Tour of the Black Mountains - "Coming apart at the Seams"

The other thing I conveniently forget about being an “old git” is that I just cant recover instantaneously anymore. Kirroughtree took far more out of me than I had ever anticipated and for a good few days after, all I really wanted to do was sleep. Not that I took much notice of what my body was trying to tell me, so instead of resting-up, a Turbo session on Wednesday, mountain bike ride on Thursday and a 70 mile road ride on the Saturday, did little to help the tendonitis developing in my left knee.

The Tour of the Black Mountains is a 120 mile road Sportive starting-out from Abergavenny and does a big loop of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons via Hay on Wye, Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil. Featuring the Gospel Pass, the Fan Nedd Pass and Cwm Claisfer, its not for the faint-of-heart with about 11500 feet ascent that could be fairly described in the main as brutal. Click this for map & Garmin data

This was the last big effort before Sleepless in the Saddle and after my result at Kirroughtree, I thought that I should be able to sneak a Gold Medal time of under 7 hours or at worst 7.15 for a Silver. That meant I needed to improve on last years time by more than 1hr 10mins!

After a week of early starts and long drives the last thing I wanted to do on a Saturday morning was to be in the car at 5am… but that’s the trade-off for being able to have a night in your own bed I guess. It was the first proper day of the school holidays and even at that ungodly hour the M5 was busy with overstuffed cars, packed to the gunnels with everything including the kitchen sink and bored young faces gazing blankly out of the back windows… “are we nearly there yet?”…

Sholto (excellent Gaelic name!) was parked next to me and we got chatting as each of us faffed about with various clothing combinations, trying to decide just how warm or cold it was going to be and whether it was likely to rain, the looming blackness over my shoulder finally persuaded me to take a waterproof shell if only for a bit of added ballast.

Not Sholto(!), but one of those intriguing sites you sometimes see (at least he's out there!)...

8:30am and Sholto and I set off together, a sensible mid-pack start, swapping experiences of last year’s event. Our pace was quite similar and it was good to take the start reasonably easy, working our way steadily through packs of riders climbing gently for the 14 mile run to the bottom of The Gospel Pass where the real action starts with a 2 mile hard climb that gets steeper the further up you go. The descent to Hay-on-Wye was fast and sometimes narrow that needed a bit of care, suddenly there was a man in the middle of the road frantically waving his arms, just round the bend another rider had met a car coming the other way and it hadn’t worked-out well. There were a few others helping the guy out and as none of us has a mobile signal we made sure everyone had the right numbers and with little else that we could add, Sholto and I left a rather sorry looking chap sitting at the side of the road holding his shoulder in the way that usually spells Broken Collar Bone.

At some point on the rolling countryside to Brecon, Sholto disappeared off my back wheel, by now I was head-down chasing that Gold Medal time, that hold-up coming down from the Gospel Pass hadn’t helped.

It started getting hilly again as we skirted the Brecon Beacons, but the next big assault came at 70 miles, The Fann Nedd Pass. Whilst its relatively short at just over a mile, its an utter brute of a climb with two hairpin bends and gradient close to 20%. Even with my compact chainset, I couldn’t sit down it was full-on out-of-the-saddle all the way to the top. I remembered this one well from last year… it murdered me! No stopping at the top this time, just click-down a few gears and keep going.

At about the 90 mile point I began to realise that beating 7 hours was getting tight and it would really boil-down to how fast the descent from the final climb was and if I managed to get hook onto a group that would work together.

Having been out on my own now for the best part of 50 miles, you kind of forget that your out there with a few hundred others… it was quite a wake-up when the Rapha Condor team (and a few of the Endura Team), in a pack of about 12 cruised effortlessly past all chatting and laughing… this was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed and I managed to jump into the middle of the pack, suddenly we’re effortlessly cruising along at 24mph.

Now I know this, is what these boys do, day-in-day-out, but it was interesting to see just how comfortable they were riding at such close quarters, helmets hung on handlebars, no hands, taking off gilets, eating, chatting and all done mid-pack no issues… meanwhile I’m concentrating quite hard, didn’t want to be the one who brought down the Pro-Peloton! 

