The whole team managed to ride together today, starting from the car park in Leigh Woods, rather than the usual Ashton Court start. We started off with a half loop of Leigh Woods, which was really busy. We couldn’t really get any speed up as there were a lot of inexperience on the tracks which just kept getting in the way, so we headed over to Ashton court for a quick blast around the trails there. Although the trails in Leigh Woods are more challenging Ashton court was actually better today as we could actually ride at our own pace. Well most of the way any way. Harry is improving with every ride which showed today. He’d not ridden Ashton Court for a while, but has ridden a few races, so when it cae to one of the steeper hills I said to the other that Harry should carry on and we’ll catch him up later as he can’t ride this hill. I was wrong, he found a comfortable gear and stuck it all the way up the hill. Brad, Pete, Richie and myself did catch him but Matt was still suffering with his bruising from an off a few weeks back.
With one loop of Ashton Court complete we decided to stop for a nice warm bacon roll, then headed back into Leigh Woods for a quick loop of ‘Yer Tiz’ and head back to the van for a quick snap shot of the team as it’s not often we all get to ride together.

GPSr tracks

Meat the team;

Far left; Harry, Richie Matt, Pete, Brad(it’s his team, Jason(me)

FoD enduro was a few weeks ago now, it was a wet muddy and I’d
like to say miserable day, but miserable it was not. It was really muddy, from
the sticky bike clogging, gear munching heavy stuff to the wet slippery in your
face type.
We only entered the smaller 2 lap race as this was only to be a warm up for the
proper enduro event in North Wales a week later.

Right from the off I felt good despite the conditions, we
did start near the back of the main group, which meant that as soon as we
reached the inevitable bottle neck it all came to a grinding halt. Matt, Pete
& Brad soon caught up and I’d lost my lead over the others for a short
time. I did increase my lead again a little until Matt caught up on one of the descents.
We soon got chatting on one of the uphill’s to let Pete catch-up, Brad was
still a little way behind, after all this wasn’t a race for us. I got tangled
up with a small crash and helped some guy climb back up a rather muddy, steep
bank that he had fallen down. All was ok and no damage done, but Pete and Matt
had already ridden off into the distance. The course was good, shame we can’t
normally ride the same course when just riding from Pedalabikeaway. It wasn’t particularly
fast, but that might have been down to the conditions. With the first lap
complete, I found Matt lurking around just past the start/finish line. He’d
quit, but he was able to tell me that Pete was only about 1 minute up the road,
so I set out in pursuit only to find him walking. He’d broken his rear mech
hanger, he was gutted as he felt that he was in with a good chance of
eventually beating me in an event. With no repair possible he started the walk
back to the start/finish while I completed my second and final lap. I finished absolutely
caked in mud from head to toe, infact I think I was picking mud out from the
back of my eyes for a week.

Next event was the truly gruelling Coed y Brenin…

TORQ in Your Sleep was yet another fabulously organised event
by the Gorrick team and title sponsor TORQ. We had decided to compete in this
race as 2 teams, 2 male pair teams, Matt and Pete as 1^st team, Brad
and me as the 2^nd team. Race start wasn’t until midday so we decided
to arrive that morning, get all the tents set-up bikes prepped before the 11am
briefing. I had just bought a new 6 man tent so dragged the rest of the family
along to support and to try out the new tent, so this took a little longer to
put up as it was the first time we had used it. We had managed to get a great
spot for viewing the race right next to the course. Bard and Eloise were
already set-up as too was Pete, Matt was sleeping in his van so didn’t really
have anything to set-up.

