The End is Nigh!

It is official. The weather has drawn in, full tights, lights and mudguards are now commonplace so I am calling an end to the season! 2011 seems to have rushed by. A year ago today I was lying in bed with a broken back, wondering when I would be able to ride a bike again. At that point I had no real expectations for the season ahead. I had a vague prognosis from the doctors and reassurances that I would not be permanently affected. Since that point I have had very few set-backs, just slow week-on-week progress. Bizarrely this season has been my most successful yet, with wins in the Southern XC (in sport) and the Ratz Rampage (in Expert) and Second places in my first race back (Sherwood BMBS), a Rampage and the 4hr solo at Bristol Oktoberfest. Despite these podiums, my standout result of the season has to be 9th at the final round of the BMBS in Plymouth. I have not had my usual endurance this season but in that race I really felt like I was getting back to my previous level. In the early part of the season I struggled to really push myself and I was finishing races and barely braking into a sweat. The interval sessions I used during the season seemed to be helping with that.

Some of the credit for my recovery has to go to my coach, Robin, from Areufit.co.uk. It has been great having someone else draw up my training schedule, making sure I stick to it and to discuss my progress with. Hopefully I can have less contact with cars and have a proper winter training season with some good base training miles and ramp up the training to start next year in good form. The aim is still to get promoted into Elite and working with Robin should hopefully make that more achievable.

For next season I have taken the decision to leave Columbia-Bikefood. I have been with the team for 2 seasons, and done everything I can to represent the team and the sponsors well. Obviously I will still support the team at races and maybe guest ride for them at a team event or two. I want to thank Jason for running the team and for bringing some great sponsors on board, Especially Bikefood, Duffbag and Hardnutz who have served me well and supported me through my injury. Also thanks to all of the riders for making the team atmosphere what it has been and good luck to everyone for next year.

Bristol Oktoberfest 4hr solo

5.30 on a Saturday is not a time I make a habit of seeing too often but this weekend was ‘Oktoberfest’ at Bristol’s Ashton Court so I was prepared to make an exception. By 8.50am I was stood in a group of about 500 racers at the bottom of a grassy field with wet feet looking up the hill trying to spot where I had left my bike, wondering if I should have just stayed in bed. No-one told me I would have to do any running in this ‘bike’ race! The mob mentality showed total disregard for the starters orders as the crowed started to inch up the hill with about a minute to go and the race started while the count down was still at 10. Fortunately the run was only short and I was about 10th into the first section of singletrack which was good as it meant I didn’t have to worry about picking my way through the field. The first section, as with the majority of the course, was like a well-groomed trail centre. Smooth berms and the odd jump or section of pump track. It was only really 1 rider wide so to pass people it really was a case of ask politely and wait to be ushered through. Even at this early stage of the race I was frustrated by being stuck behind people. We dropped out of the woods at he bottom of a gravel road climb which gave me the opportunity to pass a few slower riders and get some clear air. It also gave Paul Brenan the opportunity to fire past me and away into the distance in a cloud of dust. I didn’t chase, I thought there was no way he would be able to keep that pace up for the rest of the race and if he tried I would catch him later in the race. My priority was to settle into a comfortable pace and try to stay consistent. The next section was one of my favourite parts of the course. As you entered the woods the course reverted to smooth berms that begged you to lay of the brakes and wind full-pelt through the trees. I think I hit this section harder and faster with every lap. This lead into an uphill section of singletrack before a switchbacked fireroad descent, allowing you to clear any slow riders in your path. The toughest climb of the course then pulled you up to yet more man-made singletrack. The final section of singletrack was possibly the most enjoyable, it started with a BMX pumptrack style section and some 180 degree berms you could hit without braking followed by a couple of table-top jumps and a couple of steep rock garden sections before 3 flat out rock drops placed you at the bottom of the climb back up to the start/finish. For this section it was vital to get some clear air because less confident riders were taking the rocks very slowly and it could lead to a lot of lost time if you were unlucky. The first lap went pretty smoothly and I had a clear run at most of the sections. By half way through the second lap I had seen glimpses of what the rest of the race would be like. I was quickly catching back markers and having to pull off some pretty sketchy moves to get past them. The longer the race went on the more groups of riders I had to pass and as the speed of the lapped riders increased, so did the difficulty of getting past. It is one thing passing someone whose challenge is to get around the lap in one piece. It is much harder to get past someone who is actually racing for a position and doesn’t really want to slow to let you past. The constant catching riders, slowing and waiting for a passing place and then rapid acceleration to get past at the first opportunity was possibly the hardest challenge of this race and I was cautious not to push too hard to make up lost time. My task was made harder by riders who glanced back, saw a man in lycra and thought they didn’t need to let me past because I would be slow on the technical stuff, only to find that when they had given their all and started to coast on the flatter section I was still on their wheel and looking for somewhere to get past.

