proper taper in preparation for this weekend’s 3 Peaks Cyclocross race. A little voice in my head (and a few voices on Twitter) tell me that I should taper now and prepare properly for the 3 Peaks… give the race the utmost respect that it undoubtedly deserves and perhaps do a bit better in it.

I certainly don’t want to appear so churlish as to claim that the 3 Peaks is some kind of training ride, because as a training ride it would be really really horrible, quite mad and put most people off training altogether –  but the more I think about where my priorities lie, the easier the decision to NOT take things easy just yet becomes.

Relentless is a race that I hit the podium at last year. It made a big impression on me, partly due to the unseasonably warm and sunny weather of last year’s event and partly due to the incredible course (coming home with a trophy helped too). Obviously, I’d love to finish as well (or better) than I did last year so to achieve that I need to carry on with the hard miles right now, just to get mind and body in the right place for the immense sustained effort that a 24 hour solo race demands.

Meanwhile, everyone I know that is taking part in the 3 Peaks this weekend has been tapering and enjoying a rest for the last few days and will no doubt continue to do so until the start of the race. After the race, they’ll all be pouring celebratory beer down their necks and feasting on cake and chips. And who can blame them?

I, on the other hand, apart from a couple of easier days late this week will be very much ‘pressing on’ and after the 3 Peaks I’ll be thinking about the number of training hours I have planned for the following few days before I can start to taper for Relentless.

As for beers at the pub in Helwith Bridge, well, I’ll be maintaining a sensible pre-race diet and focussing on the 24 hour race in 2 weeks’ time (oh…maybe just the one though).

Last year I rode the 60 hilly miles back home after riding the 3 Peaks race for the same reason. That looked a bit of a weird thing to do…but for some of us, the work isn’t quite done yet.

…but when the work is done, I’m definitely going to treat myself to one of these bad boys-

I tried something new at the weekend. I invested in some skills training, specifically, cyclocross skills training. Meeting up with Ed ‘Great Rock’ Oxley at Lee Quarry – not a typical cyclocross venue but one of the closest things around these parts to Whernside, one of the nightmares of the 3 Peaks race – we chatted and compared our cross bikes with new-fangled disc brakes and waited for the rest of the ‘pupils’ to arrive.

Joining us for the day and bringing with them their experience and expertise were Dave Haygarth and Alan Dorrington. I was looking forward to getting faster and smoother not by routine training in the usual sense but by learning smarter ways to ride a bike – around corners, over rough ground, dismounts, that sort of thing.

Quite soon we were staring at the Lee Quarry pump track, listening to Ed’s advice on how we should ride something like this on a bike that in our minds at least, was not really designed for the job.  Off he went to show us what he was talking about. All the way around the pump track, working the terrain and getting all the way around without pedalling.

Off we went. After an hour or so, everyone was pumping the pump track and was flying around much smoother and faster than the first time. Progress.

Then we worked on technique for riding over rough ground. To make sure we all knew what ‘rough ground’ is, we rode over some big rocks. Some people fell off. Some more than once.

We rode some of the red trail a few times, each time applying skills and techniques we’d just learned, each time getting faster, staying off the brakes a bit more…

This stuff works much better than any bike upgrade.

Then we went for our dinner in a big greenhouse with a kitchen in it…which was nice. There was also loads of cakes.

The afternoon session was a bit more ‘regular’ cyclocross in a nearby park – grass, mud, barrier tape, run-ups, dismounts, that kind of thing. Dave led this session and passed on a wealth of knowledge and racing tips and we made a bit of a mess of the grass.

It was ace. There will be more of these courses and if you want to go faster on your cyclocross bike and discover where your real weaknesses are (and thus what you need to practice afterwards), you should get your name down here www.great-rock.co.uk

In spite of the tougher-than-expected ride on Monday, I’d recovered well. I was feeling good the day before and during the race – the usual frantic pace of the start (after the somewhat silly fast-slow-fast-slow pace of the quad bike during the neutral lead-out) saw a lead pack immediately appear. initially I was in the chasing pack but somewhat surprisingly, I was able to close the gap and join the front group. It was going well. My glasses steamed up so I backed off a bit in the first singletrack section but I wasn’t losing sight of the riders in front.

