On Saturday 28th April Night / Sunday Morning I was burgled and had all my bikes stolen from my house in Caridff.

If you see any of the bikes that have been stolen anywhere please contact me 07932032071 or Cardiff police have advised me to make a 999 call to report the sighting.

Basic Details + Pictures for now, I will keep updating. Greatful if people can spread the word, this is a massive loss to me and Janet, words cannot describe. The bikes were heavily locked in an alarmed, secured building.

Also stolen was my Kawasaki Ninja, ZX6R – Lime Green / Black – X144 BNE

2010 Giant Anthem X3, Large, Black – Cyclesense.co.uk, Enduranceracing.co.uk, Scottoiler, Demon Designs + Buff decals.

Currently built with Hope Pro 3 hubs – Stans Crest Rims, Schwalbe Racing Ralph / Rocket Ron, KCNC Red Seatpost + Clamp, Ritchy WRC Carbon bar and Ergon grips. Left hand XTR shifter held together with tape. Scottoiler fitted through frame holes. GrandRaid Cristalp sticker on toptube.

2010 Giant Anthem X1, Large, Red – Cyclesense.co.uk, Enduranceracing.co.uk, Scottoiler, Demon Designs + Sue Me Sitckers.
Frame No: GK 979250
Built as a second race bike and not yet ridden, looked brand new. Built to be as identical as possible to the Black Anthem.
White RockShox SID fork, Hope Pro3 Hubs on Stans Crest Rims, Schwalbe Rocket Ron / Racing Ralph.
Black anodized KCNC seatpost, XTR groupset. Red Cable oilers. Stickered as per Black anthem and fitted with same Scotoiler installation.

Note: Picture does not reflect build when stolen but shows frame / fork.

SantaCruz Heckler, Large, Anodized Black,
Frame No: A80600697
Fox F140 Fork, Chris King hubs on Mavic 819 Rims, Schwalbe – HansDampf Tyres, XT Groupset
Rockshox Reverb seatpost (not pictured)

On-One Inbred, 20″ – built with Alfine Hub Gear
White Sliding dropout Inbred frame, quite tatty. Alfine 8speed Hub gear, Retro USE seatpost – silver and 1997 CrudCatchers in bright Red. Fox F100 RLC Fork with considerable stantion wear, Old Hope Mini Brakes with Custom black levers. Scotoiler chain lube system with bespoke installation for single sprocket. Custom made black 15mm spanner made to bolt to seatstay.

Koga Carbolite
Frame No: 0808842.
Rare Carbon fiber hardtail, White Mavic SL wheels with Blue Ashima rotors. XT/XTR Groupset – 2 x 9 TA chainrings on front. XT brakes, Black KCNC seatpost – White Ergon grips, White Selle Italia SLK Saddle

Koga Signature Roadbike,
Carbon fiber custom built road bike, Ultegra 10s groupset, Mavic Aksium wheels, Name ‘Rich Holmes’ painted onto top tube and Cyclesense stickers on chainstays.

Koga Crosswinner
Red anodized brakes, Shimano RS10 wheels, Flite SLR Saddle
Scottoiler sticker on frame despite not having scotoiler system fitted. Shimano 105 / FSA groupset.

Giant Anthem X4, White, Small
Frame No: GB082153
Standard build apart from Hope XC Hubs built on Mavic 317 Rims & WTB Ladies – Deva Saddle

Custom Hardtail, Unbranded Silver 15″ Aluminium Frame,
Fox TALAS Fork, Deore Groupset, Thompson Seat post / Old Hope Mini Brakes. Worn Panneracer Trailbreaker tyres, large ladies saddle (out of sorts with bike) Race Face Stem, ‘I’m a Lady Sticker’ on toptube.

Trek 6300 MTB, Small Frame, Bar bag mount – Bike belonging to a colleague I had to service.
Down tube heavily scuffed at base of tube (due to bike rack clamp)
Chain stay chipped on top due to lots of chain slap
Topeak handlebar bag clamp
Halfords mudcatcher on down tube
Continental Mountain Kings tyres front and rear

More detilas to follow. One distinctive point about all my bike builds is my nose-down saddle position.

