I haven’t written a report for a while – mainly because there hasn’t been a lot to write about for my last few events. For example:
Fred Whitton – Punctured descending Kirkstone which resulted in a lonely ride!
Keswick National Trailquests – Man flu so had to miss both events.
Ruthin Merida – Broken rear derailleur so had to pull out.
Surely my luck had to change.
The next event on our race schedule was the 10 under the Ben – A fantastic event just outside Fort William where approximately 1000 riders test their endurance by seeing how many laps of a very demanding 10 mile course they can complete in 10 hours. Riders can compete as solo, pairs, trios or quads. Both Andy and I competed in it last year as solo riders, which proved to be one of the hardest events either of us had done. The heat was intense, our pacing strategy was flawed and our bodies were punished. After completing 10 laps we were all for giving up cycling. Strangely enough though, after a good nights sleep and a fry up the next morning there was talk of returning in 2008 for another crack!
Sure enough it was factored into our Trans Alp training and we entered as solo riders again. During the week leading up to the event, for some reason I suddenly decided that riding the event solo was a bad idea. Ten hours of beasting ourselves probably wouldn’t be the best thing for us at this stage and would take a long time to recover from. Perhaps riding as a pair would be better – only 5 hours of pain and it’s just like doing 6 long intervals. Andy wasn’t convinced as he thought it was a soft option (always one to take on the option with most suffering!) but I managed to talk him round and we changed our entry to the pairs category.
The day was reminiscent of 2007 – hot and still but this year even drier. I took the first lap, which involved an extra loop to split the riders up. I got a good start and was with the top 5 as we started the main circuit. Two miles later I ‘burped’ some air out of my tubeless tyre, which shortly after rolled off my rim on a corner. I couldn’t believe it – not more bad luck! I frantically stuck a tube in and tried to make up as much lost time as possible. I completed my lap in a disappointing time and handed over to Andy to start clawing back places. As the laps passed by we rode well and put in consistent laps. Other teams were tiring apart from the leaders who set a blistering pace. By about lap 9 we had moved to second place and were still going strong. However, on lap 10 misfortune passed on to Andy and he was also cursed with a blow out. After sticking a tube in, he then snapped the head off the valve when frantically pumping it up. After much faffing, a typical 52 min lap tuned into a 65 min lap and we had moved to 3rd place. We chased hard but with only 2 laps more we couldn’t reel second place back in and finished in 3rd place. Overall, a pleasing result, and some great training prior to the Trans Alp. Next event – Mountain Mayhem.
Fred Whitton – Punctured descending Kirkstone which resulted in a lonely ride!
Keswick National Trailquests – Man flu so had to miss both events.
Ruthin Merida – Broken rear derailleur so had to pull out.
Surely my luck had to change.
The next event on our race schedule was the 10 under the Ben – A fantastic event just outside Fort William where approximately 1000 riders test their endurance by seeing how many laps of a very demanding 10 mile course they can complete in 10 hours. Riders can compete as solo, pairs, trios or quads. Both Andy and I competed in it last year as solo riders, which proved to be one of the hardest events either of us had done. The heat was intense, our pacing strategy was flawed and our bodies were punished. After completing 10 laps we were all for giving up cycling. Strangely enough though, after a good nights sleep and a fry up the next morning there was talk of returning in 2008 for another crack!
Sure enough it was factored into our Trans Alp training and we entered as solo riders again. During the week leading up to the event, for some reason I suddenly decided that riding the event solo was a bad idea. Ten hours of beasting ourselves probably wouldn’t be the best thing for us at this stage and would take a long time to recover from. Perhaps riding as a pair would be better – only 5 hours of pain and it’s just like doing 6 long intervals. Andy wasn’t convinced as he thought it was a soft option (always one to take on the option with most suffering!) but I managed to talk him round and we changed our entry to the pairs category.
The day was reminiscent of 2007 – hot and still but this year even drier. I took the first lap, which involved an extra loop to split the riders up. I got a good start and was with the top 5 as we started the main circuit. Two miles later I ‘burped’ some air out of my tubeless tyre, which shortly after rolled off my rim on a corner. I couldn’t believe it – not more bad luck! I frantically stuck a tube in and tried to make up as much lost time as possible. I completed my lap in a disappointing time and handed over to Andy to start clawing back places. As the laps passed by we rode well and put in consistent laps. Other teams were tiring apart from the leaders who set a blistering pace. By about lap 9 we had moved to second place and were still going strong. However, on lap 10 misfortune passed on to Andy and he was also cursed with a blow out. After sticking a tube in, he then snapped the head off the valve when frantically pumping it up. After much faffing, a typical 52 min lap tuned into a 65 min lap and we had moved to 3rd place. We chased hard but with only 2 laps more we couldn’t reel second place back in and finished in 3rd place. Overall, a pleasing result, and some great training prior to the Trans Alp. Next event – Mountain Mayhem.
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