By midway through the third lap I was increasingly aware my back tyre was getting soft. I could feel it squirming in the mid-berm compressions and pump sections and nearly killed a photographer when I tried to take off on a jump he was photographing only for my tyre to slip from underneath the wheel sending me off course in his direction. I stopped at the pits at the end of the lap and topped up but my 6th lap it was starting to feel soft again. It seemed to be lasting about an hour and a half so after topping up at the end of my 6th I was hoping I could make it to the end without another stop. I did but only just.

After 3 hours I still felt pretty good and I had started to calculate how many laps I could fit in. Unlike most other endurance races you had to finish the lap within the 4 hour cut off for it to count, rather than finish the lap you are on once the time was up. I was lapping at just under 30 minutes/lap so the though of having one more lap after the one I was on was a big boost. I was boosted more when I spotted the long time leader going in the opposite direction through the trees and worked the gap out to be little over 2 minutes. I pushed on as hard as I dared but was cautious of over-doing it because I could feel the beginnings of cramp in my legs. Going onto my final lap I was told I was in second so I knew I had to push and there might be an opportunity to take the win. Unfortunately the straights were just too short and I never caught a glimpse of Paul on the final lap. I finished strongly with a sprint finish against part time team mate Alex but didn’t manage to make inroads into Paul’s lead. For my efforts I won a luminous Buff and, in accordance with th bevarian theme of the event, 2 bottles of Erdinger weissbeer and a large pretzel. Not your usual prizes but that and a huge welsh rarebit curtosy of The Drop-Off cafe certainly hit the spot!

Overall I am happy with my performance. It is the longest ride I have done since my accident (by duration, including road rides) and although I don’t think I could have lasted much longer at that speed my lap times were very consistent so I judged the effort required well. The only disappointment is that if I had not had to stop to top up my tyre I might have been able to see Paul on the last lap and managed to put in an extra effort to catch him. Still, it was a much improved performance from Dusk-til-Dawn last weekend and I have to be happy with that.

There should be some photos up on www.rightplacerighttime.co.uk at some point this week. Unfortunately my designated photgrapher is past the age of 40 so doesn't understand how to use a smartphone so here is one from someone else!

Dusk Til Dawn

After the success at Plymouth I had the unfortunate luck of being struck by a cold the following day. After a day off work and a few more days just trying to survive work while still feeling crap I was finally starting to perk up by the weekend. I went to Bergerac for 4 days for a friends wedding and found the area to be obsessed with goose/duck fat. Each meal must have been about 4000 calories and left the plane groaning under the extra weight I had put on! Not an ideal preparation for Dusk til Dawn at Thetford Forest where I was guesting for the Giant Radlett team. I managed to fit 1 high cadence training session in on Thursday before the race but that was the only bit of exercise I had been able to do in the fortnight since Newnham. I had forgotten just how flat Thetford is. It actually challenges your perceptions of how flat a place could possibly be. The only slight inclines being a couple of 3m high ramps to climb out of bomb holes. On the practice lap I struggled to keep a pace with my Team-mate for the weekend, Franck and was really not looking forward to the prospect of riding the course a further 3 or 4 times in the dark. Without wanting to offend the course designer, it was just a bit boring! There is, after all, so much you can do with a 10mile loop that gains a total of 100m!


The race starts at 8pm and while we were sitting, prepping bikes and discussing tactics and waiting for dark to fall, something wetter, and altogether less welcome also started to fall. At this point it was just drizzle but the paddock was rife with people reminiscing about last years catastrophic course conditions and my enthusiasm for getting out on course was reaching an all time low. I did the second lap so at about 8.55 I took the armband from Franck and headed out into the darkness. At this point the course was holding together pretty well and I managed to get around in a reasonable time. I got caught by one rider at the start of the lap and then didn’t see another person until I began to lap some backmarkers towards the end of the lap. It is hard to keep pushing when it seems like it is just you in the woods in the rain with just the odd flash of light in the distance from another rider on an unknown piece of track. On handing over to Franck I knew I had about 40 minutes to try to keep warm and eat something before I was out again but it was cold and wet and all I really wanted to do was go to bed! My second lap was similar but with a lot more back markers to deal with. The course was starting to show signs of wear and was starting to get a bit slippery in places. I felt slower and was frustrated to see I had lost about 4 minutes against my previous lap time. Now I had about 3 hours while we passed the batton over to Dan and Vini to do the second set of 4 laps so I hit the sack. Conditions had worsened while I was resting with persistent rain throughout so when I hit the track for my 3rd lap it was very hard to keep forward motion and not land on your arse. I was actually enjoying the challenge and making pretty good progress until, with about 1 ½ miles to go, I bonked completely. I could barely muster the strength to drag myself back to the hand-over and the flat sections of fireroad felt like up-hill treacle. I am normally good with my nutrition and energy levels but I obviously completely under-estimated the toll this race and the lack of sleep takes. I was also annoyed that I had let my team mates down and it was very close and we could maybe have sneaked another lap if I hadn’t turned into a jelly legged invalid! I was relieved to hand over to Vini and just about collapsed once I got off my bike.


