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Even though I had been feeling flat and tired for a week or so I thought it would be good for me to do the event as I need to get my navigation skills back up to speed for next season.

Things started well enough when I set of on a mild and sunny November morning towards Bedale.
I seen parked up in the lovely village of Thornton Watlass and got kitted up ready for action, I had decided to take the ‘cross bike as the winter events are based more on back lanes and less on bridleways, also it was the bike I had been commuting on that week so it was ready to roll.

I had a look at the map at the start and quickly saw the route I was to take and headed off to the rolling hills. My choice of bike was obviously a good one judging by the speed I seemed to catch and pass people, especially as I could only push about 70%.
My route took me over towards Bedale then back west and round in a nice flowing anti clockwise direction back past Masham.
The weather was great, 13 deg and mainly sunny which was a bonus for November. I managed to do ok on the navigational side and didn’t really make any mistakes which is a nice change, maybe due to the fact I wasn’t going as fast so had a little more time for map reading.
By the 1 1/2hr mark my legs had given up so I had to cut short my planned route and head for home which I did bang on 2hrs with 42k in the bag. not as good as I had planned but I still had a mega day out riding in the winter without getting frost bite so it was all good.

The next event I’m planning on taking the ‘cross bike but this time the trailer and my 2 kids..it could be interesting!

My last training focus of 2011 was planned around Dusk ’til Dawn at Thetford but unfortunately, I picked up a cold in the week prior to the race. In previous years I would probably have taken my chances and gone to Thetford and raced anyway, but after the post viral fatigue I suffered at the beginning of this year I wasn’t prepared to take any chances so I pulled out of D2D and entered the Bristol Oktoberfest 8 hour solo the following week. The downside of this new, sensible approach to racing was that I’d have to run the Cardiff Half Marathon the following day. Did I say sensible… anyway, that would be Sundays problem to deal with.

I’ve raced at Bristol many times in the past and I really liked the old course, but like anything, you can have too much of a good thing. I had read good things about the new Ashton Court trails and I had high hopes that they would be a fitting substitute for the Thetford singletrack fix I’d missed the week before. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed, although I would have to wait a few laps before getting the chance to rip around in anger. Despite getting stung by wasps on my leg on the way to the “Le-Mans” start, I actually got a good run in for a change and grabbed my Anthem from @HuwLocoRacing with minimal mass start confusion. Head down, cranking on to the end of the gravel climb and into the arena, I turned round the corner to see pretty much every other racer had cut the gravel road out, shortcutting straight to the arena. So much for a good start, with what looked like hundreds of riders in front of me and the inevitable bottleneck that would develop as the course hit the first singletrack I big ringed it away overtaking as many people as I could. Still, the first lap was little more than a sighting lap as I got to look at the new trail from way back in the precession of riders, picking off the odd overtake where I could.

As the race progressed the riders thinned out and it became apparent how much fun the new improved course was. Smooth, flowy and schmoozy, with bermed corners and pump track sections that flowed well. A few laps in I caught up with Steve Corbyn (Coloumbia Bikefood) after a brief chat he began pushing harder than I wanted on the penultimate climb so I let him gap me. That proved to be a mistake as I got caught behind a large group of slower riders going into the last singletrack / descent. It took me an entire lap of steady but constant effort to catch up with Steve again and re-gain the time I lost. Aware of how important it was to pass slower riders without delay, Steve and I rode the next lap together passing people wherever possible and in some places where it didn’t seem possible. A little later we caught up with Will Hayter (MarahtonMTB.com) and added one more to our solo train. Steve was the first to drop off when his bike decided that it no longer liked having two wheels and his rear wheel made a break for freedom. Will and I rode the next lap together until I pulled away on the longer climb through the woods.