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…

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

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.

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’

Sherwood Pines was the venue for the opening round of the British MTB XC series this weekend. I’ve done a couple of the Welsh XC events over the past month but this would be my first national level XC race.

My lack of BC points saw me starting from the back of the grid in the Sport category. As the start whistle went I was surprised to see a channel open up in front of me and I was soon making my way through the riders that were gridded in front of me. Towards the right hand side of my peripheral vision, I could see riders tangling with each other, the next thing I knew there were bodies flying everywhere and I was looking at the guy in fronts BB shell as his bike flipped up and over the carnage on the floor. Breaking hard and swerving I somehow avoided both the initial crash and anyone running into the back of me but I was now well and truly back to the back.

The course was a good mix of open fire road sections and tight, undulating singletrack and as you would imagine for any race at Sherwood, the course was pretty flat. After the first singletrack precession I hammered the fire road trying to gain some places but to my surprise, I seemed to loose as many as I gained. Into the next singletrack the group bunched again with no way past the riders in front (or so I thought!) Every time we hit a section of fire road I seemed to pass people in the first few meters, only to loose the places nearer the end of the section as everyone seemed to have an extra speed they could engage that I just didn’t have.

By lap 3 it was clear that whilst I was stronger than the riders around me in the long, lumpy singletrack section towards the end of the lap – as soon as it hit the open straights they would just pull me back in. The only way I was going to break the pattern was if I could get in front leading into that section of singletrack and pin it to open up enough of a gap to survive until the finish.

By this point Emil Lindgren and Marco Minnaard, the leading Elite riders from the Giant Rabobank team had come through to lap me, the speed and ease of which they passed was incredible. Where I had been looking to overtake earlier in the race and thought it wasn’t possible, they came through, passed and gapped us in one move. Awesome. In many respects it was a shame that my race took place at the same time as the Elite race as I would have liked to watch these guys in action.

On lap 4 I kicked and went as hard as I could on the first fire road section but made no gains on the guys around again being one of the later wheels into the singletrack. As much as I wanted to make a move through that first section of woods and inspired by the elites, I just didn’t feel that I had enough speed difference to make a successful move so I held back and tried to compose myself for the next fire road sprint. Somehow, something was different on this section and I managed to get the lead into the singletrack, pushing on hard and opening up a gap. I kept working hard and on the only notable ‘climb’ of the lap I caught up and passed another rider racing in Loughborough Uni colours. Into the final tight slalom through the trees there was a large group of riders gaining ground on me. From a glance under my arm it was hard to tell if any of the guys I had been racing were part of the group. I made for the line and sprinted but it wasn’t enough to hold off the closest of the group who came through to take a position off me.

I’m not used to being one of the first to finish racing as my races are normally the most laps or the longest duration and that combined with a bit of race blur lead to a bit of confusion. As I carried on through the feed zone Shergie went to pass me a gel and I suddenly felt like I had to put an extra lap in. I wound back up to race pace and made my way up the loose climb and into the woods. Halfway round, I’d come to my senses enough to realise that this was an added extra so I slowly wound down, making my way back along the fire roads to be greeted with a shower of abuse from Rik.  

I finished P15, with some positives and some negatives taken from my first national. The standard of the racing was impressive and the elite riders were just that, elite. 80k on Saturday and a flyer round Cwmcarn on Friday may not be the best prep for an XC race of this standard, but I’ve got to look longer term at the 24′s and balance speed work with endurance. The good thing was my consistency, Timelaps website is down at the moment but looking at the data I gathered on my Edge 800 using Sportracks, there looks to be 6 seconds variance between my fastest and my slowest laps, with my last lap being the fastest. Got to be a good sign. Round 3 of the WXC next week and then up to Dalby for round 2 of the national after that.

Back to back races, following a week with no riding due to a cold was never going to be the best of ideas but I was keen to race the Goshawk Challenge Enduro around Wentwood both as an early season event and to hopefully find some new, local-ish riding and some cool trials.