The rain had started the night before the race and didn’t stop. I knew the gritty surface and the water wouldn’t be doing any part of the bike any good but figured that it would be the same for everyone and my brake pads were ok. My chain was soon stripped of all lube though and following some annoying chainsuck, I stopped to apply some more. All that lost me a bit of time and a few riders, including Phil, caught me up. It didn’t matter though, I was feeling ACE and I was seemingly riding faster than I had done for a long time.

pic: Joolze Dymond

Cutting a long tedious story short, 30 miles into the race I approached a marshal point down a hill. The marshal was directing me to a right turn but instead of turning right, I pulled on the brakes and nothing happened. At all. Accelerating, I shouted ‘NO BRAKES!!’ and carried straight on, off the trail and into the ferns. This sounds funny now but at the time I had no idea if the ferns were hiding something flat or the edge of a cliff. Luckily it was the former and I came to a halt, slowed by the 5-feet-high vegetation, around 12 feet from the forest road I’d just left.

The pads in both brakes had vaporised – all the pads already down to bare metal –  within 30 miles of grit and filth. I’m annoyed at myself because I only had one spare pair of pads with me, so enough for one brake. Game over.

Phil came past and I shouted to him that I was out of the race. I trundled back to the campsite and spent a few hours cleaning my stuff and packing up. After that I wandered around Kielder village like some kind of weird hobo, went to the cafe for my dinner, hanged around with Lee and Rachael (Lee dropped out due to brake problems and a knackered knee) and waited for the rest of the lads to finish their race.

It’s frustrating because I was doing well. Really well.

Dave, at one point just in front of me, finished 7th. Phil was 21st. Budge also survived to cross the line in 62nd. Less than 15% of the starting number actually finished, most retiring from the race apparently due to brake problems and/or ‘can’t be arsed any more’ issues.

Kielder100 2 – 0 me

The last time me and Dave attempted this particular Daft Ride, we ran out of daylight and our lack of lights meant that we cut it (slightly) short before things got dangerous. This time, we’d have lights and we’d both arguably be a bit fitter and therefore faster so we’d have every chance of nailing it. Not only that, we’d be starting a bit earlier than last time – we’d aim to be riding at 6am which meant I had to leave the house at 3:30am (rather than the pathetically-late 4:30am of last time)

The route is best described as a monster. Approximately 130 miles, 15000-ish feet of vertical ascent and several really big hills..nay, mountains to ride over. Most of the route is off-road and plenty of unrideable, ‘hike-a-bike’ sections to ensure the calves get plenty of gyp.

This time we started from the tiny village of Blencarn at the foot of Cross Fell. We planned to end the ride at the end of the final descent. We’d probably need our lights by this point but all being well, we’d get away with only needing them for the ascent and the half mile or so along the road back to the cars.

Battering along trails remembered from last time, we made reasonable progress along the bridleway alongside Ullswater following a fast warm-up along the road.

The ascent of High Street, apart from a comedy (but painful) fall on my part, came and went without too much drama. The sections where bikes needed to be carried weren’t terribly difficult (that’s 3 Peaks training, that is) and following a couple of photos and some jelly babies at the top, the ascent was fun…in a really scary, ‘christ this is a bit steep’ kind of way.

Pathetically under-powered XC race Brakes almost melted and at times completely grip-less-on-wet-grass tyres cursed at, we continued our journey on minor roads towards Staveley, on towards Borrowdale (I think) and Tebay.

Then on to Sedbergh for a raid on the local bakery followed by the second major climb and descent of the day. While our shopping for sandwiches, sweets and pastry was deeply pleasurable for us, going to the Spar was no doubt less fun than usual for the ‘normal’ shoppers in there due to the pungent sweat-and-dung funky stench of two off road cyclists. Undeterred, we queued up with grumbling pensioners and frightened children with armfuls of high-calorie food and ate most of it at the nearest kiddies’ play area.

