back at it

2412 at the weekend. Raced 12 hour pairs with guest Minx Elaine and had a great deal of fun before, during and after. Good to give the new jerseys an airing, good to go fast, good to get the first race of the year for me done and dusted at last.


Elaine going fast, pic thanks to Kelvin

Bemused by those chewing on the wrong end of the stick, though. Racing is not an excuse to indulge your attention seeking inner self with endless whitterings about new forms of pain; if we only did it to hurt ourselves we'd all be spending our weekends sticking pins in our eyes instead. Efficient, cheap and makes the logisitics of watching the Tour finale between laps much easier. Sod that.

It is, as Trio said, about people. Waiting to cheer in a friend at the end of a full-fat 24 hour solo effort...

(waiting for Lorraine)

Enduring nail-biting suspense waiting for a team mate who may or may not come in ahead of the team chasing hard behind...

(Team Morvelo catch sight of last man in Rob, coming in ahead of 69ers to take 2nd overall)

Coaxing, bolstering and (honestly?) bullying a friend who's lost enthusiasm but you know will feel better for finishing that one last lap...

(Singular Sam struggles to the finish, picture thanks to Kelvin, bullying thanks to me, sorry Sam :-)

Standing around in the rain for an hour to show pride and respect for friends who have worked so damn hard to get onto that podium step...

(Lorraine - 2nd place 24hr solo!)

No, it's not at all about the pain. It's all about the love.

jx.

A Mega Holiday!

Just back from summer hols with Hairyscary, les enfants and their daft Auntie Weezy. Highlights included The Megavalanche in Alpe D'Huez and the British Cross Country Championships at Innerliethen.

Breakfast of cold pizza at 5am without a hangover was a novelty I could have done without, but the family had scoffed the croissants and pains au raisins in the evening, forgetting that the Boulangerie wouldn't be open when I had to leave for the first uplift. Feeling slightly queasy after the pizza, consumed whilst being driven up the notorious 21 hairpins of the Alpe D'Huez road I made my way to the lift station.

Taking a 70 man telepherique full of great big downhill blokes complete with full face helmets, body armour and bikes was pretty daunting. We were marshalled by the lift operator to stand on the platform to await the lift in ranks of 10 or so, helmets on, facing each other, holding our bikes upright in front of us on their rear wheels. We waited like this, in trepidatious silence, wide eyed with anxiety, for the telepherique to settle into it's docking place. You hear stories from history of how young boys got swept up in parades of soldiers and ended up going to war with the big boys by accident. As the only female getting on this particular lift, I could imagine how that might have felt as I stood in line, dwarfed by them all. “Ahem! excuse me, I need to get off, I think there's been some mistake...”

For those of you who don't know, The Megavalanche starts at 3300 metres on Pic Blanc and descends via the Sarrennes Glacier (a black ski run) around Alpe D'Huez town and down to Allemont, at 720 metres, 37 km away. A doddle...

Most people try to go for a lighter medium travel bike; reason being that there are quite long sections that are level and pedally, quite alien to some of the downhill crew who would be entering. However, as I'm usually a jeygirl XC rider, I had chosen my biggest bike, a Santa Cruz Bullit, fitted with dual ply tyres and downhill inner tubes to protect from punctures on the sharp rocky sections. Rather jammily, I had a 'Gravity Dropper' (bought super cheap from the local buy-try-sell on geezer) this would optimise my position depending on whether I was on techy or pedally sections without having to stop and faff with my seatpost quick release. The Bullit wouldn't soak up the rough stuff as well as the 10inch travel bikes that some might be riding, but I hoped it would give me an advantage on the short sharp climbs and the almost level, undulating singletrack around the back of Alpe D'Huez town.

Speeding uncontrollably down a black ski run is somewhat disconcerting at the best of times. Take away your skis and replace them with a bike, and you have a recipe for potential disaster. Add in a mass start of nearly 60 'ladies' whooping and hollering and trying to maintain some kind of control over their metal mounts, and the result is quite bowel loosening. The men start in waves of 400 at a time (usually over 2000 of them in total) so I got off lightly really.

So gripped by the alien experience of riding a bike on steep snow and ice, I had a poor start and found myself amongst the back of the pack. Onward to terra firmish, I got into my stride on the loose but rocky stuff. Passing several women who were more unnerved by the rocky trails than the snow, I started to make up a good few places.

Close to Alpe D'Huez, a moderate climb on a landrover track was lined with spectators. Many riders push up this climb so I was cheered with many an "Allez! Allez! Go now!!" which helped me dig in deep. The road time trialling I've started doing with the local club and my cross country experience helped a lot on the flatter and uphill sections and I passed more riders who had gone for the heavier bikes for advantage on the downhills. It's difficult to pass riders once the trail gets onto singletrack and points down, so it was of more benefit to be able to power up and along.

Picking off another few riders steadily, I came to a long descending traverse across an alpine meadow where the vicious braking bumps began to tire my forearms out badly. I tried to shake out the arm pump as I came into the wooded section down into the valley and started to get into the flow of the tight, dusty and rooty switchbacks. Constantly on the brakes I went from single-finger braking, to two-finger braking, to whole-hand-grip-of-death-please-start-slowing-me-down-sometime-soon! braking. Coming up behind another, slower rider who was walking in this section I had a good close look and taste of one of the huge drifts of dust that were masquerading as berms as I had to brake on the apex of a switchback. First crash, last third of the course, nothing damaged on self or bike, I was lucky. So picked myself up, passed her and got back up to speed.

The lower part of the course emerges at a steel pedestrian bridge at the end of which I could see spectators cheering. My kids were there with my sister, yelling "go mummy!!" which brought a smile and a surge of power for the home sprint.I was delighted to find that I'd managed to make 26th place in the ladies' race overall, 8th woman in the 30+ category and 9th British rider. Angela Proctor was first lady Brit home in 8th place overall, one place better than her ride last year. The winning female rider was the incomparable Anne Caroline Chausson, 12 times Downhill World Cup winner and Olympic BMX rider.