As I came into the arena Huw was on standby with bottles and gels and the info I wanted to hear, I was in the ‘lead’ but not by much. I continued to lap at a consistent pace and opened my advantage up to just over 8 minutes over the next few laps. At around 5 hours race duration though that ‘lead’ started to disappear, each lap I would try and ride a little faster and each lap Huw would tell me my advantage had got smaller. 4 minutes, then 3.5 and then on the next lap he’d ridden out onto the course to give me a split half way round the lap. Never a good sign. I knew by this point that there was time to complete three more laps. At my current pace I was easily going to loose a minute a lap so it was time to really step it up and suffer. The last three laps were a blur as I pushed as hard as I could, desperate not to get caught on the last leg of the race, 29:01, 29:06, 28:07, that last lap being my 3rd quickest of the entire race. Relieved I’d done it and held off the attack, I decided to take a lie down in the Loco team pit whilst the post race mong set in.

Unfortunately, that’s where the story takes a twist. It tuned out that I hadn’t ‘won’ as most people at the event and I thought. Despite the live results showing me leading the race for over 4 hours, Rob Holbeche had actually finished 4:33 in front of me. Timelaps, the official race timing company, had missed one of his early laps so he was showing as being a lap down on the results. Despite them being aware of this mistake for some time, the missing lap wasn’t credited to him until after the race had finished. Its easy to accept that mistakes happen, we are all human. In this case the frustration is with how Timelaps chose to correct their mistake – or not. Effectively, the entire Male Solo 8hr pack were racing from incorrect race information, which is arguably worse than having no information at all. Even if I had known Rob was ahead, I’m not sure I could have pushed much harder, he put some stellar laps in early doors to open up a solid lead that would have been difficult to close down. However, if I had known, I’d have been much happier being the hound than the fox for those last hours! Still P2 in a close and competitive race is a good result that I should be happy with, just the circumstances take the edge of things slightly. Thanks to Simon @ Loco Tuning for letting me pit out of their team tent and to Huw for being a great ‘pitbitch’ I wouldn’t have got P2 if it weren’t for their support.

Full Results

P.S. Did the Half Marathon on Sunday, it hurt for 1:41…

The forecast was not good for what was to be my last MBO of this season at Dalby forest, chilly with lots of showers is what I was told, fortunately it was pleasantly warm with blue skies.

After looking at the league tables I realised that a good result here could lift me a few places up from the fourth I was sitting in at preasant. I was really motivated and was confident I could get a good route to collect most of the controls, I just had to have a but of luck and not make any stupid mistakes.

My planned route was to go north from High Rigg farm, sweep round past Worry Gill and the World Cup course, dropping down the old black route chute to Staindale, all seemed to be going well and I didn’t waste any time finding controls. The techy/rocky chute was fun on the hardtail and seemed a lot worse than when I used to ride it on my full sus. Then it was back up to the top and round past Crosscliff towards the toll road, the trails were pretty dry concidering the weather we have had lately so I was keeping up a good pace and feeling on it.next it was down into Deepdale and back up the other side and south to Rosekirkdale. I dived on to the red route for a while as it was too tempting to ride the trail running paralell when the good stuff took me to where I was heading. The first half of the event seemed quite compact but the second half saw the controls spead over the many riggs and gills to the south, my route seemed to be working well and I had probably only wasted about 2 min due to minor nav errors so I was happy with how things were going.

Soon I was on the home leg climbing up from the woodyard but when I got to the top I could not see the control, I rode up and down where the discription said it should be but deciced to carry on and report in on my return, the very next control was no where to be seen either and I started to question my skills so I decided to ride up the old red route just in case it had been put out in the wrong place, sure enough it had been placed 100m up the trail. Maybe I wasn’t going mad after all! I managed to clear up a few more controls on the way back to High Rigg Farm and the finish. I returned 33s late and only lost one point which is good.

I reported the problem with #17 & 22 and was told the one on the bend was in the wrong place so they were awarding poeple with this but the other was where it was supposed to be but was just not as visible as it could have been so they would not adjust my score due to this. It was a little annoying as it was by far my est result of the year and I only missed collecting three five point controls so would have had a score of 509 with my penalty as opposed to the 489 I actually scored. Not to worry tho as in the big scheme of things it only means a difference of 2 points for the league and as I am unable to do the last round there is nothing more I can do to change the outcome, I’m currently in second in class so maybe I can stay there, only time will tell.