The long, hard climb from the ice cream-selling sheep farm across Brant Fell to the summit of The Calf was, as it was last time, very tough. The bridleway is mostly rideable though and it was one of the most rewarding sections of the entire route, especially when passing a group of walkers who cheerfully passed compliments on our apparent fitness level J

Reaching the top, another ‘bikes leaning against something quite high up’ photo opportunity was taken, more jelly babies and a Clif Bar and then we were off again for the descent down to Bowderdale.

I’m sure I’ve read magazine articles about this trail where it’s described as some kind of flowing, fast, sinuous singletrack. It’s fun, a lot of fun, but it definitely needs some commitment. I remember the last time I rode this trail that I was a bit surprised at how much like hard work it was in reality. It must have eroded a bit since last time because this time I found it very tough indeed. Having to stop a couple of times to massage my hands back to life, progress along the trail was slow. Eventually reaching Bowderdale completely knackered, we carried on to Crosby Garret Fell, site of the now-infamous ‘Being Chased By Cows’ episode of 2009…

Eventually we reached our second Spar of the day in Appleby. More food devoured while we mused on how ‘shouty’ the locals seemed to be, we pressed on towards Dufton and the climb up the moor to the astonishing High Cup Nick.

This climb was incredibly tough, sometimes frustrating. Short rideable sections permeated by unrideable sections of rocks, deep bogs or primitive wooden bridges, our progress was now so slow and tiring that thoughts were now turning to the imminent sunset and our ability to complete the ride as planned.

Once at the top and the whole majesty of High Cup Gill could be seen, the mood lightened again. Pictures were taken and ‘wow’s’ were wowed. Jelly babies and Clif Bars were eaten. Bikes were picked up and we braced ourselves for yet another bruising descent, this time towards Cow Green Reservoir and on to the minor road where we decided to ‘decide what to do next’.

Our original plan would have been to ride north-west to Garrigill, climb Cross Fell and descend back to the cars at Blencarn. Simple….apart from the fact that we were switching our lights on now, a good 15 miles from the start of the climb of Cross Fell rather than maybe a short section at the end. We were running late in other words and we agreed that a revised route along the road would be the sensible option rather than attempting, in the dark, the potentially tricky navigation that Cross Fell would require. The route along the road looked like it should be about 20 miles…..

We headed south-east to the junction at Middleton-in-Teesdale (which took a while) then headed to Brough on the minor road across the moor. By now it was completely dark, it was windy and it was raining. The road was also a rather large climb, which was a surprise. I remember reaching Brough and declaring that the last road was  ‘beyond horrible’ or something. We’d survived, but the ride, a good 15 hours after we’d left the cars, was by now starting to really take its toll on us both.

Digging deep, we pressed on towards Appleby (again) where we’d ride along minor roads to Blencarn. It was clear by this point that our earlier ‘about 20 miles’ estimate was optimistic.

The batteries in Dave’s GPS ran out. We slowed down a bit more as we tried to navigate deserted singletrack roads in the dark…neither of us was entirely sure which way was The Right Way until Dave, in a moment of inspiration, remembered the ‘sequence’ of villages that lay before us.

‘Dufton, then Knock, then Milburn…Milburn is right next to Blencarn..I’m sure it is’. Awesome. We’d have had to sleep in a hedge if it wasn’t for this single moment of genius.

We made it back to the cars just after midnight, 161 miles ridden and 17,000 feet (maybe more) of vertical climbed. We were also about 4 hours later than expected. Agreeing that we both felt like we’d just competed in a 24 hour race, we hastily said our goodbyes, threw our kit into our cars and GOT THE HELL OUT OF THERE.

Technically, we were beaten again by perhaps the daftest of all Daft Rides, but we’d actually ridden a lot further than the original route in a fairly respectable time (bearing in mind food and photo stops). We’ll have another go at it next year I’m sure, but for now, it’s all about recovery. You see, there’s a certain 100-mile mountain bike race that needs to be dealt with next weekend. Is it possible to recover sufficiently from a 161 mile mountain bike ride in just 4 days? We shall see…

To celebrate me reaching The Big 4-0, a week off was planned. We were going to have a family holiday that for a change, didn’t involve a 24 hour bicycle race. I had an idea that we were going to Scotland but apart from that the whole week was a mystery.