Retuning to Blighty, as a cherry on the cake, I managed to cope with the drastic change from 7 inches to 2 and a half and from sunshine and dust to mud and roots to gain a silver medal in ladies Veteran category at the British Champs at Inners on my way home. Benefitting from being on almost home soil, and having ridden some of the course before during my first foray into downhill racing (yes, they used some downhill trail for the XC course! The cheeky people) I was amongst several Scottish riders who had an advantage on the day. Anne Murray, based in Inverness put in a storming performance on the stiff climbing and hairy descending course and took the gold in our category. Some holiday! When can I go back to work for a rest? :)

Jojo x

More fun in Morzine

Fi writes:

I have just returned from a week spent riding the Alps in preparation for the Trans Wales in August. I thought ‘perfect… 7 consecutive days of big mountain riding’. Should be spot on. Well, on the first morning when we saw the hundreds of downhillers with there eleventy-million inch travel forks and their full-everything padding I suddenly felt strangely apprehensive; what with my 22lb carbon-forked Kona Hei Hei and light-as-a-gnat’s-handbag helmet. And indeed, as we hurtled flat out down our first run (a ‘blue’ so easy…), narrowly missing two 4ft gap jumps, I was a little concerned I had bitten off more than I could chew. I didn’t read any trail guides before I went, but imagined meadows and cows and rolling rocky trails and lots of climbing.

There were cows complete with bells, and meadows, but the climbing seemed to all be done sat on your arse on a ski lift and the descending battered your body and your bike to the point we considered roasting marshmallows on our rotors. So at the end of day 1, over a beer, a plate of stinky French cheese and the Tour highlights, we scoured the map for some more ‘us’ trails. And the first 100km up and down day was devised, taking us over to the Col de Cou.

As the week proceeded our confidence grew and we tackled a lot of the descents (even a black, with an amusing ‘don’t make me’ interlude on a vertical mud slope half way down) and managed to find some serious Wales-style climbs – all big rocks, gushing streams and grunty granny-ring efforts. Perfect. More 6hr days followed and that feeling of earning the descent came back. (Mind you, our lift passes got some serious use…)

Thankfully the last day it rained so hard that we packed the bikes up into our slightly-too-small-to-take-a-bike boxes and headed for the pub to watch Wiggo rule the Tour and laugh at the new arrivals (too keen to say no) returning from the mountains with the cold look of sheer terror written on their mud spattered faces. Ha!

Having had a few days off to recover from the trip I’m back on the bike, picking up the mileage each day and creeping towards 16-18hour weeks in preparation for Trans Mudfest. I feel fit but disappointingly EVERYTHING still hurts, probably thanks to the 6 crashes I had out in the Alps. I currently can’t raise my left arm above chest height, have a broken-bone feeling in my already damaged ankle; I have skin on my calves like a scoured leather writing desk and a strange feeling that my pelvis isn’t quite where it should be.

I love our sport.

Trans Portugal Adventures – A Little Scene Setting...

[Ed. note: apologies for lack of pictures, brain too melted to figure out the links - but damn fine set of accompanying images are viewable here, courtesy of Chris, who also took on the potatoes of Portugal and won...]

The Riders

Having re-read what I’ve already written, I’ve realised I’ve not really set much of a scene. The other riders are such a big part of a race like the Trans Portugal and were really important to me each day. So I’ll create a bit of an interlude by describing some of the other riders.

As well as structuring my riding by when and what I would eat, by day 3 I had figured out that I could tell how well I was riding or feeling by when some of the other riders passed me. As one of the female riders, I was set of up to an hour ahead of the young (under 35) male riders. In between that time, male riders in different age bands would be set off with the oldest being set off closest to my start time.

I was always set off with Shanti and Manuela. I cottoned on pretty quick that Manuela was going to be super quick. Even before we started riding, she had the look of a very quick rider (maybe it was her Merida team kit and bike) and I wasn’t wrong. Every morning she’d stand beside me on the start line and tell me that I was doing really well and that she just knew I’d be able to finish this stage, then as soon as they said go, she’d be off and powering away. I tried to keep up with her but realised very quickly that I just couldn’t ride at that pace for more than an hour. Shanti, and her lovely pink Elsworth, would always slot in between Manuela and I once we started. Despite having a couple of really rough days because of the heat, Shanti always got back onto the start line every morning to try the next stage. I’d generally be able to keep Shanti and Manuela as specks in the distance for the first hour, but after that, I generally wouldn’t see them again unless Shanti was having problems with the heat and had to slow down.

By day 3, I’d realised that Leon and Jan (both of whom were returning for the 2nd or 3rd time to do the race), who were generally set off between 10 and 20 minutes after me, should catch me within 45 minutes to an hour depending on how flat the terrain was up to that point. I’d know they were approaching by the ting of Leon’s bell, so I’d reply with a ting of my bell and make sure that there was space for them to pass. Despite being around 20 years older than me, these guys were strong and fast! Leon had broken his collar bone on day 7 last year, so was determined to finish the race this year.

Then I’d be on my own for a little bit, until about an hour and 20 minutes in when it would start to get busy. Generally I’d hear the whoosh of the 2 lead riders approaching, Frans, the young Belgian who was very studious about his racing, and Joao, the young Portuguese lad who won last year. I’d always get a grin from Joao, but Frans was so “in the zone” I don’t think he even knew anyone other than he and Joao were in the race! Both of these riders amazed us all by just how quickly they were able to finish the stages each day (a sub 4 hour 100k is pretty impressive in my book, but sets a very tough target for next year when the cut offs will be based on those times). Aside from just how quick they were, we were all amazed at just how much food they both shovelled away at dinner each night…a rough estimate would probably be 3 returns to the buffet for each course of dinner and each plate was piled high with food. I knew it was the right thing to eat lots at night, but I just couldn’t come close to matching that amount. A few of us tried one evening, but failed miserably! Joao lost out on his first place because he lost his GPS one day and decided not to go back to find it. This decision cost him dearly and he was penalised by that entire day’s riding being deducted from his mileage and being awarded the longest time possible for the stage. He didn’t seem to mind though and still rode like a demon for the rest of the race. He said he’d only go back next year to win it if his mum would let him.

