Race 18: Bearded Man XC, 01/06/2012

Today was a 40 mile trek across the hills in Wales. I rode it with my team mate Gill Crane and also Graeme Berry. Again the theme seemed to be a whole load of mud.

We got an escorted start from the local police and then it was up and into a muddy chute, which lasted for ages and ages! We climbed and we descended, climbed some more and descended some more. I remembered parts of the route from last year, but this time it took way more energy due to the high volumes of mud everywhere. Some sections we were just slipping and sliding for what seemed like hours!

There was only one food stop, if I'd realised I'd of taken some sarnies as I was absolutely starving for the whole ride. The food stop didn't do much for me either, I had 3 kit Kats, a handful of Jaffa cakes and some jelly babies. I could of done with something a little more substantial!

We plodded on and I thought we must be back at any moment so I looked at the garmin and we had another 11 miles left rather than the 1 mile I thought we had!! I was not pleased because I was on my knees with hunger by this point. We reached a road and the bearded man himself was there. I asked if he had any sweets and he told us to wait a sec and ran off. A min later he came running back with a 4 finger Kit Kat each. That was very nice of him!

It was easy from there too, not much climbing and not too much mud. I learnt something from this ride, always check how many food stops there are before you set off! It was a nice day out though and it was well organised too, there were marshalls everywhere.

The Anthem 29er seemed good but I was weak, from lack of food, so it was hard to tell if it's faster than the 26" version or not. I did feel very tall all day!

Gill Crane

Race 17: Bearded Man XC time trial, 31/06/2012

The Bearded Man is a 3 day MTB race that Saddle Skedaddle sponsor. We did the event last year too but this year it's double the size so it's doing well.

It was a 4.5 hour drive to South Wales with traffic and when we (Gill Crane and I) arrived we were about last out of everyone to do the time trial. So after a very quick cup of tea we whipped the bikes out and went over to the start.

It was pretty much the same course as last year, 2 laps of a long climb then through the trees and a descent back. It was a whole lot muddier this year though, so much so that we opted to run a couple of bits.

I was on my brand new 29er Anthem. We only built it yesterday, so now it's all muddy, which is a nuisance! It seemed pretty fast. I wondered if I'd have trouble in the woods section with the length of it but it was fine. I can't wait until tomorrow to give it a proper testing!

AnthemX29

Race 16: Mountain Mayhem 24 hour XC Race, Eastnor Castle, 23-24/06/2012

Mountain Mayhem is a treat for me as we get the whole Saddle Skedaddle experience! They cater for their teams and wash our bikes after every lap and fix them when they break and everything. It's also a great opportunity to catch up with all things Skedaddle.

This year Mayhem was an absolute mudfest. The weather was actually very reasonable for the most part, however it did pour down in the night, but that was actually a good thing because it watered down the very sticky mud into something a bit more manageable.

The start of the 24 hours! Lucy was our runner and she was the 1st girl to get back!!

There were two halves to the course, the classic kenda climb up to a very muddy wooded section, then back down through the campsite and up the other side for a very hard slog of a climb up wet muddy grass all the way to the monument at the top. Then there was the off camber muddy section that seems to feature each year, and a muddy but firm descent back to the campsite. It would have been lovely to descend to the finish but it looped around the bottom of the campsite and then a gradual very muddy grassy motorway to the finishing loop. The eagle eyed of you may notice that mud featured in every section of the course. it was an absolute nightmare!

Mud

I wore my wellies to walk over for my 1st lap as the ground everywhere was covered in a wet gloopy mud mess. I was 2nd up and Lucy came around the finish loop looking strong but rather dirty. She passed me the baton and I ran through the crowd in the changeover area and jumped on my bike. I had skinny mud tyres on (finally got to use them, I've had them years!) but the gradual slope down the motorway of gloop right out of the start threw me slightly as I was slip sliding all over the place through the channels of mud! I made the corner and waded through some pretty deep wet cement like puddles to the bridge, then it was along the muddy grass to the kenda climb, which was pretty tough as the ground was sticky, but I made it over and into the trees (well not literally into the trees..).