At 8am the hooter went and the race was over. Franck hadn’t managed a super human lap and I didn’t have to go out again thankfully. He had managed to take enough time out of the competition to take us up into 5th which was welcome reward for the effort put in to keep pushing in the conditions. Since the event I haven’t really stopped eating and am still pretty disappointed in my performance but there is always the next race to pick myself up for.


Also well done to Andy Cockburn who won the solo race, managing 12 laps, which in those conditions was nothing short of epic!

BMBS 5 (Newnham)

With the memory of Pippingforrd at the forefront of my mind I was not completely confident before this weekend’s final round of the national series despite a couple of good weeks of training. The course at Newnham is always tough and tweets earlier in the week regarding a technical new descent were making me slightly nervous. I did a couple of practice laps on Friday and the track was more slippery than the proverbial greased weasel. I felt very out of touch with almost no off-road riding since the National Champs almost 2 months ago. The new descent everyone was talking about started from the top of the first climb and dropped down through the woods to the river taking on a few drops and lots of slippery root sections. It seems this section may have been retrospectively named ‘Gladiator’ due to the fact you are there purely for the pleasure of the baying crowd. Annoyingly I rode the whole thing the first time while following Paul Brenan (Inverse)but then got put off on the second lap by the spectators crowded around it and bottled it from then on! I dropped a bit of pressure from my tyres to get a bit more grip which helped a little but it was still very sketchy on the rest of the course – lots of slippery rocks and berms. Along with the tricky descents there were two and a half killer climbs in the course to deliver you to the top of each section and, of course, the obligatory river crossing. After my 2 laps I walked up to the ‘Gladiator’ descent hoping to see people ride it properly to build my confidence but instead all I saw was lots of people falling down the gully which put me off further.

On Saturday morning, after watching the women and juniors post some impressively quick times around the course I got my kit on and went for a warm. My legs weren’t feeling great at this point, possibly down to the nerves from the lack of racing. Off the start I stuck to my plan of getting mid pack into the first right-hand turn onto the climb. Unfortunately it all went tits-up from here. I got forced wide and into a ditch off the side of the track meaning once I was back on my bike I was the last man in the pack. I kept my head and tried to pick up a comfortable pace but was being badly held up in the first singletrack. I managed to move up a couple of places before the Gladiator but going into the very first drop James Hampshire from XCracer decided to get off his bike making the rider on his wheel cartwheel into the drop leaving me nowhere to go except over him and his bike before going over my own handlebars! Not a great start to a section I was already lacking confidence in but I managed to get back on my feet and run the next section before remounting in front of the chasing pack. I hopped on, rode the B-line to the gully (not my original plan but since I was still trying to get my feet clipped in after the crash it was my only real option) and crossed the river with a big gap to the riders in front. From here on I spent my race catching and passing other riders. On the penultimate lap I managed to catch Nial Frost (XCracer) and Simon Allard (Off Camber) and managed to put some time into them on the final lap descents but on each climb they were catching me again and I had to really fight to keep ahead of them on the final climb and into the final fast swoopy singletrack to the river. At this point I knew any mistake could cost me but I held my nerve, popped over the rooty step up before the ford smoothly and was almost home and dry. With just a couple of turns in the main arena to negotiate, I didn’t have to look over my shoulder, I could hear Simon right on my wheel. Fortunately, I nailed the final 4 turns and sprinted for the line keeping my slender 1 second lead.

I finished 9th in a very strong Expert field and not far behind some of the top riders in the category. My legs were shot and I was reduced to wheezing like an old man but I knew this was the best ride of my season. It’s just a shame I lost so much time on the first lap or I might have been able to challenge Ross Mallen for 8th!