For a first year event, ran for charity the organisation was superb. Rolling out of the event HQ on closed roads the speed of the start surprised me. Making my way through the riders towards the head of the race my legs felt heavy from the XC the day before and I had been hoping for a steady warm-up to get up to running temperature. As we hit the beginnings of the first hill, still on-road and en-route to the forestry Simo Smith BikeShed Wales jumped past and bridged the gap to the lead riders, Johnny Pugh (Clee Cycles), Matt Page (Wiggle) and Rich Lansdown (BikeShed Wales), the best I could manage was to hold the gap but there was no way I had the strength to ride across to them. A small group formed around me as we settled into a rhythm and we were briefly joined by Mark Spratt (Cardiff JIF) who caught us and rode through in one movement.

As we hit the first off road climbs of the event, I seemed to have the legs on the KCNC rider who had been setting a good pace on the road and steadily started to pull away from him and the group of 4 riders who had been with me on the road. Sprat was pulling away from me but and I could now only see him ahead when the trail opened out. I kept on pushing as hard as I could trying to close the gap but by now the lead 4 were out of sight. We traversed across an open moortop and into the first ribbon of superb single-track at race pace. The conditions were great for the event and the trials held up well. I can imagine that with some bad weather the trails would have been very different. That said, there was certainly enough in the way of good trails there to make it worth some future exploration.

The course was ace, the climbs were interesting enough not to be boring, but didn’t seem to go on for ages and the descents were fast, flowy and had with the covering of leafs / patches of deep mud in places they had plenty to keep you focused. The only real criticism was that in some places the signage was not clear, or just plain wrong. At about the 30k mark, an arrow marking the course was clearly facing the wrong way so from that point onwards I was extra cautious at each junction.

At each of the split points, marshals were handing out coloured zip ties to signify which length course the rider had completed come the finish. Whilst this was a little fiddly, it seemed at least a good way of allowing everyone to get an accurate finish time for the distance ridden.

Somewhere after the 40k mark I caught up with Rich ‘Scamp’ Lansdown, BikeShed Wales when he had taken a wrong turn and added a bonus climb into his ride. The two of us chased each other on the descents and climbs for a while before my legs started to twinge with the early signs of cramping and he opened up a minute or so gap on one of the climbs. Try as I might I couldn’t close the gap fast enough. As we left the forestry and made our way along the roads towards the event HQ I physically could not spin my legs any faster. I had given up any hope of catching him until I saw the final straight to the finish and Scamp about half way between me and the line. With one last effort I closed the gap and pulled past him, satisfying but not very tactical! Scamp jumped onto my wheel and we made like madmen for the finish line, as he went up the inside to take the line I did what any mate would do, elbow out, drift to apex, close the corner and take the line… amongst our laughter and gasping we realised that wasn’t the line and had one more stupid sprint to the next finishing line 50m into the event HQ. I just managed to pip him to the finish line but official results people allocated him P5 and me P6! Not that I can complain with that, after all he did ride a bonus hill and I stuck him in the bushes! Anyhow, its not a race is it.

It turns out that at the very front of the event local rider Simo Smith was having a blinder, pushing Johnny Pugh and finishing in a similar (but I bet more serious) sprint finish to secure a joint first place. Matt Page went on to finish 3rd and wrap up a monster weeks training by all accounts, with Mark Spratt finishing 4th. All in a great event and with all proceeds going to charity a definite success. According to the official results Sprat won the 50k and I finished 2nd as everyone else in front of us managed to loose the zip ties! Like I said, I’m a big fan of the zip tie system!

 

After a week off the bike with some sort of illness that left me knackered but with no visible signs of a cold, my motivation for round 2 of the Welsh XC series wasn’t particularly high!  Thankfully I made the effort to go to Cefn Dyrys as all the issues present at round 1 had been rectified and even the weather was better.

