Latest News

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.

Dave, Wayne, me and Michael went to Lee Quarry on Saturday, each armed with a ‘fun’ bike. By ‘fun bike’ I mean a ‘not necessarily designed for getting from there to there in the fastest and most clinically-efficient manner possible in order to inflict as much pain and suffering on everyone else…bike’.

I took my new Ragley Piglet and due to me not having time to ride it before going to Lee Quarry (it was that new) I spent the first 30 minutes or so riding a bit…stop…tighten that bit up….ride a bit….stop….nip that bolt up a bit….’sorry lads, something’s come loose’…allen keys out again…

It was great though and such a welcome change from the stresses of racing. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE racing bikes and everything that goes with it but an afternoon playing out on bikes with mates is an all-too-rare treat.

In 2 or 3 hours we rode a total of around 3 or 3 miles, had a laugh, played on the pump track, marvelled at how heavy a bike can be and still be pedalled up a (short) hill and ate some sweets whilst the sun shone and the dust kicked up from our tyres.

Then we went to Manchester for a curry.

ACE.

Last year’s Mountain Mayhem solo podium consisted of me in 3^rd, Dave in 2^nd and Ant White in 1^st place. That was well tidy. I was chuffed. Mayhem is still ‘the’ big endurance race for me and I’m guessing for a lot of other people too.

To ride to a podium place here is A Big Thing. The sheer size and prestige of the event makes it the first race on the list when I’m planning my year’s racing and it’s one of the key races that I want to be in good shape for.

Lining up at the start with Lee and Dave, getting ready for the ‘800 metre run’ to start the race (that somehow ended up being two and a half bloody kilometres), we chatted about how ace it would be to repeat last year’s performance…to arrive on the podium again, in any position… ‘That’d do’, we agreed.

Legging it up the start/finish straight after the crackers-long run I finally reached my bike and set off on my first lap….suddenly I’d start to feel some benefit from my spangly white carbon-soled disco slippers instead of trying to run in them like a penguin….

The course was very much the same as previous years, however some of it had been reversed and swapped about resulting in a lap that felt tougher than last year. Conditions at the start were quite damp so much of the hardpack dusty speed of last year’s race was replaced by extremely slippery mud and plenty of crashes.

Photo: Benji Haworth

At the end of the first lap I asked Phil to swap the tyres on my main bike to mud tyres ready for the next lap. I carried on, crashing, slipping sideways, avoiding other crashes while the showers persisted.

I knew I was doing ok but I didn’t know (or really care) where I was in the race until it got dark – the rain had long-since stopped and gradually the muddy sections of trail started to dry out. I was in 4^th place then and about 25 minutes behind Dan Treby in 3^rd. I was chipping away at the gap, but I knew I’d have to chip away a bit faster to stand a chance of catching him. Eventually I did catch him and we rode together for a short time; Dan was picking up the pace and I was struggling to keep up – ‘perhaps I’ll just have to accept that he’s the stronger man today and sit in 4^th place and wait and see what happens’ I thought, self-preservation instincts starting to kick in.

I slowed down a bit, mainly to make sure I had a chance of finishing the race. I arrived back at our pit and complained about the rigid fork, the course, Dan’s pace, everything really.

Then I ate some tinned Ravioli that Deb had warmed and put in a flask for me. Everything changed right then (no I’m not joking). The comfort of a brief sit down and a few mouthfuls of my favourite food worked wonders. I also knew that Ant and Dave were battling over the lead – unlikely that I was going to catch either of them without something untoward happening but it sounded like a good race was unfolding all the same…

It was time to pull my finger out. I picked up the pace and rode with a renewed sense of optimism. I’m not just accepting 4^th place. Not like this, sat on a 4 quid chair with my head bowed. Nope, I’ll do it on the bike, with my head held high, all covered in Heinz tomato sauce. I saw Dan in his pit again. I carried on, faster now. Into 3^rd place.

I probably glanced over my shoulder more than I looked forwards for the next few laps….no sign of Dan chasing after me for hours, but then I saw him again, gaining on me.

Disaster. I rode past my pit – Michael was there as usual with a new bottle. I just shouted ‘he’s right behind me’ and carried on up the first climb. Dan was gaining on me. ‘This guy is too bloody strong’ I said to myself, amongst other, more colourful things. He caught me up. I was just about resigned to the fact that I’d been dropped back into 4^th when he announced that he’d been sat under a blanket for the last hour or so, drinking tea and eating porridge. The pace of the previous laps had clearly taken its toll on both of us but I’d survived enough to keep going and end up a lap in front. Relief!

Just hang on now in 3^rd. Dan may be a lap behind but there was a while to go and the rest has clearly done him good, judging by the speed with which he caught me on a climb and then became a blueish dot, disappearing over the crest of the hill.

Ride to the end and stay consistent. Dave by now had been in the lead but had dropped back into second place by a typically tenacious Ant White. It didn’t matter too much though, because the race was coming to an end, I was maintaining a gap and our ‘wouldn’t it be good if….’ conversation at the start of the race was turning out to be a prophecy. The 2011 Mountain Mayhem solo podium was exactly the same as 2010

Crossing the line, I remembered it was Father’s Day when I was showered with lovingly home-made cards and gifts from Michael and the girls…I think I might have started to cry a bit.

During the race I was doing the pedalling (and crashing and face-pulling) but what really needs to be acknowledged here is the huge amount of effort by a dedicated few going on to keep me fed, (relatively) happy and motivated and to keep the bikes in order. And these guys are supporting two of us racing solo, so a race can involve a total of 40-ish very slick pit stops, two completely separate and sometimes quite complicated set of food needs, a fair amount of grumpiness at times and four bikes (2 each) that are getting thrashed and caked in filth over and over again so they need cleaning, lubricating, maintaining and if the weather changes, tyres need swapping too. Then we need information relaying from the timing tent about our lap times, performance of our nearest rivals so that we know when we need to pick up the pace or when we can afford a ‘safe’ lap.

Michael and Wayne are the ‘full-timers’ but some of the support also comes from Deb (who’s also looking after the kids) and the guys who are actually racing in the team categories as well (Budge, Phil, Andy, et al). In many ways I’m extremely privileged that I can call upon this kind of support as well as the help I receive from my great sponsors. I love all of you (almost as much as I love tinned ravioli).