Hope Customer Service

If you look for reviews of products or companies on the internet the most common feedback you find is always negative. People seem to hardly ever have anything good to say about anything and when they do, they don’t seem to shout about it so the result is lots of disappointed customers and no-one defending the product. For this reason I would like to congratulate Hope. It will probably come as no surprise to a lot of people as they seem to be fairly popular choice on the racing scene. I have been racing with the lightweight mono mini pro brakes for the last 3 years and have been very happy with them. They don’t have the greatest stopping power but they are strong enough to bring me and my bike to a stop pretty quickly and they have great modulation meaning I can stop myself from skidding every time I pull on the lever. I have not exactly lavished them with attention over the last 3 years and a fortnight ago I decided to give them their first bleed because the pressure was dropping in the back brake. I found the cause was a split down the side of the calliper up to the bleed nipple. I took the brake into my local shop, who sent it off to Hope. In less than a fortnight they had inspected the brake and decided to replace the calliper under warranty and send it back to me. Due to the age of the brake I didn’t expect much from them in terms of sympathy but they apparently asked no questions and were happy to replace free of charge, I event got a brand new pair of pads thrown in! Great customer service goes a long way so I though I should shout about it!

Rehab following Pippingford

In the aftermath of the last race at Pippingford, I had a really stiff neck for Monday and Tuesday and was continually finding new bruises and watching older ones change colour. They are now mostly yellow whit a hint of purple… which is nice! I have been engaging in pain therapy this week with a few good hard sessions this week to help me com to terms with the disappointment of last Sunday. 30:30 intervals on Tuesday, a cyclo-cross style session on Thursday and a very windy 125km ride with Robin from Areufit.co.uk and Franck from Giant on Saturday. On Sunday I volunteered my services to ride part of stage 5 of this years Tour de France (I think it is the one where Thor Husovd chased down a couple of French blokes to win). There was a posh Tacx turbo trainer set up outside the city hall linked to the Garmin data from the stage. Basically the resistance goes up when the road goes up. It’s a pretty trick set up but feels like your riding blindfolded because you can be happily cruising along at 50kph and suddenly you hit a small rise and the resistance kicks in, then by the time you have got in the right gear the resistance drops off again. Obviously in real life you would see the rise and change gear in preparation or stand up and power over it. I turned up just before 3 to do the final leg of the stage and try to help raise some money of cancer research. I think they raised over £400 during the day which is great, and it was good to get a solid ‘tempo’ session in too.


It feels good to feel the legs burn again and hopefully I can be in a better place, mentally and physically, for the final round of the national series at Newnham Park next weekend.

Southern XC 5 (Pippingford)

Its been over a week since my last race, and its taken this long to really deal with the disappointment. After the long summer break of about 6 weeks the first race back was the final round of the Southern series at Pippingford. My full suss bike was in the shop having a brake replaced so I decided to use the hardtail for the first time since my accident. After the practice lap, I was pretty happy, both with the course and the bike. The course was broadly the same as previous races there, only with some sections running backwards. It was comprised of lots of singletrack and lots of short sharp climbs which I always enjoy. Unfortunately, while waiting for the race to start the heavens opened and for about an hour all I could do was sit in the car and watch as the riders in the earlier race came through with thicker and thicker coatings of mud.


Finally it was time to get ready and after a quick change onto continental X-King tires for more grip I headed over to the start line. I had lost track of time and didn’t have time for a warm up, just enough time to rip my arm and leg warmers off and roll onto the grid. Once the race started I got into 3rd position for the first descent. The course had completely changed since practice and it was really hard to keep my wheels on the course rather than in a ditch or bush. Once we hit the fireroad I started to drop back. I felt a complete lack of motivation and drive and couldn’t muster any power. At this stage, the time I was losing on the climbs, I was more than making up for on the descents. They were crazily slippery but mostly rideable despite many of the guys around me preferring to run. Towards the end of the lap I was starting to find a rhythm until I caught my pedal of a log which threw me into the bushes. I slowly picked my self up, checking I was not seriously damaged, and dragged my bike out of the undergrowth. From this point on my race went downhill. I had lost a couple of minutes in this crash and was at the back of the race. The bike refused to change into the granny ring and I couldn’t get any traction on the climbs. My back was starting to ache, but not the usual ache I normally get, more of a sharp pain where the break was. I had also lost the ability to descend and was crashing continually and had lost all desire to be racing. After one particularly big crash where I went over the bars and landed on my head I decided to call it a day. This is only the second XC race I have ever abandoned, and the first was because I ran out of inner tubes at Thetford in 2006. I felt like a failure, I was disgusted with myself and didn’t want to talk to anyone, just go home and wallow. I wouldn’t even allow my self to comfort eat as I didn’t feel I deserved it.


After some reflection I have decided the performance was due to a catalogue of errors. I could blame it on the rain, on my back, on the long season break or what ever else, but the fact is I was unprepared. I didn’t have the right bike (which was my fault), I hadn’t warmed up (also my fault), and I wasn’t mentally tough enough on the day (definitely my fault). All these tings I can work on and I can make sure they don’t happen again.