Finally on the third attempt we managed to get out for a night on the hills, the past two attempts had to be abandoned due to torrential rain. The forecast wasn’t the best for the Friday night but we held out for better weather this time and it seemed to pay off.

As we were bivying we travelled light, the main bits of kit were
Alpkit Gourdon dry bag,
Alpkit Hunka Bivvy bag,
Alpkit Pipedream 200 Down bag,
Alpkit Filo Down jacket,
Balloon bed,
Exposure Joystick,
Trangia mini stove,
Light my fire spork,
Buff,
First aid kit,
Dried meal by Wayfarer (Beef and Potato hotpot)
And finally some single malt to aid a good nights sleep.

Padge and myself got out of work on the Friday, loaded up and headed off on our adventure, first up was the Meanwood Valley trail which took us all the way out of Leeds city centre to the quiet of the countryside, it was along here we found out that with big dry bags on getting through the many gates would be interesting.

The weather was holding out and we made good time through Golden Acre Park and along the trails towards Leeds-Bradford airport where we followed the path round the perimeter. It was a little weird as there was a great big fence either side as you were on the airports land and they don’t want people straying off, the going was good until we reached loads of brambles across the trail, with no way round we head to go through with plenty of cuts to show for our persistence.

We stopped overlooking the airport and had a snack to give us the energy for the big climb to come. As we looked over to Ilkley Moor in the distance things looked a little grim, much to Wife Sarah’s ammusement as I spoke to her on the phone and said night to the kids.

Undettered we set off again towards the gloom, dropping down through Yeadon onto an old railway now used as a cycle path, we were soon climbing up towards the moor and the weather had lifted and along with it our spirits, we hit the doubletrack on open moorland running through a blanket of lilac heather, not long to go now to the spot Padge had earmarked on an earlier recce on to the moor.
Just a few wet sections of single track later we rolled up to the ‘Buck Stones’ high on top of Ilkley Moor.
The light was fading now so we chose our spot for the night and went to find a few branches in the nearby plantation to help erect the tarp as rain was forecast later that night.

We set up camp and sat down for a bit of vodka/whiskey to ease us into a baby like sleep, I was half expecting to be woken in the early hours by sheep that were trying to escape the weather but this was not the case in the end. We fired up the stove and made our tea, a rather nice beef and potato hotpot which I jest not weighed about 2kilos when rehydrated!

Then it was just time to kick back and chill, watching the people in their cars over on the other hill tops going about their friday night business. Visibility was rolling in and out as we were up in the mist now.

We were hoping to get a front row seat for the impressive meteor shower that night but due to the low cloud and the effectiveness of my single malt I finally awoke in daylight at 6AM! Not such a bad nights sleep after all.

Once again the stove was fired up, this time for a morning brew and then we packed our dry bags ready for the steady ride back. As we made our way to the trail the sun burnt through the clouds and afforded us great views right round the moor.

A quick descent down the moor saw us link up with the Leeds/Liverpool canal which we were to follow all the way back into Leeds city centre, it was a lovely ride in an area I hadn’t been before, it was nice passing people on the ride who were out for an early start to the weekend knowing ours had started some time before at Friday teatime.
One of the many sights on the return journey was the impressive five rise locks at Bingley, I can honestly say I wouldn’t fancy them in a canal boat, too much like hard work to me!

As we passed through Saltaire we came across a long boat which was no longer moored and had wedged across the canal, following a bit of towing by me and a long confusing phone call to the police by Padge we were back on our merry way. A few miles down the towpath we met up with a guy on a singlespeed, bob yak in tow. It turns out he too is a 24 soloist and is trying out his kit ready for his ride over to Ireland for the world singlespeed champs in a few weeks, small world!

So we had a laugh, learnt a few things for next time, we’re already trying to sort a date for the next adventure but at the moment spare nights are hard to come by. Let’s just hope it is faster coming than the first one.

I’m not entirely sure where to start with this blog entry as the past few days of memory has merged itself into some kind of random sequence of disparate events. Maybe start with the facts – 23 laps of the Newnham park course ~ 310k, 6500m climbing with a race time of 24:26:22 was enough to secure the 2011 solo win. I’ve won races before but never as an individual, to get it in a Solo24 made the feeling all the better.