We arrived at our cottage in the grounds of Threave Castle (surprise number 1) – handily just 7 miles from the trails at Dalbeattie. Not long after we’d arrived, Phil, Jacqui, their kids and their bikes arrived (surprise number 2). They were going to stay in the adjoining cottage for the weekend. Ace.

Then Lee, Rachael and their little one arrived (surprise number 3). Lee had his bike ready and his helmet on so off we went for a blast around the harder-than-I-remember Dalbeattie red trail.

The next day, Phil and I set off again for Dalbeattie but had a much bigger ride planned. Two-thirds of the red trail, drop down to the road then a climb over Little Hard Hill (it’s not little), eventually arriving at nearby Mabie Forest. We were supposed to be meeting Lee there but arrived an hour later than expected. Waiting for us were Dave, Wayne and Michael – more bikes and more surprises (number 4 in fact).

A ride around the Mabie red trail began, good laughs, good company and some pretty spectacular crashes. Back to ‘our place’ for home-made soup and then a few beers and The Longest 40^th Birthday Celebration Ever rumbled on…

Eventually the party came to an end, friends went home, leaving Debbie, the girls, Michael and I to spend the rest of the week sightseeing and riding bikes some more…I even managed to get a few early-morning rides in at Dalbeattie too – despite the beer and cake consumption, I think I made a good job of making sure my fitness didn’t suffer too much. Which is lucky, because the next few weeks are MENTAL with the number of big races I’m lining up at.

We even came back with a kitten! We’ve called him ‘Archibald The Grim’ (I’m sure you can work it out).

Regular readers of drivel on Twitter will be aware that I crashed out of a criterium race a few weeks ago, my rear wheel giving way on a hairpin bend covered with some  kind of super-grippy (AKA drunken football fan-proof) blue paint. I noticed at the time that I’d lost rather a lot of skin from my leg and caused some cosmetic damage to the bike. I hadn’t noticed however that my rear tyre had a one-inch hole in the outer layer of rubber – torn off by the aforementioned Man City blue grippy floor covering – which exposed the canvas (?) material underneath….

The 112 mile Pendle Pedal (I’m calling it by its old name because every time I say the new name for the event I cringe a very large cringe….)

Setting off in the first group, Dave and I managed to ride for 5 miles before I got a puncture. Having not ridden the Vitus since the crit a few weeks ago I wasn’t aware of the tyre problem until now. Eventually we got going again with a new tube in my tyre and the first improvised tyre boot of the day protecting it from the tarmac and a silly number of cattle grids, each one accelerating the already-rapid growth of the tyre’s bald patch.

One after another, the route took in some truly brilliant climbs – big, brutes of hills that had varying gradients throughout their length, fantastic views from the top, stunning descents and most of them regarded as ‘classics’ – Trough of Bowland, Nick O Pendle, Waddington Fell, Cross O Greet to name just a small number of the big ones and also some really steep buggers that I don’t think have names other than ‘Bastard’ or ‘Oooyerfucker’.

35 miles later, my rear inner tube finally made contact with the tarmac and punctured. Luckily it wasn’t whilst hurtling down a steep hillside, it was halfway up a hill, my relative lack of speed meaning that I didn’t end up in a ditch.

Another tube, another gel wrapper. By now the exposed tyre canvas had worn through and the tyre had a proper hole in it.

Stopping to check we were ok, local celeb and national cyclocross champ Paul Oldham reassured me that I’d ‘get 500 miles out of a gel wrapper’. Maybe an overestimation on his part or a reflection on my riding technique, the gel wrapper lasted quite a lot less than that.

Gel wrapper bodge and inner tube swap number 3 kicked in at 97 miles, again I was riding uphill (evidently the Gods wanted to annoy rather than kill me), by now the hole in the tyre was now a large gash and I was getting worried that the whole thing would burst open.