It was of course all going far too well, half an hour in the peloton, feeling great, the motorcycle outriders clearing the junctions for us, then we hit the slopes of the Cwm Claisfer, the final major climb of the day, 1300ft of ascent over 4 miles. I thought I was doing ok on the initial slopes but then the Peloton, gradually at first, started to ease away, chatting and laughing, making it look easy!

With that my hopes of a Gold medal time had vanished, but I was still on schedule for a Silver as long as I could keep my average speed up. 10 miles to go, and I misread the signs at a roundabout and headed-off the wrong way, it was a good mile before I realised. I was livid… I could just about squeak a Silver now if it was all flat or downhill. Then 4 miles from the finish, I looked up to see the “Sting-in-the-tail” another 300ft of steep winding ascent, I knew the time had gone now but was still mad enough to brutalise myself on this last hill.

The final descent was excellent, dropping virtually 1400ft at speeds hitting 48mph, finally crossing the finish line in 7hrs 27mins and good enough for 7^th (of 63) in the Veterans and 27^th (of 140) overall, not too bad a result after all I guess and big improvement from the 36th and 62nd place of last year and 43 minutes quicker.

So, I’m now on final approach to Sleepless, last Saturday didn’t do my knee injury much good at all, I’ve been looking after it this week and haven’t ridden since Saturday, plenty ice, ibuprofen and massage. I am going out tonight for a gentle ride with the Thursday night crew, and with the 3rd round of the Midlands XC on Sunday, lets hope it holds up!!!

Ten at Kirroughtree

This would be the longest race of the year so far, with 10 hours to complete as many laps as possible and, with it being the first official outing of Infinity Cycles MTB Race Team, Rich Holland and I really wanted a decent result. I’d been having a good old fret over the last couple of weeks and had convinced myself that my condition was dropping-off rather than improving and I should go out and WORK HARDER… This is, of course, precisely the wrong thing to do!

The only thing for it I decided, was to do some High Intensity sessions… these are either an hour on the Turbo trainer or a full lap of The Monkey & The Dog Trails at Cannock Chase… as hard and as fast as possible. I chose the latter, couldn’t really face an hour of sweat and pain in the garage and it turned out to be just the right choice, it was quiet and, without much “traffic” to deal with, I took just over a minute off my “PB”… and before you ask, it’s a secret. You’ll all be out trying to beat it!

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were studious carb-loading… whilst most of the country are examining the labels on their food in an effort to minimise their calorie intake, I don’t think I stopped eating for three days knowing I’d be burning something in the region of 9000 calories at the weekend.

Kirroughtree is one of the 7Stanes mountain bike centres in the Scottish Borders, a good hour due West of Dumfries, and one of the best. I’d taken Friday off work to have a leisurely start to the day, and get up there with enough time to set-up camp and go for a lap of the course.

Whilst the rest of England were basking in glorious summer sunshine, complaining about the heat… the monsoon season had arrived in Galloway. During a break in the rain I went out for a lap, and Oh Boy what a lap, 9.25 miles, 600m of ascent, 5% forest road, 70% Fast flowing hardpack singletrack with technical rock sections and 25% slippery, muddy, rooty Hell, some of it a steep slippery death!

Lizzie was away on her annual pilgrimage to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, so Rich’s partner Shonah was to be our "Pit Pixie" good practice for Sleepless. We ran through instructions the night before, how we like our drinks mixed, what food and when etc etc… no pressure Shonah!!!

All the competitors lined-up behind the Police Car that was to lead out the mass start, Rich noted “there are far too many shaved legs up here!“. 

9:30am on the dot we’re off, out to the road and up a long tarmac hill for 1^st lap only, to string-out the field. Rich and I had agreed to try and stick together for the first couple of laps, he was still there at the top of the hill, then after a section of forest road we hit the first bit of singletrack. Mission accomplished for the 1^st lap anyway, we were up at the front of the field and away from any potential hold-ups. I glanced back expecting to see Rich hot on my tail, but he’d dropped-in a bit further back and been held-up, so sticking together didn’t last long, but to be fair it is virtually impossible in XC Racing anyway.

With 10 hours of riding ahead of us, I really wanted to get into a good rhythm but keep the pace high, that's easy on the first couple of laps when you have plenty of other teams around you most of which are out for one lap before handing over to the next team mate. My tactic really was to see just how long I could hold-off the one-lap-heros, and surprisingly it was quite effective, most soloists say the hardest bit is being constantly overtaken by everyone but I still seemed to be passing plenty.