Frans and Joao were set off last with the youngest group of riders, so by the time they passed me, they’d already passed most of the field. So shortly after they passed me, I’d usually hear Tom Letsinger shout “Hey Jac, how are you doing today?”. Tom is another vetran of the race who rode it on a 3 speed last time but decided to go with an 8 speed this year – he’ d said before the race that if I did it singlespeed he would too, but I wasn’t brave enough. Tom also admitted after day 2 that he sometimes slowed down to talk to me as he passed so that he didn’t have to try to keep up with the fast pack of riders he was with if he feel like it that morning. Since Tom came 9th overall, I’m guessing that after he rested up with me for a few minutes, he must have kept a terrifying pace!

Next, I’d hear a shout of “Good work Jac!” (no matter how fried I was looking and feeling) from Dave the Canadian as he and a pack of very fast, mixed age group of guys flew past. Most days Erik, the soup drinking Canadian, would be amongst that pack and shout some encouragement as he flew by. Erik had really struggled with the heat on days 1 and 2 and had announced that if he lived in Europe he’d be super religious so that he could duck into all the little roadside chapels to get some shade on hot days. He also ran low on energy food so decided to take to take a water bottle of cold soup with him one day. Apparently it worked quite well.

Then things would start to quieten down again for a while. If I was lucky, I’d be able to keep some of the other female riders just in sight. Sandra, who was set off 10 minutes before me in the morning, would usually ride at a similar pace to me, but sometimes I’d manage to catch her and we’d leapfrog eachother for a few hours.

I would usually expect to see the Belgian train after about 2 and a half hours. These were the rest of Frans’ team of riders. Some of them had really struggled with the heat, despite being very strong riders. Sometimes I’d try to jump on the Belgian train and ride with them for a bit – this worked well if we were riding a stage with lots of gates because we’d all work together on the opening and closing the gates (these gates aren’t your usual gates and will get a full mention later on), but most days I couldn’t keep up with their pace, so gradually left them to it as I settled back into my pace.

Shortly after I’d hear the ting of Chris’ bell. Sometimes that was good, other times it wasn’t. If I was feeling bad, riding with a familiar person semed to bring out the worst in me and meant I’d have a good old moan to Chris about how terrible I was feeling, but if I was feeling good, we’d ride together for a while, swap energy gels for flavours we preferred and generally have a bit of a natter. Eventually though, I’d tell Chris to go on and I’d settle back into my own pace.

Some time around then I’d expect Christophe, one of the 2 French riders to catch up with me. I had stopped to help Christophe on day 2 when he ripped his tyre and he was amazed by all the gubbins I brought out of my camelback before I found my tyre boots. Anyway, despite Christophe speaking no English and my French being limited to the very basics, we managed to have a full blown conversation each day as he passed me. I didin’t know what he was saying and I don’t expect he really understood the pidgin French I spoke, but we always grinned and chattered away to each other for a few minutes.

Then I’d hear “Hey Minx Girl!” from Paul and Mack. These two seemed inseparable when they were riding and seemed to work really well together. Paul was always very concerned if I was looking rough and kept apologising for talking me into doing the race and promising me that it isn’t usually as hot. I think he knew that deep down I was secretly enjoying it despite looking like I was about to keel over

Although I was sure that 60 odd riders hadn’t already passed, there were very few riders who passed me after that. Trinidadian Ryan would always catch me at some point and comment on how hot it was. I’d usually pass the Russian riders, although they were set off after me. Because they were really struggling they would often be driven to the first check point so that they could ride a bit of the course. Evgeny admitted to me one morning that he was finding it tough, not only because of the heat and his fitness, but mostly because he couldn’t ride with his specs on, so couldn’t actually see his GPS and usually ended up making up the route as he went along which generally didn’t go well. (After 2 search parties were sent out for him on 2 consecutive days, he was asked to ride with a tracker in his pack so that he could be found if he got lost again.)

What always surprised me was that, although all of these riders were obviously quicker and stronger than I was, they all treated me as an equal. I wasn’t the numpty slow girl, I was a rider just like the rest of them. As far as they were concerned, I was one of them. I think this just emphasised the fact that although the event was pitched as a race, for many of the riders it wasn’t so much a race against eachother as a race against yourself and the elements. Yes, there were a few of the quick blokes who were racing for a podium place or a top 10 place, but the rest of us were just pushing ourselves to see what would happen each day. All of us suffered in some way because of the heat or dehydration and the distances were tough day after day, but we were all in this together, suffering together, and in some bizarre way, enjoying it together. By the end of the 8 days racing, we were all agreed that the race must be some sort of weird communal penance for something we’d all done. We were all chatting quite openly about bottom sores, throwing up at the side of the trail, sore heads because of lack of sleep and dehydration, the bites from unseen bugs. In the same breath though, you’d always hear a comment about how incredible this bit of scenery or that bit of trail was, or about the amount of pave in Portugal (Roman, medieval or modern day, there’s more pave in Portugal than Belgium, but nobody riding it on cross bikes!). We were a hobbling motley crew of funny tan lines, 1,000 yard stares, smiles or grimaces, but we were in this together and we’d make sure nobody was left on the trail in need.

Now that you know a little bit more about who I was riding with (well, for parts of each day), my next instalment on my adventure might start to get a little bit more into context.

More soon….

Jac

x

I rode my bike

Bless me Minx, for I have sinned, it has been nearly seven weeks since I last rode my bicycle. I have my list of excuses, "I've been doing a lot of running" this is partly true. I have been doing some running as I'm entered in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon, but not so much running that I couldn't find time to ride. "I've been very busy, finishing of my degree," again, true, but not so busy I couldn't find time to ride. The truth is I've just been too lazy and today, spurred on by comments on a friends blog, about not being the woman who became obese through not being able to stand the sight of yourself in cycling shorts, I donned my lycra, dusted off my road bike and went out in the sunshine.