The riders that were passing us now as we tended to my stricken bike for the 3^rd time today were many of the same riders that we’d passed, were passed by, then passed, then were passed by and then passed throughout this entire ‘test of patience bike ride’.

Thankfully, that final tube/wrapper swap saw me to the end of the route. The tyre problems, whilst irritating, didn’t take much away from what was a brilliant day out on the bike. The route is a real cracker, the event raises money for a brilliant cause and the feed stations had Mars Bars. You can’t ask for much more than that.

I’ve been lucky enough this year to have been sent some Mt Zoom components by Ant White (of the XC Racer.com shop and ‘kicking plenty of arse in races’ fame).

Aside from looking ace, all of this gear is light. Very, very light – we’re talking proper featherweight stuff here – and even if some Mt Zoom bars, bar ends, headset top caps, bottle cages and jockey wheels might not make a massive difference weight-wise if you chuck them on a pretty hardcore bike, they still look the part, work well and for the weight, they’re surprisingly durable.

If, however, you’ve got a lightweight, racy bike anyway and want to gain every possible advantage then these components are just the ticket. After all, there’s no point in putting lardy bits on a light bike is there?

The carbon handlebars are a nice width without being so wide that you can’t thread the bike between a couple of trees without breaking your fingers and they’re ‘bar end friendly’ which means they’re reinforced in the right places if you like riding with bar ends.

The headset top cap is a one-piece affair and weighs something like four grams.

My favourite components though are these beautiful jockey wheels. They might look fragile but after several hundred miles of sometimes-clumsy Pennine off-road riding, they still look pretty good. In fact they’ve not worn at all really.

Check out the Mt Zoom website for more details, specs, links to sponsored rider blogs and loads of other stuff.

I’d been looking forward to a full weekend of cycling up at Dalby for a while – the Dalby 100K Mountain Marathon and cyclosportive were supposed to have been held on consecutive days, the plan was to do the 100K road event on Saturday, camp out that night then ride the 100K MTB Marathon on Sunday. Nice.

That was until the sportive was cancelled due to a small number of entries.

After a much better night’s sleep in my own bed rather than a tent, I drove up to Dalby Forest at a very early hour (but not so early that it could be called ‘daft’ – how times change), met up with Budge and Dave and waited for the start. Eventually, once the huge signing-on queue had been dealt with, we were off, immediately hurtling down a short stretch of twisty singletrack. Joining a fireroad, I expected that it wouldn’t be too long before the next section of swoopy singletrack was reached.

Mile after mile of fireroad was ridden at speed. The exciting singletrack never arrived. Taking turns at the front of a group of around 10 riders, me and Dave we got our heads down and hammered along. Occasionally glancing back to see how many other riders were managing to hang on, things eventually settled down  as we left the forest behind and reached the rough moorland climbs, our group now down to four or five riders.

The ‘theme’ of the route was taking shape and basically it went like this: Gain altitude on rough bridleway and/or fireroad. Descend down tarmac road. I was riding my Ragley TD:1 – a lightweight, fully-rigid 29er – and even I was feeling a bit ‘over-biked’. A cyclocross bike would have been ace.

Dave’s chain snapped. We stopped and fixed it as a few riders left behind earlier went past. We got going again and caught them up. We were hammering again, until we reached what appeared to be the edge of a cliff. This wasn’t right. We turned around and rode back across the rock-strewn path across Fylingdales Moor, meeting riders who were riding in the opposite direction.

Now in a large group again, we ventually arrived back at a junction and noted the fact that there were no signs at all, We rode down this alternative trail. It turned out to be the way we should have gone earlier L

We’d lost loads of time, so a big effort was needed now to keep things respectable.

That wasn’t to be either. My carbon crank had other ideas and decided that today was going to be the day that it was going to DIE. A large crack had appeared in the carbon fibre and my pedal was working loose. I didn’t want it to fall off completely as that would have meant walking so the only option was to put all the effort in with my left leg only – any effort with the right leg would have only made the crank arm fall apart faster.