Warming up before the race with Mark Davis I knew all was not well with my body still, gentle efforts around the start area were giving me HR’s I’d normally see during the race, not warming up.  I got an awesome start by my standards and had 6th wheel up the first hill and on the entrance to the first section of singletrack I managed to pick up another couple of places by taking the slightly tighter line that George and I spotted on our sighting lap.  The course was great, a nice mixture of tight but flowy singletrack and faster open sections that didn’t seem to go on for too long.  Coming back past the arena about half way round the first lap a group of about 6 riders flew past and instantly gapped me.  Looking back at the exercise on my Edge 800 that would probably be the point I hit 103% of my ‘max’ HR and my body said no way!  Once I’d settled into some sort of rhythm I was able to sustain the effort but not hold the gap as I slowly saw the group disappear.

Again, from that point onwards I had a pretty lonely race, I passed Mark after a couple of laps when it turned out he had flatted.  There was only 1 section of the course that was particularly wet and muddy but thankfully that was on a descent and it really made little difference to the overall condition of the bike or the rest of the lap.  The only people I was passing were backmarkers as I came round to lap them so it was pretty much a race against myself, determined I was going to finish on the same number of laps as the race leaders.  George Rose and Phil Morris were flying and having a good race in the Masters category, having set of some time after the Senior race started they both caught me leading into the end of one of my latter laps and no sooner had they passed me they were pulling away.  Phil was ultimately the winner in that battle.

As the laps progressed I was suffering from the intensity but at the same time feeling strangely more comfortable.  A bit of a contradiction in feelings!  Its certainly in the longer events where I feel most comfortable and the primary reason for racing CX over the winter and XC now is to try and improve pace.  The short course format worked well at this venue and I was grateful for Mark Spratt popping up all over the course to shout encouragement towards the end of the race.  I managed to pass a couple more riders to put a lap into them on the final climb to the finish line but unfortunately not one of the riders from the group that spat me out early in the race.

So, round 2 was a much better course and also it was good to see that taptiming got their act together and had some results!  I finished P10 in the senior race, P2 in the Sport Category so by all accounts not a bad race, I just need to get faster to fair better in the more intense races.  George finished P2 in the Masters race, Mark Spratt was also P2 in the vets and Mel rode to a relatively unchallenged victory in the ladies race.  Not a bad Saturday for the Cyclecoachingwales.com riders!

The Memory Map Adventurer 3500 has the potential to be an incredibly powerful device, on paper it is an outstanding product and when I received mine as a total surprise on Christmas day I was chuffed to have got such a great toy to play with. Initial impressions were great, the box came full with all the extra chargers, cases, silicone covers etc that you would normally expect to buy as extras. It powers up quickly, had GPS lock in seconds and the display is a good size to navigate from. Then I took it out for a stroll around the farm…

And that’s where the problems began…  Every time I took the unit to or from my pocket, the touch screen would scroll the map away from my current location.  Try as I might I couldn’t find a way to lock the screen.  So, back to the box of bits and look in the manual… er, what manual?  So, onto the Memory Map forum.  Oh how my heart sank reading the pages of complaints people were making about this product.

I couldn’t find the screen lock as it doesn’t exist.  In fairness Memory Map have promised an uplift to their software that will correct this ‘issue’.  However, no date was forthcoming for this imminent ’upgrade’ when I questioned them.  In my opinion, products should never go to market when they have obviously undergone such little user testing.  This isn’t a bug, more a fundamental capability gap.  On the bike, any rain or dirt can’t be wiped from the screen without moving the display.  Other issues people have noted include an easily scratched screen.  Checking mine and yep, it was marked already from the plastic stylus supplied with the device.  At this point I’ve walked 5 miles round the farm.  So, onto EBay for a screen PSP screen protector to cut down to size and protect the MM from further damage. 

Sleep mode on the 3500 is like standby on a TV – totally and utterly pointless.  The device boots up seconds faster but the only other feature this provides is a way of draining your battery.  Which leads nicely into the next bug… Pressing the ’Power’ button to turn on the unit brings up a ‘click and drag’ confirmation screen.  If the user does not ’confirm’ at this screen the unit goes into ‘Sleep’ mode, or ’Drain the battery’ mode as it could also be called rather than ‘Off’.  Unfortunately I didn’t find this out by reading a accurate product review, I found it out on the trail when I went to use the MM3500 for the first time only to find the battery drained.  It would appear the combination of the silicone skin and the protective case means that its pretty easy to accidentally drain the GPS battery.