I'd like to wax lyrical about no noticeable lack of bike fitness, how I became one with my bike and cut through the country lanes like a hot knife through butter. That, however, would be about as accurate as your average MP's expenses claim. Oh, God, I'd forgotten how much it can hurt, every turn of the cranks a cruel punishment for my slothful ways. This is the start of a summer of returning to riding fitness, I've done that first ride, I just need to continue to step away from the cakes and onto the bike!

Vikki

Trans Portugal Adventures: Days -1 to 2

My earlier blurble should have prepared you a little bit for the story that’s about to come, but it might be useful to give a bit more background to put the whole thing into some sort of context.

I’ve never done a stage race before, but from what I’d been told, this was a good one to try. There was no slumming it by having to camp or share a gym hall with a thousand other smelly, snoring riders. Instead, the TP organisers arrange 3 or 4 star hotel accommodation for the riders each night, transport all your bags so that they are in your room by the time you get to the hotel, organise evening meals, massage and mechanics. So the comfort stuff was all taken care of. I felt okay about all of that before we left. What I felt less okay about was the actual riding. I wasn’t sure what to expect of the terrain; I was pretty certain the other riders would be gnarly and scary; I wasn’t sure how my body would cope with the sun and heat (given that 20 degrees counts as a baking hot day in these parts); but most of all, I wasn’t sure whether my body, particularly my legs, would do it day after day.

On the technical race side, I knew we had to be self-supporting from the time we left the start point each morning until we got to the finish in the evening (or had to call for help from one of the checkpoints). I also knew that the cut off times were based on the fastest finishing times from last year (I think the sums go like this: fastest finishing time x 1.67 = checkpoint closing time).

I tried not to spend too much time analysing the race before hand because I knew it would just turn me into a bag of nerves (even more so than I usually am before a race), so I just focussed on riding my bike as much as possible and toughening up my bottom so that I wouldn’t get terrible saddle sores. The only real analysis I did was to try to figure out the route. Since we couldn’t get OS maps for Portugal, this meant getting 3 road maps – Portugal north, Portugal centre, Portugal south – and trying to match up some of the place names we’d been given with the tiny specs on the maps. A 3 map ride is usually a biggie, but when the 3 maps cover 1,000km, that’s bigger than the average 3 map ride!

The whole adventure sort of split itself naturally into four parts for me, so I’m going to try to put it down on “paper” that way to try to make some sense of the jumble in my head (yes, even a week after coming home, I’m still trying to sort through all that I experienced!)

Day -1

Edinburgh – Braganca

Quite a few km

Dark Chris and I had an early start to catch the red eye down to the chaos that is terminal 5 to then catch a connection on to Lisbon. That’s a bad start right there. Our flight from Edinburgh was delayed by 45 minutes, which meant it was going to be tight for us to get from T5 to T1 to catch our connection. After a sprint to catch the bus between terminals, we made it just as our fight had started boarding and settled down on the flight in the knowledge that it was very unlikely that all of our luggage would make it.

Surprise, surprise, after waiting in the baggage reclaim area of Lisbon airport for nearly an hour, we gave up and went to report out bikes missing. Luckily, a few other riders had had the same problem, so the guy at the lost luggage told us that Patricia, one of the race officials, was going to be picking up a bunch of other bikes later in the day and would be able to pick up ours which were expected to arrive on the next flight.

There really wasn’t much more we could do, so we went out to meet Patricia, who put us in a taxi and sent us off to Hotel Barcelona in central Lisbon, where all the other riders were meeting up to be collected by the bus taking us all up to Braganca. (I had to take my cardi off when I stepped out of the arrivals hall – it was baking hot, but quite pleasant after a chilly start in Edinburgh).

Most of the riders were already at the hotel by the time we arrived, including Paul West, our friend who had persuaded us to do the race. Paul introduced us to some of the riders he knew, which was great but unfortunately it set me off into panic mode….they were all so experienced! The excited chatter (which I usually try to avoid pre-race) was about how the race went last year and the targets for this year, the other races folks had done over the last few years and the races coming up after this one. There were a lot of experienced riders – Cape Epic, Trans Alp, Trans Rockies, BC Bike Race, Trans Wales, Race Across America, Race Across the West.

What was I thinking – I couldn’t possibly ride with people like this!

Luckily the 8 hour bus trip to Braganca was so hot that most of us dozed off for most of the trip and by the time we arrived in Braganca, we all just checked into the hotel and went straight to bed.

Day 0

Braganca – Braganca

0km

After a strong coffee at breakfast, Dark Chris and I ventured out to the hotel carpark where all the bikes were being unloaded to see if our bikes had turned up. Luckily they were both there and after building them back up, I was pleased to see mine looked to be unscathed. The same couldn’t quite be said for Dark Chris’ – a small crack had appeared in the seat stay, but it was decided that the seatpost would hold it all together, so nothing to worry about.

After bikes were fettled, it was off to register, get GPS’ set up and have the first race briefing. Then we had time for lunch, before another race briefing, followed by a GPS session, then we were all encouraged to go out for a test ride to the first village of the race to make sure we, our bikes and our GPS’ were working.

By this time it was 7pm, so I figured a little pootle would be quite nice in the evening. Unfortunately, it was still around 30 degreed when we venured out of the hotel, so Dark Chris and I just rode along to the first hill after the village and decided to head back (along with a lot of other riders, who were all commenting on how scarily hot it was).

After a quick shower, we all had our first dinner together before the final race briefing where we were given the vital statistics for day 1. These daily statistics proved to be crucial for me each day since they showed the places where we could get water during the day – this turned out to be far more important than I thought!



Day 1

Braganca – Freixo

139km, 3,878m climbing

Cut off 20.33

Because of the handicap system, I was set off at 08.10 in the morning along with the 2 other youngsters (yes, really, I was one of the youngest female riders). The other 2, Manuala Vilaseca and Shanti Tilling, looked pretty capable, so I decided to just let them go and I’d ride on my own. When it was 30 degrees at 08.10 in the morning, I didn’t really have much choice!