This would be the first time I’d ever really had dedicated help for a 24 with Jan and Shergie making the trip down to Plymouth with me. There was a good contingent of South Wales based riders already at Newnham Park, Zoe Frogbrook – racing the Solo24 and her support crew Scott Hodgskin and Mark Deacon had saved us some trackside pit space and unbeknown to me friends Dave Buchanan and Jo Evans had planned to join us for the weekend to support, encourage and heckle. So, whist it would be a ‘Solo’ ride it clearly wasn’t going to be a ‘Solo’ effort.

Starting on the front row was a bit interesting given I was riding solo but as the gun went at 12am I kicked and went off like the start of an XC race hoping to avoid any early bottlenecks. As the race made its way out the arena on the Cliff Climb, I was sat third wheel. Worried that this would hurt too much I made a conscious point of sitting up and spinning up the climb trying to settle into a more sustainable tempo. Rob Dean set the early pace in the solo 24, passing me early on the first lap and putting around 90 seconds a lap into me over the first few hours. I wasn’t too concerned about the early pace Rob was setting, but I had Jan + Shergie keeping me informed of the gap. I’ve made the mistake of paying more attention to others than myself in the past and I wasn’t going to make that mistake today, or tomorrow! In my mind I wanted to be there or thereabouts at ~ 10hrs. Survive the day, ride the night, race the morning was the rough plan in my mind.

The weather was hot and humid and I found eating difficult from the start. The rain over the previous days had dampened the course considerably but it was drying out and holding up very well, if not a little like riding through Plasticine in places.

I remember hitting my head on a low hanging at one point. It was an instant headache and I was convinced I’d mangled my helmet. Thankfully, the impact didn’t cause me to crash and I was able to back off the effort a bit and gather myself. On my next lap round another rider hadn’t been so lucky and was receiving treatment having stacked on the same section. Thankfully that was the end of the branch as it had been removed by the next time round.

Rob was pulling away from me and had an 11 minute gap as lights went on the bike. With my Lupine Betty on the bars and a USE Joystick on the helmet, I couldn’t have a better combination of lighting. As night fell I started to close the gap, pulling back 2 – 3 minutes on consecutive laps and then at some point I must have passed Rob as I was suddenly in the lead. Sadly, it would appear he suffered a rear mech problem in the night and the carry / push back re-injured his shoulder he separated earlier in the year forcing him to pull out of the race.

By this point in the night I had nearly an hours lead over P2 so it was just a case of not doing anything silly and ‘just’ riding the next 12hours without slowing down too much. The course was tough, but fun and it held up better than many I have raced before, there were some proper climbs but the descents were rewarding and there weren’t any monotonous sections that you would be dreading.

My Giant Anthem was perfect throughout the race, light fast and comfortable at the same time. I really don’t think there is a better bike for the money. On the laps I swapped bikes to my Koga hardtail the speed which it accelerated and its incredible light weight were awesome but the harshness of an XC race bike over the rougher sections was noticeable and the breaking bumps 20hours into the race were verging on unbearable. I think I have to count myself fortunate that the weather didn’t deteriorate as it did last year, if I had been forced into more bike changes and subsequently done more laps on my XC bike my body would have taken much more of a pounding and I’m not sure if my arms would have taken that!

There was some confusion with timings as the lap time display system went offline in the early hours of Sunday morning. At one point I had just over 1:20 lead over second place, but as the dawn broke my lap times started to increase slightly and Jonathan Harris in second place was upping the tempo. Despite this the message coming back to me each lap was that I still had the same gap so I wasn’t overly concerned with my pace slowing. Coming towards the end of my 22nd lap I was still under the impression I was a lap + 10 minutes or so in front of P2 and the thoughts were crossing my mind if I needed to do any more laps. Luckily, I’d made a point of insisting to Jan on the journey to Plymouth that I would race the full 24 regardless of whether I needed to or not so as I came round to my pit there was a bottle and a couple of gells waiting for me along with plenty of encouragement.

