Strava Madness

Well I noticed on Strava that I'm only 12 seconds off a King of the Mountains on one of my local segments. As that was done on my singlespeed mountain bike it should be fairly easy to beat, especially as I've just set up the Peregrine as 'monster cross': fat tyres, rigid forks, gears and drops. That should make it easy to make up those seconds, especially as I can pedal down the down hill bit in the drops rather than coasting.

I don't think it's relevant but my best time was set when I was fitter, lighter, on a calm Summer's day on a dry trail. It's been raining for about a month here non-stop, the farmer down the road has built a huge wooden boat and the trail has about as much grip as a greased ice rink.

Ignoring the fact that the rain was horizontal I set off, warming up nicely on the 2 miles  to the start - OK I may have pushed a little too  hard but I was good to go. Up the first climb, I was certainly faster. Of course I couldn't prove it  as it was dark and the driving rain was blinding me but I had a plan and was sticking to it (unlike my tyres to the trail) nothing could go wrong. Over the crest of the first hill I changed gear in anticipation of cruising down the other side, and taking enough momentum to help me up the other side.

Which was great except the wind hit me like a train, no chance of coasting down there (not that that was on the agenda I was a dead cert for the podium) I changed back down through the gears working as hard to get down the hill as I was to get up it. Eventually I made it into the dip at the bottom. Literally. Being a minor valley, it was of course flooded and I came to an ungainly stop in the clay.

Hauling my bike out of the quicksand I attacked the final slope ignoring the wheel spinning in the clay making slower progress than I'd hoped, fighting both the wind and the hill. My lungs were making a desperate bid for freedom as I gasped for air. Perhaps now a tiny seed of doubt had planted itself in my mind?

And then that tiny seed grew into a fully fledged beanstalk as my rear wheel popped out of the dropout. This was of course due to the awesome power that I was putting down and nothing to do with shoddy maintenance. Taking shelter under the beanstalk I did the honourable thing. I gave up and headed for home.

So 'Anonymous Rider' your KOTM is safe for the time being. But I have you in my sights!

Dusk 'til Dawn 2012

Ooops! Wrote this weeks ago but forgot to publish!

What could possibly go wrong? I'd entered "Dusk 'til Dawn", a 12 hour mountain bike race that, as it's name suggests runs overnight with 2 people that I 'know' from a cycling forum.

Well the preparation didn't perhaps go as well as I'd hoped, moving house and a summer that resembled a monsoon cut down on the amount of riding I did but I wasn't as unfit as I could have been. I'd managed to meet up with my local bike shop, for a couple of off-road evening rides.

First hurdle came as I loaded the bike into the car. I'd just got everything in when I could hear the ominous hiss of escaping air. Somehow I'd managed to gash one of the tyres. Fortunately I had a spare in the shed and was eventually on the road. At least it happened at home rather than half way round the M25.

Three hours later I was pulling into Brandon only to see my teammates, recognisable from a photo on the forum riding in the opposite direction.A quick game of telephone tag later and we managed to meet up to plan our tactics get something to eat. Bob volunteered to do the first lap, which was a relief for me at least as I don't like riding in large groups and hopefully the field would have evened out by the time my turn came.

Sure enough it had so I set off my lights making a pool in the darkness. I could see a group of riders ahead of me and slowly drew them closer. As we chose not to have a practice the first lap was a voyage of discovery for me. Over what on a map seemed to be a fairly small and flat area - remember it was in the middle of Norfolk - the organisers had managed to put together an interesting course with a mixture of twisty singletrack through the woods and stretches of fireroad or double track for overtaking (or being overtaken!). Not that stopped a few people barging through where they couldn't really, although on the whole the majority of the overtakes were safe and courteous.Managed the first lap in around an hour and passed over to Steve for his lap.

We then retreated to the restaurant tent and tried to keep warm. Our saviour the whole night was the cheerful folks on the catering van who provided a never ending stream of tea, coffee and, the highlight, baked potato with chilli! I think that is what kept me going as we shivered through the 'off-watch' period. My thermometer was reading around 0C and with each lap the frost was getting heavier on teh gound. We soon fell into a pattern of 2 hours resting: chatting, snoozing, drinking tea and generally trying to avoid hypothermia and one hour of riding. As I got more used to the course and it dried out during the night I was able to put in some faster laps - well they felt faster but the official times still haven't been published.

Highlights of the race for me were 'Santa's Grotto' where someone had strung multi-coloured glow-sticks from the trees and had set up a sound system playing a selection of classical music - truly surreal. My turn came for the final lap before time ran out, it was just getting light so finally I was able to see where I'd been riding all night. There's something special about riding as the sun rises and it gave me a lift that I was able to pass a few riders. At this stage people were more tired and happy to pull over and let you past. As I overtook one guy he looked at my lack of gears - I was riding single-speed - and shouted "that's what I like to see, singlespeed and going for it". After that I had no choice but to put my foot down and sprinted (a relative term)  for the line coming in just before the 8 am cutoff. Overall we did 11 laps between the 3 of us, and whilst we didn't trouble the podium, achieved our main aim of getting round and having a good time.

And now, 48 hours later would I do it again? Well maybe. I learned a few lessons about endurance racing that night the most important being bring a tent and a change of clothes. We were the only people in the catering tent for most of the night and spent most of it very cold despite wrapping in blankets and other riders were surprised at how unprepared we were. I think the psychological boost of getting into something warm and dry after each lap would have helped enormously. So the jury's still out...

Finally, thanks to Steve and Bob for a great night!