I don’t remember very much about day 1. I remember coming across Shanti at the side of the trail some time between check points 1 and 2. She was feeling pretty unwell because of the heat, so had called to be rescued. Since her husband was with her (he had passed me some time earlier and had caught up with her), I plodded on.

Since I was out on my own, I decided I needed to structure my day a little bit…I had set my HRM on when I started, so every hour, I’d have either an energy bar or a gel, every half hour in between, I’d have a sweetie. I also started focusing on how much I was drinking every hour to make sure I was having enough. Unfortunately, this proved to be a problem. By late morning, the temperature was up in the high 30’s, so I’d had to slow right down and it was taking me much longer to reach the water points than expected. So I had to start conserving water.

By mid afternoon, I hadn’t seen another rider, or person for that matter, for hours. I was feeling pretty unwell because I was so hot (I think the thoughts that were going through my head were something like “can a person really be cooked alive?”, “how will they find me if I collapse?” “I’d better just keep plodding until I get to the next checkpoint because they’ll never be able to get down this trail to find me”). I felt pretty bad and was really anxious. Eventually I stopped in a village called To so that I could fill up with water. I sat beside the water fountain and just poured the water over my feet. I just couldn’t get going again. I managed to get along to checkpoint 4, which was at 102km.

Although I was within the time cut off, I was now riding so slowly that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the end, so I decided to call it a day.

So, Jose came and picked me up in the van, along with Nuno, one of the Portugese riders who was struggling in the heat, and drove me to Freixo with the bike in the back of the van.

I arrived in Freixo to find a pretty motley crew of broken riders collapsed around the outside of the sportshall that was being used as race HQ for the evening.

So, on day 1, of the 69 riders, 8 of us didn’t manage to finish because of the heat. That meant that we were awarded the slowest time for the day, but the distance we had covered did count towards our overall placing. The stage winner, Frans Claes, managed to complete the stage in 5hours 35 minutes.

A very downcast Dark Chris met me at the finish and said that his bike was “gubbed”. That crack in the frame had got a lot worse and now went all the way around the seatstay and top tube. It wouldn’t last even the smallest of bumps, so it wasn’t safe to ride. Antonio, race director, and Jose, race mechanic, reckoned they might be able to find a new bike for him to buy, but it wouldn’t be until day 3 unfortunately.

There was just time to get to our very nice accommodation on the outskirts of town, quick wash of kit, eat dinner, check start time for tomorrow, get race briefing with crucial water info, then bed.

Day 2

Freixo – Alafaites

115km, 2,351m climbing

Cut off 18:03

It was a slightly later start for us youngsters on day 2 – we were off at 09.28.

Shanti was still looking pretty wobbly after day 1 and I was already starting to feel like I was cooking, but Manuela (who is from Brasil, by the way) set off as strong as ever. Just like day 1, I decided to let them go and do their own thing, but I managed to hang on to them until the bottom of the first climb, where chain suck meant I had to stop and fettle with my chain to get it sorted and ended up having to push the sort sharp climb. Luckliy I managed to catch sight of them again and was starting to close the gap a little bit (I even saw one of the girls who was set off in an earlier bunch than us!), but I managed to misread my GPS and rode off on a parallel track for 10 minutes and ended up at a dead end with a 10ft drop to shimmy down to get back to the right track – don’t tut too loudly, the GPS didn’t show 2 tracks, so I followed the one with the most bike tracks on it, but obviously I backed the wrong horse!

Not to be beaten, I dusted myself down, picked the thorns out of my bottom and got back on the bike. Luckily, the climb wasn’t too long before it reached a fantastic mountain road which snaked up and down for a few k (I almost wished I had a road bike!). The road then turned into a dirt track which then petered out into a bit of wide singletrack, then it started dropping down into a gorge. The track turned into pretty jiggy cobbled / rocky / exposed descent that was just like the stuff I love in Spain, so I giggled all the way down – passing the race photographer along the way as he shouted “Be careful. Very Dangerous”. To which I think I replied “Can we have more of this please?”

I managed to make some pretty good time down that section (I later found out that I was one of only a few riders who rode it) and managed to catch sight of some of the other girls again. A bit of a push back out the other side of the gorge spat us out onto another mountain road which wound its way down to the Douro river (the natural border between Spain and Portugal).

From the river, we then had a 27km climb through olive groves which then turned into scrub land and then into desert. I was passed by the race leaders and the quick guys part way up this climb, but then the heat started to take it’s toll again. By the time I reached the desert, I was pretty much out of water. I managed to spill half of my reserve water in my panic, so I was running pretty much on empty. Again the temperatures were up in the high 30’s and my body was starting to bake. Just as the climb started to level out, we crossed a stream, so I laid my bike down on the other side and had a wee bit of a paddle to try to keep cool. Luckily, Sidi’s retain water quite well, so I managed to keep my feet cool for a bit.

Erik Bakke, one of the Canadian riders, caught up with me at this point and he was in a pretty bad way. Erik is a strong rider, but he was stopping and lying down at the side of the trail every couple of hundred yards. I managed to keep going until we got to a road and had to shoot off track to find a petrol station to get some water. The nice lady in the petrol station looked pretty concerned when I asked for 3 big bottles of water, but wished me luck when I headed off again. I caught back up with Erik when I got back on the trail and rode with him for a bit, but he decided to stop in the village along with 3 or 4 other riders who were hiding in the shade.

The official water point was a fountain in a village park, so when I reached there, there were more riders hiding in the shade or pouring cold water over their head. I stopped and did the same for a few minutes because I knew there was another big climb coming up.

A big push up to the hill top village of Castelo Rodrigo got me to checkpoint 2 and another welcome fountain, before heading back down the other side of the hill onto the plains below.

This is when the riding changed. I was able to make pretty good time on the plains, and felt I was going okay. I came across lots of riders lying by the side of the trail looking broken. Offers of help and food were generally met with tearful smiles and assurances that they’d be okay and they’d just make it to the next checkpoint.