After a fairly slick pit, I set off for my last lap, knowing it would be the final time I would ride the course and feeling that my first ever win was ever closer I upped the pace putting in a fairy respectable 58min lap. I’d not lapped that quick since before dark on Saturday! Pushing on down the Cottage Return for the last time, I felt my front tyre breaking away underneath me. Thankfully, I was able to catch it and then button off the pace a bit. Maybe now isn’t the time for ‘ride fast take risks!’ Having ridden the descent more times than anyone else that weekend I knew the line pretty well but didn’t want to bin it on my run in to the finish! As I crossed the line I was greeted by a camera man, I’ve no idea if I said anything, or if the noises I made actually made any sense but that was Game Over for me. Time to get off the bike and sit on the floor.

Looking back on the results, Jonathan had actually closed my lead down to 20minutes in the space of 5 laps, partly because he was flying but aided by the fact I had sat up and was taking it easier, based on an inaccurate time gap. That last lap could have been the difference between winning and loosing. Lesson for the future!

Throughout the race my legs felt great, not a single twinge of cramp or discomfort in any way. I’d tried a slightly different approach to my pre race prep which I can only assume worked well for me so I am happy with that. I need to work on core strength and upper body as my biggest issues came with trying to hold onto the bike in the latter stages of the race. Come Monday all was not so well, I developed a fever through the night and had stomach cramps for several days after the race. Still, it didn’t matter now. Job done!

Zoe had an awesome race, not only finishing her first ever 24 solo, but finishing in style with P2 in the ladies race. It was a shame Rob Dean’s race was ended by a mechanical, I am sure it would have made for an interesting race in the last few hours if he had been able to keep going to the end.

Closing words has to be those of thanks. Thanks to Janet for agreeing to be my “pitbitch” in the first instance and Shergie for joining in at the 11th hour. Scott, Mark, Dave and Jo were all awesome in helping me make sense of the race and keeping me motivated through the night. Thanks guys, awesome effort.

Full Results here

Race Pictures to be posted here at some point – Rider No12

Course video here

Cropton was a mixed bag for me, the week leading up to the event I was feeling very tired so I rested as much as possible and drove to work to try get myself feeling a bit more normal. It seemed to work as come Saturday morning I had a bit more of a spring in my step. I like the Cropton event and I always seem to do well there so things were looking up.

The weather way looking good and the map had a good selection of routes, I set off with the idea of an anti clockwise route leaving me with a choice of second legs round to the East.

I lined up ready for the start and realised that my back wheel was dragging really badly, I had checked my bike the night before but it seems there must have been a sticking piston in the rear brake so as soon as I used it it would bind, brilliant!

As I headed West I was constantly changing my route as I seemed to spot better ways to link up the controls, I was feeling good and for the first time this year I actually felt as though I was racing rather than just going through the motions. The tracks were dry and was happy with how thigs were going. As I headed back to the East I managed to miss a 20 point control that I should have got so that annoyed me somewhat. I kept going East and dropped down to the forest drive next to the railway, I could hear the steam train disappearing off down the valley to the North.

It was on the descent I think, that I lost a bit of air from the rear wheel, I noticed it as it began snaking under power on the tarmac climb, it wasn’t too bad so I decided to carry on and nurse it home, big mistake! The next section of single track I hit a root and lost all the remaining air out of the tire, co2 canister deployed and 30 seconds later I was off again but still with a little less air than I needed.

The next section of single track I hit a root and lost all the remaining air out of the tire, co2 canister deployed and 30 seconds later I was off again but still with a little less air than I should have had, I was now going to have to miss another 20 pointer as time was getting tight. As I was trying go power back to the finish the back end was slowly getting more and more out of shape so I stopped to put a bit more air in the rear. Cue frantic pumping action followed by a loud hiss as I managed to completely rip the valve out! Cock.

After a few minutes of colourful language I put in a new tube and pumped it up, dived back on the bike and headed back to finish with 8 seconds to spare.