That track started off as grass!

Now this part was ridiculous! I think a hub geared hardtail would of been ideal because my Anthem gathered mud like crazy and the wheels stopped turning altogether. I jumped off and found a handy short stick to try and poke it all out. Managed to free the wheels and decided to try running with it instead of struggling to ride. It was very effective, I passed about 15 people in the rest of that section, all struggling to pedal and falling around all over the place. I had to stop at least 6 times on the lap to use my stick (which I kept in a handy pocket on my rucksack strap). The mud was just like glue. The chain started sucking and the gears were jumping so I had to clear out the derailleur too on one of my stick poking stops.

The descent down to the campsite was great, very fast, up over the (pretty steep actually) Lezyne bridge and past Skedaddle, where I got a massive cheer each time. We were set up by an uphill particularly gloopy bit so it was quite hard work to pedal past trying to look speedy!

Skedaddle corner

The second half was just as bad, lots of climbing on grass covered in glue mud. I found myself walking up the steeper bit along with everyone else. I was very glad when I finally came down into the camp for the final grass motorway slog.

It took me 1 hour 43 mins to do the 10 miles! I think 5 mins of that must have been stick time and about 35% was running!

The start of my race!

My 2nd lap was much better. It was the sunset lap, I set off in the light and I was still in the first half of the course when it got dark. I tried not to use my lights for as long as possible because I didn't know if I had enough juice for 2 long night laps. But it got to the point where I was almost crashing into trees all the time so I had to put them on.

So it got dark and it also started to rain like crazy. It was good because I was warm from all the effort and the rain made the mud less sticky. I didn't stop to use the stick once and I rode everything apart from the steepest bit of muddy hill and some of the off camber mud section. I did use the stick on the tyre edges whilst I was climbing, my bike halved in weight each time so it was essential really :-)

I was enjoying the lap now I could cycle, I even liked slipping around on the roots because it was actually fun! The darkness made it interesting but it was misty up the 2nd side so vision was a little sketchy. I was on the rocky descent near the end when my light came loose and swivelled 180 degrees to point back in my face and blind me! I screeched to a halt and tried to fix it. The triangle bit that attaches to the mount was loose so I tightened it as much as I could without an Allen key and luckily it didn't happen again. Panic over and I finished the lap in one piece. I was absolutely freezing when I got back, wearing shorts and t-shirt, completely soaked through to the skin in the dark and mud.

 My 3rd lap was the dawn lap! At 4am I set off in the pitch black and finished in bright daylight! It would have been lovely as it even stopped raining. But there was so much soupy mud over the whole course that it was such hard work to pedal. On this lap I didn't make the top of the kenda climb because the ground was like glue and I didn't have the strength to power up there. I've never failed that climb before!

This pretty much sums it up

 The 1st half of the course was worse than the last lap, the 2nd half was probably better. I even rode the off camber mud section as it was quicker now than running it. The part past the Skedadle camp and up the hill was very hard work indeed, I wondered if I might have to get off and push but luckily it didn't come to that. The lap took me 2 hours 3 mins! I didn't have the strength. A combination of it being the middle of the night, no sleep and not enough food. My body wondered what on earth was going on and was very unhappy about the whole situation! I made the decision not to go to bed as I thought being rudely awoken 3 hours later and having to do that lap would be a whole lot worse than just staying awake.

So those were my laps! All very hard work. We did 3 laps each then there was enough time for two more if we sent our secret weapon out for the 13th lap. That is Iwona, she is a machine! She did the lap in 1 hour 43 and we had 3 mins spare to start another.

Iwona - our secret weapon

Throughout it all Skedaddle washed off our bikes and made us food. The jet wash wouldn't work on the mud so they had to scrape it all off first! We even had a gas fire in the tent to warm up near :-)

The team was Lucy Harris, Iwona Szmyd, Emila Zielinska and me. We ended up 3rd in the Open Women's team category. We were very pleased that all our efforts were rewarded and very pleased that skedaddle got on the podium after all their hard work for us!

Did I mention the mud?!

Podium!

Our team - Emila, Me, Lucy, Iwona