I was surprised to find that I made it to the next checkpoint in plenty of time (even after stopping to help one of the French riders who’d managed to rip his tyre….emptying my entire camelback on the trail brought giggles from all the male riders who’d stopped to help, but none of them had jelly babies and tyre boots!).

The next section of plain was very, very, very hot with very little shade, so again I started to slow down. I had managed to get to around 90k with about an hour to go and tried desperately to pick up my pace so that I would make it. But then, another incident of chain suck saw my chain get completely tangled in my chain rings, so I had to pull over, break my chain, unstuck it and fix it again. Although this didn’t take a huge amount of time, I felt like it ate up so much time. Just after I got going again, all that water I’d been drinking was suddenly too much and I had to find some bushes (I later found out that when women do Iron Man races, they just wee on the go, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it). This all cost me too much time and a tiny spec started to appear in the distance and slowly catch up…the sweeper. We rode together to the final checkpoint at 102k, and I then jumped in the van with Jose again whilst Rui the sweeper went off in search of Evgeny, the missing Russian rider whom I’d passed at checkpoint 3, but hadn’t been seen since.

So, although day 2 was much more optimistic, I still didn’t manage to finish and felt pretty down by the time I got back to the hotel at the end of the day. Luckily, Jose the mechanic, took my bike to try to sort out the chain suck and Cassie, one of the masseuses, gave my legs a good pummelling, so I went to bed feeling slightly more optimistic about what day 3 had in store. Oh, and Dark Chris’ new bike turned up, so he was a bit cheerier too.

I was also reassured to find that 20 other riders hadn’t been able to complete the day’s stage either – mostly because of the heat, but again the distance I had covered counted towards my overall position. Oh, and I still wasn’t DFL!

Jac.

To be continued...

High noon.

Tour Divide starts tomorrow. Can't help but feel a little like I want to be there; it does get under your skin.

Time moves on.

Pedal!!!!!



http://tourdivide.org/
http://greatdividerace.com/

j.

Tee Pee Day Three

Well, our intrepid adventurers should by now have completed day three of their Trans Portugal experience. Occasional text updates from Jac reveal that they had a tough time of it on days one and two. Chris's frame broke on day one but thankfully managed to source a new steed so is back in the running. Jac struggled with heatstroke on day one and like many other riders was forced to abandon the stage after 110km but, showing the mettle we expect, she still lined up for more on day two. How does climbing cobbles in temperatures of up to 40 degrees, wrong turns that lead to a "shimmy down a cliff" and a course described as "undulating" (uh-oh...) sound to you? Yes, you can stop moaning that the office doesn't have air conditioning now. Take a leaf out of the Supertravissia book and "endureça a foda acima"... or TTFU, to use the more common racer parlance. Well done Jac, keep it up. You are doing the jersey proud :-)

Updates available on Sleepmonsters for the rest of the week. I'm off for a needed holiday...

j.

Tee Pee

Some of you will already know that Dark Chris and I have decided to ride the Trans Portugal this summer. After months of preparation, “training” (in true Jac and Chris style of just going out for rides rather than any of the fancy training stuff Andy talks about) and, of course, stressing, the last few weeks seem to have flown by and tomorrow morning we head off to Portugal.

We fly out to Lisbon early tomorrow morning and then join up with the rest of the riders to be transferred by coach to Braganca, the start point for the race.

For those who don’t know what the race is all about, it’s a solo, 8 day stage race which starts in Braganca in the north of Portugal and finishes, 1,000km later, in Sagres on the Algarve (yes, where the beer is). The race is a bit different to other stage races in that there are no course markings at all and we don’t know the exact route in advance. Instead, the route is downloaded onto GPS’s each evening and we follow our GPS each day. Throughout the day, we’re unsupported, so the GPS has water fountains and café’s marked on it so that we can refuel throughout the day, but we have to be sure to leave and return to the route at the same point (kind of like most other unsupported stage races).

To get to Sagres, we’ll be riding parallel to the Spanish border until day 7 when we hang a right and head towards the coast and then day 8 sees us ride down the coast to Cape Saint Vincent and round the corner to Sagres, finishing up on the beach. Our average day will be 125k with 2,500m of climbing (with one whopper of 160k and one “easy” day of 95k). So, it’s fair to say, it’s quite a big bike ride. On the plus side, the race organisers have organised nice hotel accommodation each night and our luggage will magically be transported into our hotel rooms each night.

I’ve had lots of great advice and tips from other more experienced endurance riders (Jenn Hopkins, Andy Wardman, Dan Darwood, Dom Perry, Stevie Lockhart, Jacqui Phelan and, of course, Andy Cathcart) on training, nutrition and mental preparation. So there’s not much more I can do now. So, on Sunday morning I’ll set off with a little ginger angel placed firmly on my shoulder to shout at me and tell me to keep riding whenever my legs and head start telling me to stop (and probably smiling and nodding knowingly whenever I ride the nice techy sections). I’m sure he’ll also remind me that it’s not really a race and to be sensible – of course the bully bangles will be there too to give me a kick in the pants whenever I get too girly!

So, now the bags and sun cream are packed, bikes all checked (and re-fixed after I managed to mangle my brand new chain and chainrings on Tuesday night!). There’s not really much more to do now except settle into a long journey tomorrow, avoiding getting too psyched out by the nervous chatter of other riders, then just hope that my legs remember what to do when I roll up to the start line at 08.10 on Sunday morning.

Jac (the visiting Minx)
x

Back to Basics

It's very strange not riding my bike.
I haven't ridden for various reasons for seven weeks now.
Sometimes I miss it but then other times it feels like it was only yesterday when I last rode.

In that time I've moved house, taken up car-boot selling and received physiotherapy on my ankle.

The house is more demanding that I ever would have thought. It's taken us 677 days to renovate to a what could be considered 'liveable' state. (By liveable I mean we have hot and cold running water and a bed and sofa).
I know the delays were our own fault, it seemed that for every day we spent working on the place there were another 5 we spent messing around with bikes!