Due to the technical issues like stopping to loosen the brake after every descent and the fact my good route was actually not really that good after all, I managed to end about 16th overall and more thanks to the others I also managed to take class honours to. Result! What made me happiest though was the fact that for the first time in months I actually felt fast and got into a good groove

Day 1

Due to the fact I have not been able to enter any long distance/endurance events this year I thought it would be a good idea to enter the Polaris Challenge, partly due to the fact it was being revived by OMM for the 20th anniversary and partly so I had something to aim for and try build up some sort of fitness in the mid part of the season.

It was to be held in June so the weather would be nice (so I thought) and the location was the Peak district which is a cracking part of the country with plenty of natural rocky singletrack riding.

I drove down on Friday evening and arrived at the same time as many of the other competitors, I quickly had the work tent up and over the top of the car before the drizzle managed to soak everything in sight. Sign on and a good look at the map before bed time. When I went to collect the map I was surprised to see it was a full 1- 40 000 orienteering map that was also the size of a blanket, the only good thing was it was printed on some funky ass waterproof paper so at least it wouldn’t get wet and resemble a newspaper after the dog had got hold of it!

The area covered from Buxton in the South up to Woodhead pass in the North, Glossop in the West to Heathersage in the East. That’s a big area with a few obvious routes to follow, the weekend was going to be interesting…

I settled down for the night to the sound of heavy showers on the car roof, I just hoped it would clear up for the morning.

As is always the case with these events you get the maps to view the night before complete with all the controls, the only thing is you don’t know which ones will be used on which days (Sat/Sun/both) and you don’t know the value of the controls. When you set off you ride to the ‘give out’ where you are given a list of controls used, their value and description and then you can plot your route and off you go!

After a quick count up it was obvious that a ride over Cut gate was the way to go so I headed off through Hope with its wonderfully decorated wells and up over Wooler Knoll, along the cracking bridleways although they were a bit sketchy in places due to the rain over the past few days. Then it was over to Hagg Farm and Fairholmes and along the shores of Derwent Reservoir and the hike a bike up to Cut Gate. The rain had started now and as I gained height it was only going to get worse, time to put on my waterproof and get a wriggle on. It was very wet going over the top and the wind was making it even harder, once at the north it was a Left turn and up once again over Woodhead pass in the pissing rain with a head wind, not nice when your in the granny ring with HGV’s passing you at close proximity. The trans Pennine trail that I was to follow was a relief for my tired legs and I was soon over at the far side of the map at Glossop. I got to the control round the far side of Shire Hill and then had a decision to make. Head back over Snake Pass and collect 15 points but probably get back early…OR head south over the Pennine bridleway where there were plenty of controls to pick and choose depending on how I was doing for time.

Plan A was the plan I was thinking of doing most of the way round so why I chose Plan B I do not know??
I collected 60 points but managed to get back 31 minutes late so I lost 100 of my 290 points, not only would I have had more points with Plan A but I would have had about an hour less riding in my legs for day 2. COCK! This small issue had dropped me from the mid 30s to 101st!

After 7.5 hrs riding, most of which was in the rain I was like a prune, coated in a layer of sand and cold, not a happy boy was I….at least they were saying tomorrow would be sunny and warm…Mmmmmm

Day 2
Day two and all was right with the world again, the sun was shining and blue skies greeted me when I woke.
Due to my small ‘error’ yesterday the plan today was to enjoy the day out on the bike and see if I could get myself any higher up the tables.

Seeing as I’d done the north of the map yesterday I’d already decided to go south and explore round that area for a change of scenery. Fortunately when I got to the ‘give out’ the most obvious route was the way I had already planned. So off I headed through Heathersage and over Sir William Hill, dropping down in to Eyam. I managed to spot a bridleway which saved a few minutes and things seemed ok other than the tired legs from the previous day. Next up was a control on Middleton Moor but unfortunately I missed I turning un carried on down the hill which left me with a big climb back up to the top. I then was off round by the quarry at Deep Rake, Hassop and on to the Monsal trail, good time was made but my legs were getting heavy and the full loop I had planned was going to have to be shortened. My route took me through Tideswell and Bradwell and back to Bamford. In complete contrast to Saturday, Sunday was red hot and sunny, it was great to get back and ride some trails that I’d not ridden for five years. I was annoyed about the school boy error on Saturday but I had not gone in to the event looking for any real results due to lack of training. At least I had managed to climb a few places to 83rd.
It was good to see the event being run by OMM and they did a good job but for next time there are a few things that I would change as I think they are so used to catering for runners I think they missed the point on a few things.