….which started to hurt quite a bit as my 90/10 pedalling action screwed around with my biomechanics (or something) and also meant that our pace dropped dramatically.

So we had a nice leisurely ride to the finish, but we were still looking forward to the fabled ‘final flourish’, no doubt using some of the red-grade trails back at Dalby Forest.

That didn’t happen. The final 30 miles or so of the route was almost exclusively on roads and that’s exactly how it finished. The course designer had seemingly made a concerted effort to avoid anything remotely interesting and directed the route along A and B roads instead, which was a bit weird.

By now my pedal was almost falling off so perhaps the lame ending was a good thing anyway…

At least there was an ice cream van and the finish.

It’s July. Yes, I know this is the UK and it’s a green and pleasant land and green stuff needs plenty of water…blah blah blah, BUT IT’S JULY. One should not expect to be bombarded by 30mph horizontal hailstones,  rained on for hours and hours and left shivering by a relentless, howling northerly wind. IT’S JULY.

I took part in the Polocini ‘Over’tops’ sportive at the weekend as I knew the route would be hard and would probably show me a few minor roads and steep climbs that I didn’t know existed, I also knew it would be well-organised, the food would be lovely (and free) and it was only costing me 20 quid.

The 10 mile ride to the start in Oldham gave me fair warning (as if the doom-laden BBC weather forecast hadn’t done enough to put me off), as I rode away from the front door the heavens opened. The rain pelted down all the way to the start, where I signed in, ate some porridge and met up with Dave who’d done the sensible thing and drove.

As we huddled around his car, waiting for the start, the rain got progressively heavier until it was bouncing a foot off the ground. My ‘sensible bike’ – the Ragley Cragg Vale with full ‘guards would be doing little to keep my backside dry today.

Heading out of Oldham into the hills, the bad weather temporarily eased…that was, until it got really bad again and the rain started to bounce off the ground again. Over to the steep-sided valleys of Calderdale the climbing became tougher, including the silly-steep cobbles of the Shibden Wall, the rain continued to fall until the point at which we reached the summit of Cragg Vale…it was there that the heavens unleashed their full fury.

Yeah, I might be wearing a white coat – but does YOUR hat match your bike? No. I thought not.

A huge, gusting sidewind, that felt like it was headed straight for us from the surface of Jupiter, battered a surprise shower of hail into the side of our bodies – heads tilted at 90 degrees to the side to prevent our eyes being peppered by the bombardment of ice we tentatively made our way down the road towards Ripponden.

More steep climbs later and back into Lancashire, progress was slowed somewhat by the gusting wind, now blowing in the opposite direction the way we were headed. The long and gradual climb across Castleshaw Moor was a slow grovel but eventually we made it back to civilisation, a bit shell-shocked at the worst July weather I can remember and back to the finish line for a bowl of hot soup (more free food!).

Next weekend is the On-One Weekender – a road sportive on Saturday followed by an MTB marathon on Sunday. Can you guess what the weather forecast is?

pic: Ed Rollason

Normally it’s the middle of winter when the cyclocross season kicks off before I take part in any kind of hour-long cycle races that always seem to remind me how crap I am at that sort of thing. I keep telling myself it’s a result of spending the year endurance training and 24 hour racing…that’s my somewhat ropey theory anyway…

This year, I’m starting the humiliation early. British Cycling have been running a series of crits at the Manchester City stadium car park so it would have been a shame not to give it a go.

It all seemed to start ok – I was holding my position in the group and I was happy with the pace….for a while anyway.

Lacking that vital ‘snap’ out of hairpin turns was my downfall. Eventually dropping off the back of the pack, doomed to a lonely existence aside from occasional overtaking of other dropped riders, I went around and around the 2k circuit without the benefit of a wheel to grab onto. Eventually and somewhat inevitably I was lapped on the final lap – my kick in the head at my first crit now complete.

Good fun, kind of. Another one next week. Yay. Practice makes perfect and all that.