Car boot selling has for the time being replaced my Sunday racing (not too bad timing actually - more about that in a min).
As long as the 5am start doesn't offend you (well, no more than the smell of some of the punters) and you have enough crap to get rid of, there's some good money to be made, which lets face it is most welcome right now!

As for the physio, she advised me not to race downhill for a while. Probably for the best as I don't physically have enough strength in my ankle to stand on one leg but frustrating all the same, especially with the National series now in full swing and Championship races coming up soon.

So anyway, the races have been cancelled and I'm doing my strengthening exercises and although the walls of my new house are begging to be painted, I'm going riding this weekend.

Thanks for reading.
SJ. x

Weekends are for....

Weekends are for getting out on the bike with friends. Life is good.

V.

the blame game.

I crashed my bike a couple of weeks ago. It was a big, fast, rock/sky/rock/sky/sky/rock/sky tumble-drier of a crash and as well hitting every bit of me from my liitle toe to the back of my head on the way down, I pretzled my front wheel so badly I had to jump up and down on it so that it would turn in the fork (scuffing the paint off the brace as it went). So I sat out the ensuing race to scrub grazes and offer encouraging hecklement and then we went to the pub as nothing was hurting that much (and certainly not enough to keep me from the Pippin). Needless to say, once the adrenaline and then the beer had worn off, it did hurt, quite a lot actually, and I now have a few more scars, strong painkillers, an irritating cast and a nice bit of metalwork holding my left scaphoid together whilst it slowly, slowly heals.

C'est la vie.

This is what we do, we ride bikes, and sometimes we get it wrong, and ninety-nine percent of the time we walk away from the getting it wrong with only a few bruises whilst the other one percent bites a little harder.

As I said, c'est la vie.

But people seem to want to know why I crashed. What was at fault. And really, there's nothing to blame. A multitude of things might have contributed to it happening. I was tired from the Saturday's road ride and just a little bit hungover after a good night at the pub with friends. I was on a trail that had switched from damp and velcrogrippy to dusty, ballbearingsonateatray dry in the 48 hours since I'd last been there. I'd hopped straight onto the Anthem after a month of riding much longer forks and slacker angles without so much as a by your leave, and fitted nice new tyres the night before too as well as wearing an untested 'lucky' jersey. I'd gone out for a practise lap late because I'd been left hanging around whilst the marshall briefing went on, and on (and on and on). I'd read an unwelcome text just before heading up the hill whist I was waiting, and drank all of the very strong coffee in the flask, too. And then I'd been held up by a few slower riders, so I was in a hurry, worried that I was going to miss my start. And - probably - I was looking at the view, instead of the trail, because how often do you get to look at a big fat swathe of the Pennines bathed in April sunshine with a heat haze shimmering over the top?

Quite.

But none of those things are reasons for crashing. I've been doing this for long enough to know that they'd all have been negated by a little bit of concentration applied in the correct place. Looking for something to pin the blame on, when you've nobody to blame but yourself, doesn't solve anything. Rant about tyre choice and fork pressure and trail surface all you like but the buck still stops with you. Because you're the one at the controls.



And sometimes, for no reason at all, bad things do happen.

j.

Tour of the 'gorms

The washing machine is groaning away under the weight of four days dirty riding kit as I am just back from riding a tour of the Cairngorms with 5 friends. Expertly led and fed by Phil of Scottish Mountain Bike Guides. This is easily the best riding I have ever done, proper mountains to make you feel like a tiny rider in a big country. Simply stunning, with breath-taking views round every corner. With 120 miles in four days my legs have been nicely worked and scratched at by the heather, my nerves tested by singletrack with steep drop offs to lochs below, my feet dipped in icy rivers (some ridden through, some waded) and my face blasted by wind, rain and sun. 

I don't think words can do justice to the adventure, I'm not sure photos do either but there are some more here and here.

V.

all in the numbers

easter sunday

the plan: to route test July's happy hundred.

the ride: lovely. wall to wall sunshine, lambs and daffodils. first swifts of summer. rollercoaster road. bolton abbey easter bunny. dougie lampkin's dad. cadbury's creme eggs. peckett well (aka the only smooth road in west yorkshire) both ways. fishnchips. sun tan.

the numbers: 88 miles of riding. 11,364 feet of ascent.

hmm. some revision may be in order... :-$

j.

0.4 seconds

That's not even the blink of an eye but it's what I lost my podium place by at the weekend! (Actually it was the weekend before but I've been a bit slack with posting...)

The thing is, despite the time, I'm five races into the season and it's still all about the same things; Good friends, good riding and good times, and of course, good weather helps too!

Enjoy the long weekend!

SJ. x

about turn

Last blog: 28th December
Last flickr post: 3rd January
Last day off: not entirely sure...

Busy busy.

Racing for fun this year whilst work and health take precedence. Lacking the usual markers of training months, rest weeks, M25 days and two-hour tests that always seemed too brief to tell any honest truths. Not missing them, though. 'Just riding' reveals that I've somehow kept enough base to climb as fast as I want to despite a winter of laziness, and that the drive to ride bigger, harder and faster still exists, despite numbing myself with volume over the past few years. Trails that make mind work as hard as legs, arms and back strong once more, shins bruised and scabby, knees shiver and quake. It's a progression of sorts but also a regression, because this is how it used to be: out in the sun with friends in tow, encouraged and pushed beyond previous limits, bravery and laughter, germolene and plasters.

Turning out to be a good year.

j.

The Joys of Spring

When I was just a few weeks into this job, I met a grizzled old-timer on a bench in the City, who informed me that you're not a real courier until you've survived your first winter. That was back in October, and now it's March, and London's full of daffodils and magnolia blossom, and I think I've made it.

And even though I've spent far too much time awake and outside for the past few months, I feel like I'm coming out of hibernation. The evenings are lighter, and I'm feeling more inclined to stay out a bit, and maybe even do some riding for fun, rather than just race home and into my pyjamas.

