There were more Bedminster Riders at this race than normal, there was Brad (the boss) Pete, Richie and myself. Now I was under strict instructions not to race too hard as I am still waiting to see what damage has been done to my wrist from a previous MTB race crash. The MRI scan was only last Thursday and it’s going to take around a week to get the results. I probably should be on a bike at all, but hey ho!
12:15 and the Fun category had been selected by the title sponsor, Saddle Skedaddle to be in the draw for a free cycling holiday courtesy of Saddle Skedaddle of course, we didn’t win, but well done to rider 813 for winning this prize. We were soon off, Pete shot off closely followed by me then Brad and bringing up the rear Richie (in order of team position). It was quite a good start and I started to chase down Pete with Brad close on my heels, then I remembered that I should be taking it easy so eased up and let brad catch me.
I rode around most of the first lap following him, until we got to a little incline where we could see Pete a little way ahead. Brad found this a very useful sight which spurred him on to try and catch him, so I let him go too. I did think that it would be funny to sit on Brads wheel for the whole race and then sprint at the end to beat him, but that would have just been mean. I continued on to complete the rest of the lap and the next, completing both in 1:01 (my timing) with Brad at 58 min and Pete around 1 min ahead of him. I’m not too sure on Richies time but will come back here and post all the official timings as soon as they are up on the web site.

I really enjoyed this course, quite possibly the best course to date. 100% rideable an excellent mix of single track, ascending and descending. Some of the single tract through the trees was fast and twisty. More like this please.

Really looking forward to the last and final round in a few weeks time, in the mean time I think that I need to stay off the bike and let the wrist recover (maybe!)

Soon time was upon us and we had to head down to the start line, Harry lined up ready for the off while Brad and I walked along the start straight so I could get a few pics and cheers Harry along. The course was good for spectators with plenty of crossing points and photo opportunities. Harry was outclassed by other riders in his category but eventually finished 8th from 9 riders. The lead rider doing both laps in under 1 hour and Harry taking around 2 hours to do both of his laps. The main thing was that he was having fun throughout his race and that he did complete both laps.

Soon it was time for Brad and I to take our posistions on the start line for the fun category. We got there early so we could make a good start at the front of the pack. We were doing the exact same route as Harry had already plus we’d already ridden a little bit of the start and the end. The race starts on a slight incline so we needed to get our gears right then quickly up through the gears to get some good speed before heading back down the other side. After the start straight there’s a sharp left and a couple of little climbs before heading into the single tracks through the woods. The course was great, the usual style course that we’ve come to expect from the Gorrick trail builders, a good mix of climbs, single track, technical sections such as the corkscrews and of course some downhills. For the first lap I tried to get as much distance between myself and Brad, who was trailing behind me. My tactick was to get the distance between us on the first lap so I could take it easy on the second lap givign my wrist a rest and not doing it any more damage. This was working until we reached the half way point on the second lap, I turned around and there he was about 100 meters behind me with another rider splitting us, he was closing fast. He also saw me at this point and started to dig deep picking the pace up as he imagined overtaking me for the first time. That wasn’t going to happen! I had to also pick the pace up, overcome the pain of riding with a broken wrist and just get on with it. I kept a keen eye on what was going on behind me, Brad soon passed the rider between us and was not about 50 meters behind, with around 1km to go. Luckily the last km was single track with a lot of corners so we lost sight of each other. All I knew was that he would be drawing ever closer, I was now into the last 500 meters, a short technical downhill, followed by a relativly steep climb, followed by the switchbacks around the start/finish line. I wasn’t quite flat out on the downhill as I was conscoius of my wrist so I freewheeled down the last part, rounded the corner for the climb and…Oh no, my chain had slipped off, No! No! No! I cried, I cranked the front mech over in the hope that the chain would be picked up by the teeth of the chainring. Luckily they did pick the chain up and I was off again, in the wrong gear but I had drive. As I reached the turn in the climb I looked back and Brad was 15 meters behind, running up the hill as fast as he could. I found the gear I wanted and pushed like crazy, ‘He’s not going to catch me’ was all I could think and with 100 meters left I took a quick glance behind me and knew I had it in the bag, I came through the the finish before him. Not sure of the time difference, but as soon as the official times are posted I add them to the bottom for here.

Team Results:
Harry: 2 Laps 02:01:31 Juvenile Male
Jason: 2 Laps 01:02:46 Fun
Brad: 2 Laps 01:02:52 Fun

GPS Route of the course.

The alarm went off at 5am as planned, all things considered I didn’t feel too tired. I woke Harry up grabbed breakfast then loaded the car with all our kit for the day and headed over to Brads’ house to transfer it all into his van and drive over to Swinley Forest. Harry’s race was due to start at 9am, which gave us about 45mins after getting to the venue. Harry got to the start line rearing to go, he’s a little out classed though as the organisers have a odd policy on categorising riders ages. Your age category is based on your age as of the 31st Dec 2012, Harry was 12 mid Dec 2011, which puts him into the 13 – 14yr old, the difference in a just 12 to a boy 14 is massive. I also made a mistake by telling him that there was only 1 lap, but it should have been 2, oops. The winning time for the 2 laps in his cat was 56:50, Harry’s 1 lap was 1:07:32, told you the difference in ability is massive…