I rode the Dragon Ride, a 200k sportive from Pencoed, near Bridgend a little while ago. The route takes in the Blwch twice and the Righos so it’s a hilly 200k on the roads I like to head out for weekend road rides. Even with an early start, leaving Cardiff at 6am, Mark Spratt, Mel Alexander, Chris Blackmore and I had you queue for over an hour to before we were able to start due the massive numbers and the staggered start. There isn’t a huge amount to say really. Mark, Mel and I set of together and were part of the same group making good progress until the first ascent of the Blwch when Mark pulled away. Mel and I were riding together more or less until the last 70k when she pulled away on one of the smaller climbs. From that point onwards I was pretty much riding on my own. I finished in a reasonable time of 6:38 which is a ‘Gold’ standard time apparently and given the year I’ve had to date I suppose I should be happy with that. I suffered with a dehydration like feeling from the outset but seemed to be taking on masses of fluid. At one point I had to steal some of Mel’s drink as I was out and both her bottles were nearly full. Very odd!

The ride seemed very well organised overall despite the queues to start and the route is pretty good to. Unfortunately Raceahead, the timing company employed for the event, had technical issues which mean most of the riders times aren’t available. I accept mistakes will happen, but when you pay to ride the roads you can ride for free any day of the year, an accurate ride time and the ability to compare your splits to others is one of the few things your getting for your money. The excuse they seem to have provided the Dragon organisation is that the timing transponders on the number boards must have been damaged by ‘incorrect installation’ I asked the question why my intermediate splits recorded, just not the start and finish time but got no answer. Points more to the system than the chip me thinks! I’m pretty good at trail side fixes, but fixing a transponder mid ride is probably beyond me. So, pretty happy with the ride overall, it seems to be a good event but not sure if I’d pay to ride again – certainly a good training route though.

Following the quiet spell when Team Cyclesense were basically grounded due to injury or sickness we both bounce back in unison to try and pick up where we left off.

Rich has had his ‘depressing’ illness and I have been trying to get over the long term effects of the commuting accident with help from the Physio and I’m glad to report that things are once again back on track as I even managed to commute every day for a whole week!

Unfortunately I have had to shelve plans of entering N. Yorks, N East and National leagues as I had to DNS a couple of events to allow enough recovery so now it will be just the N Yorks league along with the 20th anniversary Polaris event and maybe a cheeky solo at Dusk til Dawn in October.

True to form as I set off for the event in Bransdale just North of Kirkbymoorside in the Yorkshire Moors the car decided that it would no longer let me use 1st, 3rd or 5th gears! I thought sod it and kept it rolling with the hope of getting there (I could always use the RAC to get back if needed)

I managed to get there and kitted up with just 5 minutes to spare in my jersey and shorts as it was forecast to b another nice hot day. I thought I’d be over cautious and take my gillet too, slap on some sun cream, load up with SR3 and away I went.

A quick look at the map and I was obvious that there was a route all the way round the outer edges of the map if you had the legs to do the climbing, I wasn’t sure if I did after my lack of training the past few months but there was only one way to find out, I headed off on an anti-clockwise route which would see me passing through Gillamoor north up the valley to Church Houses with a big climb up to Blakey Ridge. Then I was heading West round the classic Moors tracks of Farndale Moor and Rudland Rigg with a few more controls to the south if time allowed.

As I climbed up Harland Moor I could see the sun was hiding, as was the tops of both Blakey Ridge and Rudland Rigg in a blanket of low lying cloud! Maybe the gillet wasn’t overkill after all? The climb up to Blakey was slow and my legs feeled heavy with little power but I managed to winch my lard arse up in the granny ring, the view round the next section would be, I imagine, amazing but due to poor visability and the gale that was now blowing the only thing on my mind was to get round the other side without crashing or mechanical as stopping now was not an option and would surely be seriously dangerous ( lesson learned for future reference).