And all the couriers seem to be losing weight. This isn't strictly true, of course - it's just that the weather's warming up and they're shedding all those bulky layers of clothing. When the winter was at its coldest, I found myself shivering in five layers, whereas recently I've occasionally stripped down as far as one. I've even seen some of the blokes riding around in sleeveless t-shirts.

And I'm getting a taste of how idyllic this job is going to be in the summer. There's not much work around at the moment (I must be spending just as much time hanging around on standby as I am riding), but that's OK, because it's now warm enough for me to loiter in a park for an hour without ending up frostbitten. The other day I found a sunny corner to while away the elevenses lull, and actually ended up dozing off for a bit, until my radio started shouting at me.

And of course, now I've passed the test, earned my spurs, and I'm a real courier! Or so I thought. I was discussing this with another old timer last week, and apparently you actually have to make it through two winters, in case the first one's an easy one. Pah.

Emily

It's amazing how 5am doesn't seem early when you're excited!

My first race of the season took me to the Forest of Dean for the 661 Mini Downhill.

This time last year there were six ladies entered, only one year on and our numbers had doubled.

The Forest of Dean itself is a fantastic place, with a proper MTB centre and what looked like very well maintained trails.

The race track itself was mint! It started on the fireroad at the top of what can only be described as the steepest push up. Ever.

Straight into a rooty wooded section with a couple of small root drops onto a right hander and down a rocky chute. All good.

Off a little lip you could managed a bit of air time into the next chute, then it was a pedally straight with a couple of small doubles. Down again over more roots followed by another chute into a second wooded section with a nasty tree stump to avoid (more about that later...) another pedally straight, sharp right hander, drop, sharp left hander, berm, pedal to the table then a set of left to right switchbacks, mini road jump, more left to right switchbacks and finish!

I managed three practice runs in the morning and actually felt pretty good about the track considering I'd never ridden it before and most of the girls there were either locals or had spent the Saturday practicing!

My first race run came and I felt really fast and smooth through the whole top section, entering the second wooded section I somehow managed to get my line wrong and hit the tree stump I'd mentioned earlier (nice of the BC Commisiare to spray it red so it called out to me like a beacon!) off the track and down the slope I slid! Uninjured I clambered back onto the track and kept going, annoyed that I was doing so well I lost my focus (and my footing) on the tabletop and finished the run with a time of 1.17906 putting me in 7th place!

I was annoyed because I knew I'd lost a good 5 seconds on the crash and probably another 5 due to not being able to get it back together for the bottom section but I also knew I could make that time up with my second run and get a 1.7 or below which would put me in 5th place.

Sat at the top waiting for my second run I was uncomfortably nervous, I knew I needed to make this time up to get a result I'd be happy with so the pressure was on for me.

As I left the start gate I hit the first section with a good smooth speed. However, that was where it ended! For some reason I rode the remainder of the track slower than my grandmother could and finished with a 1.17428. I was still in 7th place, hadn't moved up the 2 places I was hoping to and had only improved my time by a fraction!

I was so disappointed with myself despite my times not actually being that bad, my practice runs had felt so fast I just don't know what went wrong for the race runs. My friend made me laugh by informing me that I'd picked my way through the roots near the stump I'd crashed into and did I not realise the bike would cruise over them!

All in I still had a fantastic day and will definitely be heading back to FoD for some casual riding very soon!

The journey home was a different story, I blew a tyre on the A34 by Newbury and sat there for an hour in the dark waiting for the RAC. I'd already established that there was no spare but didn't realise that my cover was invalid because of that so was presented with a bill for £220 for the new tyre. I think that's the most expensive race I've ever done!

Thanks for reading! SJ. x

We're on Anchorage Time

So the clock's set to Anchorage time and we're counting down to the start of the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Of course Minx swore she'd never get caught up in following any endurance race ever again after last year's emotional Great Divide Race, but with John Ross, a long time friend and supporter setting out to ride 350 miles across frozen Alaska how could we not? 

 Regular followers will notice that Geoff  Roes from GDR 08 is also competing - as is his other half Jill Homer (who did the blog updates for GDR). I anticipate another podcast addiction is not far off. Click on the link to the official race website then go look at everyone's blogs to see exactly how they trained for this. But maybe not at work or that'll be the morning gone....

And a toast to John at 11.00pm tonight.

Minx

The end of hibernation, the start of my mid life crisis.

The fug of winter lethargy is beginning to properly lift. Mojo located and requiring some nurturing, I bottled out of soloing the Strathpuffer and joined a team of 4 to 'enjoy' the windy, snowy madness and the socialising between laps. The snowy morning laps were a privilege to experience, but I'll leave my second 24 hour solo effort til I'm mentally better prepared.

Starting my 40th year has prompted a flurry of entries to some 'gnarlier' events than the XC and endurance stuff I have attempted before. My thinking being, I'll get them in now and if I utterly embarrass myself, I can blame it on a mid life crisis. The first effort was round 1 of the Alpine Bikes Winter Series at Innerleithen. 'A fun race' I was told, how come then, when I looked at the start list there was a certain T Moseley, J Mart and K Curd in the line up... So, I was going to come last, the question was, just how last would I be?

The heady aroma of testosterone filled the air in the queue for the uplift, not another woman in sight, I was truly afraid. Squeaking, swearing and hyperventilating, I made it down the practice runs in one piece and at last got chatting to a couple of the 7 other lady competitors. I was the only first timer to DH racing on the female start list, but experienced young and upcoming riders Bex Reilly and Angela Coates looked after me. My race run was a blur of adrenaline induced tunnel vision and I collapsed in a retching, gasping heap at the finish. Anyone who suggests that DH is a lazy option because of the pushing and uplifts is so wrong. I've rarely exerted more intense effort over a short period, even during the most beasting of hill intervals. So how did I do? Though I say so myself, I thought I acquitted myself respectably at 40 secs behind the girl in front and not coming last overall. The thing that I will treasure is that I rode in the same race as a multiple world cup winner and was only 1minute and 58 seconds slower. And so I enter my mid life crisis with my head held high :)

Jo