The rain didn't actually stop, it merely varied in intensity, but it wasn't cold and once you've been through a few puddles it didn't really matter. The muddy sections of track however were getting worse with every lap, one of the steeper descents became unridable and, to the disappointment of the growing collection of spectators, was eventually re-routed to take the pressure off the medics!

In races like this you really have to break the whole thing down in your mind, the sections you like, the bits you hate, the places to eat, tick them all off one by one and before you know it your back at the start looking for that poor wee soul standing in the rain waiting to hand you a fresh bottle and some food as you come past, always with a cheery smile and words of encouragement... 5 hours in and the words of encouragement were "Your 9th overall, Rich is 17th"... that stoked a dwindling fire!

There was little respite on this course, every descent was steep leaving your triceps burning, the rock sections wreck your wrists, your shoes, shorts, pockets and eyes all full of mud, there's a slippery descent that I fell-off every lap, on precisely the same bit of stripped tree root... but I was still enjoying myself, and at 7 hours I'd fought my way up to 6th overall and Rich to 9th. From this point I had worked out that I could get probably get 9 laps and as I came out of the trees at the end of the 8th lap Shonah said "That's it, its finished, that was your last"... I wasn't listening (shocker!), we still had 45 minutes to go, I could still get another lap, stuff the bottle, I probably had enough left anyway and charged off only to be greeted by Frazer at the finish with a miniature bottle of Benromach and the news that they had cut the race short by an hour because of the deteriorating conditions. Sorry Sho... maybe I'll learn to listen someday!

Can you tell which one of us had the good sense to put a front mud-guard on?

In the end Rich completed 8 laps in 9hrs 49mins, that gave him 6th in the Senior Male Solo  and 9th overall, and still looked full of life!...

As for me, well that was the shock of the day, 8 laps in 9hrs 14mins gave me my first ever podium, winning the Veteran Male Solo, and placing me 5th overall.

I might have been a wee bit excited about this...

It was the first "No Fuss" event I've been to and have to say I really enjoyed it, its yet another fabulously well organised event with a great atmosphere. Unfortunately Kirroughtree was never designed with enough drainage infrastructure to deal with so many people, I don't think anyone has quite foreseen just how popular mountain biking would become. Anyway, this little matter meant that there were no showers on site... so how do you get cleaned-up? Err a bit like this...

A final huge thank you to Shonah, for 9 hours of standing in the rain, just to keep us prima-donna racers fed and watered, never without a cheery smile and the highlight of every lap!

Photos courtesy of Shonah Dobson and 21CPhotos

Sorry there's not Garmin data this time, it's had another hicky fit and chose to reset itself! :(

CRC Marathon Round 3 - Grassington

It has been an eventful couple of weeks since we got back from Italy. It emerged that Jules had not yet sold his Lapierre Pro-Race frame and, whilst I had managed to stoically resist for a good few weeks, the temptation eventually became too great, all-of-a-sudden it became way too easy to justify. Having just shelled-out a bucket load of cash on sensible house, garden and furniture improvements, finances are a bit tight, but even this situation wasn’t good enough reason to overcome the “Good Sense” of “investing”… I had, at the very least, to go and have a look!

Of course any further resistance was futile, the second my eyes fell upon its naked carbon-fibre loveliness, I was doomed… I mean how else could I possibly make a 400 gram weight saving without spending a proper fortune!!!

A couple of nights later and My Lovely Little French Thing (she doesn’t have a name… yet!) is ready to rock, and the first ride doesn’t disappoint. The weight saving is obvious in the way it accelerates and climbs and it feels so much smoother than the Maxlight, clearly, a most sensible purchase.

A mid-day phone call from Piglet and an urgent  message to ring back… Thursday night was going to be a big-night, Joe Breeze was going to join us for our Thursday night ride-out.

Along with Gary Fisher and Tom Ritchey, Joe Breeze is considered to be one of the inventors of modern mountain biking.  He is also credited with designing and building the first proper mountain bike frames back in the mid ‘70s which he called, the Breezer Series 1.

The story of just how and why this came about is a bit unclear, but it had something to do with with a bike and the promise of a pint (if he were ever in the UK) about 10 years ago!