The trail was sandy and wet and I could here it getting into my brakes and drive chain, turning into a lovely grinding paste, as usual it only took a good squirt on the Scottoiler and once again the chain was running silently.

Fortunately I was soon dropping down off the hills and before long the sun was breaking through the clouds again. My spirits were lifted and time seemed to be ticking by slowly, I felt as though I was cruising but the HR monitor said otherwise. I managed to clear up all but one of the remaining controls and returned with 2.5 min to spare. Phew.

I took a stroll over to see the results and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had in fact won my class, again and also managed to get up to fourth overall, result. Maybe I wasn’t as far off the pace as I thought.
Onward and forwards…….

Well, its all gone a bit quiet on here and unfortunately, not because I’ve been too busy training and racing. Towards the end of February I started to feel tired and run down, I’d back off the training hours and feel fine. The shorter, fast races seemed to be going OK by my standards and I just put it down to fatigue, busy life, full time job etc. The National at Sherwood destroyed me, the post race mong was as bad as I’ve had from any 24hour race in the past and it just wouldn’t shift. April was a total write-off, I was struggling to stay awake during the day, coming home and rather than training, fettling, DIYing etc I’d sit down and nap. I had to pull out of the two XC races I was looking forward to the most, the Welsh XC at Coed-Y-Brenin and the BMBS at Dalby. Both sounded like ace courses and amazing events, never mind, next year!

There’s often a fine line when it comes to listening to what your body is telling you, the internal debate of ‘am I doing the sensible thing’ by resting or ‘am I just mincing’ Whilst I’d no idea what was wrong with me, it became apparent I wasn’t just mincing on a night ride with the CCW guys and girls when I literally couldn’t stay awake on the bike. I was crawling up one of the North Cardiff climbs looking at a hedge and thinking how much sense it would make to have a lie down,,, 45mins into the ride!

Bloods were taken which ruled out anaemia, diabetes and some other nasties but didn’t give any diagnosis. The doctors were genuinely less than useless and alarmingly tried to diagnose me with depression + treat me with anti-depressants. ‘You’re not listening to me! Feeling pissed off is a symptom not a cause!’ In the end, the best I could come up with was self diagnosis of post viral-fatigue. I’d not had an alarming virus at any point but that seemed to be one of the few plausible explanations. Anyhow, my main focus for the year had been the 24 Hours of Exposure, the UK + European 24 solo championships in Scotland. With 2 months of prime training lost to ‘tiredness’ and still not feeling 100% the week prior to the event, racing was only going to set me back further.

Anyhow, 12 weeks after I first started to feel ‘not right’ and things are starting to feel ‘right’ again. Fingers crossed. Dragon ride this weekend so lets see how that goes and take things from there!

In the meantime, my group of riding buddies have certainly been making up for my poor show! Mark Spratt finished a solid 3rd in the Solo 24, walking (staggering) away with the UK Solo 24 Vets jersey, the European Solo 24 Vets jersey & the best placed rookies jersey! He then went on to take the Welsh XC Champs jersey the following weekend. Matt Page overcame multiple early mechanicals to defend his UK title in the Open Cat and add the European title to his CV. His performance was solid and showed everyone what a class rider his has become. Huw Thomas was stoked with his second place + Rookie jersey in the 12 hour event, again showing the benefits of the hard training leading up to the race.

Arguably the most notable achievement over the past few months has to go to Dave Buchanan, who completed the Hobbits Tale and will have hopefully set a new Guinness World Record for the greatest distance travelled in 48 hours on a bike in the process. The Hobbits Tale saw Dave ride from Cardiff, off road, to Caernarfon, round the castle and back again. This is simply beyond my comprehension, 59 hours off road riding. I rode the ‘last’ 10hours with him and he was more coherent than normal, despite having over 600k in his legs already! Have a look at Dave’s page to get a better idea of his accomplishment and if you can, why not consider donating a few £’s via his donations page to recognise this achievement that re-defines ‘endurance’