Brad and Matt took up the race start for the first start loop and full lap, they started
in good conditions but this did change and they did get rained on a little
through the first lap, the rain had stopped by the time they had to hand over
the baton. Matt came in bang on 1hr (according to my timing) Brad some 6 minutes
later. This just meant that I had to try a little harder than I had planned; my
intention was to catch Pete and pass him. However he knew that I would be
bearing down on him as fast as I could so he pushed hard too. The course had
started to dry out a little, this just made the mud sticky and the exposed
roots slippery, but still fast. Pete came in around 5 minutes ahead of me with
a lap time of 54 minutes. This gives us about 50 minutes rest before we were up
again, not long to refuel, re-hydrate etc. While Matt and Brad were out on
their second lap the rain really came down quite hard, they both managed to
come off their bikes on the exposed roots! They were both OK though, well so I
thought. Brad handed the baton over to me and I went on my way merrily on my
second lap, again the rain stopped for my lap but I had by now thought that it
was going to be better to just race my own race as Matt and Pete had pulled out
a good 20 minutes over Brad and me, so I took it a little easier with 8 hours
still to go before the end of the race. Just as well I did as when I came back
into the start/finish area I saw Brad standing there in normal clothes and not
fit to continue. His fall had been more painful than we first thought. Matt was
now on his 3^rd lap and about ½ a lap ahead of me and Pete was
getting himself ready for his 3^rd lap. Matt decided to stop racing
at this point, not really sure why other than his bum hurt. This meant that he
was going to hand over to Pete for Pete to start his 4^th lap; he did
the first part of the lap before stopping at the campsite to eat and re-fuel. I
had already re-filled my bottle and headed back out on my 3^rd lap
feeling good, still putting in just over the hour lap. However at the start of
my 4^th lap I decided to stop and have something to eat back at the
campsite. I did stop for quite a while, probably too long. I waited for it to
get dark and put in a night lap starting at about 8:30pm, again the lap took
just over an hour but again I decided to stop for a little rest as I cramped up
on that lap. This time I defiantly stopped for too long as I relaxed so much I
didn’t go back out. Think that we all need a lot more training before we
contemplate doing a 12hr solo, that said, I think that the stopping and
starting doesn’t really help. It might be better to just simply keep cycling. I’ll
have to try that theory out one weekend.

Torq in Your Sleep Photoset

Next race is Forest of Dean in September.

Well it’s been a few weeks now since we competed in the Bontrager Twentyfour 12 race in
Plymouth. We opted for our team to compete in the 12 hour instead of the full
24 hour, like last year. This was a good decision but did mean we only
completed a couple of laps each. My older brother also travelled down from North
Wales to compete in the 12 hour solo (mad)

I started the race with a small start loop to help disperse
the group before continuing on through the main race loop. The start loop was
ridden at a steady pace along with by brother, but as soon as the race got
started properly Alan left me. Now I can only talk about myself but I knew that
the race was a long one so I wasn’t going to push myself too hard on the first
lap. The lap wasn’t a difficult or very technical but there were a few nasty
uphill parts (I hate going up, especially on a bike that wasn’t mine, but more
of that later). My first lap took a little over 1hr 20min before handing over
to Matt for the second lap, he was quicker than me taking a little over 1hr
before handing to Pete then Brad. This meant that I had a good 3 ½ to 4 hr rest
before heading out on my second lap. I went out on a borrowed bike again. I’m
borrowing a bike because my race machine was stolen a couple of weeks
beforehand and wanted another XC race bike to do the race on. Thanks to Zero
Group, Garlands I had a bike to do the event on. I did take my all mountain
bike with me too, just in case I didn’t get on with the borrowed one. Anyway my
second lap was slower again and I was struggling to get on with the settings of
the Bionicon, although given more time on the bike I think that it could have
been a fantastic piece of kit. This second lap took around another hour 20 but
without the start loop. Things weren’t looking good. Now with another 4 hours
wait I loaded up on food and water and went wandering with the kids to take
photos and generally get my thoughts together. The others were out on their
laps and by now the sun was beginning to set. By the time I had to ride again it
was going to be pitch black. I was ready in the transition area for when Brad
finished what was going to be his second and last lap. I headed off on my third
and final lap in total darkness with only the lights on the bike for company. I
also started this last lap on my other bike, this immediately felt a lot better
than the Bionicon, then it would, I’ve had years on this bike and know exactly
how it handles and how to set it up for me. This didn’t really improve my lap
time though as I had to stop a couple of times on this lap due to cramp,
ouch… Still I was having fun. I finished this lap with about 40 mins spare
and expected one of the others to pick up the last lap. However that wasn’t to
be. We covered 9 laps in around 11 hours 20. I also think that the starting and
stopping between laps contributed toward the cramp.

I think that if I knew there was going to be no around to
take up the last lap I would have pushed on through and completed the 10^th
lap. This would have meant a final placing of 17^th overall,  instead our overall placing was 23^rd.

Our next race is all booked and again it’s a long 12hr race.
This time it’s Torq in your sleep but as Brad and I against Pete and Matt, this should be
interesting…

My 24/12 photoset

It’s 1 day before the W-U-E Triathalon. Alan (last years’s winner), Mike and I went for a spin around the bike course today. We headed out from the pool and cycled the whole route. It was a steady pace, which suited me as I wasn’t really feeling it today. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel a little more competitive, although the thought of having to run is kind of scaring me.
I’ll be off to bed earlier tonight as it’s going to be a very early start in the morning, 5:30 alarm call so I’m ready to leave the house by 6:50. This should get me to the pool for 7:30 checkin and 8:00 start. I’m aiming for a sub 2hr race.

Come back here for the race reprot and results.