Joe and his son Tom, riding the first of the current spec Breezer Bikes in the UK, both gave a good account of themselves out on the trails too. Both punctured at the same spot, no worries though, when your Cycling Royalty you don’t have to worry about sorting stuff like that… even the puncture repairs became a race for glory between Piglet and SP!

What a great guy though, it was fascinating hearing about just how inventive those guys were “back in the day”, using a 1930’s factory trolley tyre,because it had an aggressive tread, and was wider than any bicycle tyre that could be bought at the time… is a stark contrast to our infinite tyre choices of today.

Note to self… don’t take your helmet off for photographs after a dusty ride!!!

Its not right having to peel yourself out of bed at 5am on a Sunday. I’m rediscovering my love of espresso at the minute, that helps keep me in trouble, the coffee grinder being one of Lizzie’s favorite early morning noises!

Sadly the lovely quiet sunny morning turned to cold and windy with a distinct threat of rain… but clearly not enough to stop me throwing by waterproof back into the car!

The Lovely Little French Thing all dressed-up for her first date... Kilnsey Main Overhang in the background... I still have nightmares about dangling upside down in a "fankle" of ropes & etriers one wet weekend eons ago, when we couldn't think of anything else to do!!!

After a bit of a warm-up I carefully selected my spot at the start, front & centre (of course) and whilst quietly wondering if I had underestimated my clothing again, memories of Italy still fresh in my mind… I noticed that the commentator was looking at me, grinning, and walking my way….

“What’s your name?”… mind goes blank… don’t think too hard JB it’s an easy question and there’s only about 600 people listening!!!! 

“…and have you been training for this event?” I babble something about 24 hour racing or something… fortunately, the only girl on the front row takes his attention away from me and he sets-off to ask her some questions for the benefit of the crowd.

Finally we’re off, and I had decided the narrow gate 100 meters or so after the start could be risky, and lead the charge to it, then half a mile down the road before turning sharp right and start the first of the big climbs of the day. Its not long before the pack starts to string out and I try and settle down into the 85km race.

The descent on the other side is fast but with difficult technical sections thrown-in that, you arrive at going way too fast, there are plenty of rocky sections too, something you don’t get much practice of around Cannock Chase. I get down it ok though and manage to ride the bit that a couple of guys in front decide to carry their bikes down.

Another long and steep climb before being thrown back down the other side and this time, I get it wrong, the front wheel didn’t quite stay on top of the rut and pitched me off into the deepest part of the ditch on my right. Felt like a long way to fall but, ok, I get up and crack-on until, that is, trying to cross a well concealed rut that, simply stopped the front wheel. Meanwhile, forward momentum is converted to perfect rotation around the front axle (!) and over the bars we go... ending-up in a heap in the softish grass. Didn’t hurt… really… but this second crash totally de-tuned me for a while.

By now the wind had really picked-up and the rain had started, a lengthy section of road where, with one of the Clee Cycles team, worked well together reeling back three separate groups in front before leaving the road and heading across the moor, right into the teeth of the weather… a properly “dreich” day as we say in Scotland. The second part of this long-course loop is up a hill that was simply unrideable and became a good 10 minute carry/push, that's fine though, I made a few more places here.

At the end of this loop we re-joined the people on the shorter courses for the last couple of climbs and descents. The last feed station at 65Km and I had no need to stop, still have about half a litre left in my bottles (yes... I know, still not drinking enough!). The final descents start to see my mojo returning a bit and i', a bit of a surprised to catch a glimpse of the campsite in the distance quite so soon.

The course turn-out to be a bit shorter at 77km and for me was 4hrs 47mins. 

To be honest I felt like it was a fairly lack-luster performance, particularly in the early-on but by the end I did feel like there were still a good few miles left in my legs, hopefully that could bode well for the 10 Hour race at Kirroughtree next weekend.

The published results are sadly completely haywire, a good number of people opted to cut it short in the rain, so its impossible to define final placings but it looks like it was likely to have been a 30-40 something of the 360 long course entrants.

Altitude data on the Garmin has gone loopy again in the rain!

Garmin Data Here

Joe Breeze Pics courtesy of Al Piggott

Action Shot by Jon Brooke www.rightplacerighttime.co.uk