Up to this point, I could work around all of these issues.  On the plus side, the Garmin Edge 705 mount and the Adventurer 3500 bracket appeared to be interchangeable.  Already owning the 705 meant that I didn’t need to buy any new brackets.  By dimming the backlight I managed to get a 5hr road ride out of the 3500.  But, without the backlight turned on reasonably bright, it is difficult to see the map on the move.  After the unit had fully recharged (or 93% as the unit reports…) it appeared to crash and suffer some sort of screen lock issue.  The only way to rectify this was to pull the battery, having first removed the 4 screws that hold the cycle bracket adaptor in place.  With the crash cleared the next error message informed of a corrupt GPS licence file.  At that point it was game over for me and the MM3500.

The Adventurer 3500 could be great and if Memory Map get their software update out soon, some of the issues can be resolved.  In terms speed of map scrolling and ease of use it is incredible.  However, I would be concerned if I ever were to rely upon it for a Nav challenge as there are obvious stability issues associated with the design that need to be resolved.  I have used the Memory Map software since it first came out and I’m a huge fan of that product, its just a shame that the implementation of the 3500 didn’t live up to my expectations.  Interestingly MBR reviewed it just before Xmas and gave it a high score, without listing any of these issues in their report.  Makes me wonder if they are just a bunch of jurno’s that sit and re-write the product spec as it didn’t take me long to find its short fallings and lack of stability.  I’ve got a Garmin Edge 800 now which seems to be out performing the 3500 in every department.  Fingers crossed!

Well, there has already been a lot said about the opening round of the Welsh XC series and unfortunately, after its absence last season, it is a shame the ‘buzz’ isn’t all that positive.

After an incredible night of monsoon rain it was obvious any course could be very muddy, so with that in mind before setting off to the race I swapped the Racing Ralphs on my Koga hard tail for a pair of DirtyDans. Fantastic mud tyres but I’ve never been able to get them to hold pressure running them tubeless with Stans. That said – it didn’t seem that much of a risky gamble given how muddy I was anticipating.

When I arrived at Cwrt y Celyn farm there were already people being towed into the farm through the mud at the main gate, never a great sign! That said, I registered without issue and tried to get some form of warmup done. The elements were against everyone, the organisers were struggling as were the riders.

The race got underway and I got a reasonable start, in the main group and still on two wheels after the first muddy left right. That’s about as far as my reasonable start to 2011 went. On the only notable descent I clipped a rock somewhere and pinched the front tube. 4 minutes later I was wresting a frozen CO2 can off the valve core and on my way again, only this time I was last man on the course. Throughout the race I was making steady progress and catching people but I never seemed to be able to hit race pace. Vast sections of the course were by now quicker to run than to try and ride. I pushed on, running riding and sliding and just trying to enjoy the race as much as possible.

So, results… Well it would appear it wasn’t only the organisers and the racers that were suffering. Taptiming‘s system failed and alarmingly there was no form of backup which meant the results were worked out by discussion and email on the forums! I’m not the best at remembering things normally but when I’m racing my mind is pretty much blank. I’m sure on the last few laps I passed a Columbia Bikefood rider, someone in a KCNC jersey and a Probike.com kit but not knowing who they were I can’t really work out a ‘result’. It’s a shame really as looking at the ‘results’ on Welsh Cycling, if my memories are correct I might have made a decent comeback from such a poor start! Rather than trying to ‘work out’ my result from hazy memories the only certain ‘result’ I got from Round 1 is a trashed set of breakpads and a 90min workout I’d otherwise have done on the turbo… not the end of the world really. It’s disappointing but I think the calls on the forums for the organisers to be shot or hung are a bit OTT! Lets hope round 2 in Builth is better!