Brad and my race was due to start at 12:15 so we had quite a long wait until we were due to start, we took this opportunity to ride a little bit of the course to get the lay of the land. We didn’t ride the whole course, although I think we should have. We did start a little late, about 10 mins. The weather was great, sun was shining and no sign of any rain, despite of this it was still cold standing around on the start line in shorts and short sleeves. I soon warmed up when we go going though, I made a good start, trying not to get held up too much by the bottle neck, I made it through in about 30th place leaving Brad somewhere behind me. I didn’t look back to see where he was, I was intent on now overtaking as many people as I could during this lap and then push for the last lap. I was making good progress, only having to dismount from the bike once, after losing traction on a steep gravely ascent. This quickly went into a narrow single track, where i got held up a little by a slower rider. I soon passed as soon as we got to a wider section then quickly into another short steep dirt ascent, this was full of people pushing their bikes, determined but to have to get off and push myself, I shouted the obligatory ‘RIDER’ and as courteous as ever space was made for me to pass. I had my next target in sight and quickly started to gain on the rider in front as we rode along some fantastic single track through the trees. He was passed quickly and I was feeling great so decided to push a little harder and see what I could do. This is where things went a little wrong for me.
I was steaming down a tricky rocky, rooted section when all my effort was undone by a flight through the air closely followed by my bike tumbling down on top of me. I was ok, although a little annoyed by the first rider that passed me, he did ask if I was OK but I didn’t answer, as I didn’t really know what had happened only that I was on the floor with a bike on me. Normally fellow riders stop, but he didn’t and just carried on riding. About another 30 seconds passed before the next rider cam along, he did stop and asked if I was OK, by this time I had checked myself out, ankles, legs, hips, arms, shoulders, head, all was OK so I answered and suggested he carry on. I then set about checking the bike over, I had to straighted the handle bars, so they were in line again. The bar ends were a bit off line too but not crucial they were in line so I left them as they were, the same can be said for the front shifter. By this time Brad had caught me back up and I began to realise that I had probably done something to my wrist. I told him to carry on though and cycled behind one handed. Luckily there was a nice long flat straight so this was easy. I actually began to catch riders back up too, and even passed one rider, which was odd considering I was riding with 1 hand. This did go back into a short single track, but I had already decided that I was out the race and was looking for the way back to the start line and St John ambulance for someone to take a look at my wrist so was taking short cuts through the course. I found the ambulance and got myself sorted, check from head to toe and had my wrist strapped up and iced. They done a good tidy job of the strapping and said that it was torn ligaments but should get it checked out at A & E if problems persist. They took me back to the start line where I started to look for Harry and then wait for Brad to finish his second lap. Brad had a great race and thoroughly enjoyed himself, eventually finishing 50th with a time of 1:21:22. Luckily Brad was the designated driver so I didn’t need to worry about the drive home with my injury.

Today I went into work as per normal, but soon changed my mind as I couldn’t push my mouse around the desk, so took myself off to A & E to get it checked out properly. I still don’t know for sure, but it does sound like I have broken something, I’ve got to go back and see a specialist………

GPSr tracks

Meat the team;

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

Round 3 was no exception, more climbing than the other 2 rounds but all ridable, the graident wasn’t leg bursting but did go on for quite a bit. Most of the ascending was on open fire road, with the odd single track. There were some fabulous flat single track through the woods, tight and twisty in places, just skimming the trees with my bar ends at times. The first lap saw a nervous approach to some of the steep downhills in places, hanging out the back of the bike just to keep from going over the bars, I also missed a great drop off into a steep downhill just near the end of the first lap. Second and 3rd lap was different though, I knew what was around the corners so attacked them with a hugh smile across my face. Maybe a little too much attacking on the 3rd lap washing out the front wheel and finding myself on the floor at one point.
I don’t race these for the results, more of the personal challenge, and although I didn’t quite manage the 4 laps as planned I still enjoyed the race. The main ‘race’ comes from tryign to compete with the other in the same team. This time between Brad, Pete & Richie I came in first.

The results can be seen Here

GPS tracks and stats of my race is here.

Round 3, 22 January ’12. I think that might be a cold one…

That was a tough race, and i think we all need to do some more long rides. We started off well and were all together for a while, Pete managed to get a small gap on me during the bottle neck que, i wasn’t able to close the gap either, but at least it wasn’t getting any bigger. I had it in my mind that i would catch him later in the race as he beigns to tire, that theory wasn’t tested though as 3/4 into the first lap he managed to snap his rear mech hanager again! I did stop for a while but only to check he was ok and had all the tools he ws going to need.  Brad and Rich were some way back by now and I didn’t really know what was going on with them. I pressed on through the second lap only to see them both stood at the side of the track taking phots of he as I went passed. It turned out that Brad had an astma attack a short distance into his second lap and that Rich had snapped his chain.

Pete did manage to get his bike fixed and continued on to complete 3 laps in 03:47:38

I also only managed 3 laps, nothing wrong with the bike or any other valid excuse other than I just wasn’t fit enough. my time for the 3 laps was 03:22:50

We also had a new wanna be racer. Harry, he’s only 11 (12 soon) but as the age is categorised at the Jan race he was eligable to do his first ever race, so he was entered into the 1hr Fun race. He was using my old bike with the saddle right down, so it is a little too large for him. Neverthe less he has been using it for a while now so used to how it handles. He did suffer a little too, he’s never ridden anything like this before, nor this kind of distance 7.4 mile lap. I did find him trying to strech out some cramp suffering a little towards the end of my 2nd lap. All things considered he did do very well, finishing last place with 1 lap in 1:57:00. He was quick to point out that out of our group he was the only one who actually completed he race, we all dropped out before our 4 hours was up.

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 Photoset

Next race is Forest of Dean in September.