We were lucky enough to spend the weekend being pampered at Loch Lomond Golf Club (very exclusive) at the Wedding of two friends, Simon and Steph. I took in the opportunity to get some road riding in on the hills surrounding this most gorgeous location.
After a pootle along the shore line under the flanks on Ben Lomond (where Cath was walking with another friend, Mark) with Holly on her Isla Bike I had a good ride round to the golf club following the rolling roads surrounding the lake shores. I had a few issues getting though the tight security at the club. The main gate seemed to know I was coming in on a bike but I got stopped close to the club house with a shout of ‘do you know you are on private property !’. Im sure they don’t have too many people arriving by bike, its mainly Jags BMWs and Mercedes they are used too. I think one chap was about to offer to valet park my bike once i’d convinced them I was staying for the weekend !
I had two other fantastic rides that weekend. On Saturday before the service Mark H and myself braved the security again and left the club heading over the mountains to the Clyde, intending to do a circular route of a couple of hours. The roads were quiet and the views spectacular as we climbed. Descending into Garelochhead at high speed the first surprise of the day was to see a soldier sprint out in front of us, rifle in hand with another covering him from the bushes at the side of the road. Perhaps they need to brush up on their observation skills !
Proceeding up the next valley past all the submarine bases and interesting looking mounds behind high razor wire topped fences we were both stopped in our tracks laughing. A traingular warning sign on the side of the road read
Slow, Explosives – not sure if they meant the mushroom cloud variety.
The climb back over to Loch Lomond was very steep, with Mark off and pushing due to only having a double chainring and me spinning on the muddy surface. The roll back down the valley to the golf club was beautiful, with no hint that so close by was the touristy southern Loch shore.
Sunday brought another ride, after a few shots off the driving range, this time on my own to meet the family near to Glasgow on our return trip home, again more great scenery and big hills, and a great way to drive away the previous evenings excess’s.
A fantastic weekend of great food, fine wine and hard riding.
Race Report – Midlands XC #1 – Rugby
Round 1 of the Midlands Cross Country Mountain Bike Race series was held in glorious weather just north of Rubgy, at Cosford. Masters were racing in the afternoon and with a field of 50 I was looking forward to another day of pain, with Adrian’s (coach) advice just to give it everything and treat it as a training session and see what happened.
I took the opportunity to ride a lap prior to the race as a warm up. It was a fantastic mix of rooty singletrack, bumpy landrover tracks, fast grass and swooping descents. However, it contained 2 hills, one of which I knew would be a real challenge in the later stages of the race as legs tired.
After the under 10’s race Holly wanted to do some of the course so I took her round. She had a great over the handle bars moment when her front wheel slipped into a furrow, but other than a few tears she was back on the bike and sprinting away to beat Daddy to the chocolate biscuit prize for the first back. She was also asking about how to unclip from SPDs 🙂
The start was a bit chaotic: not enough room for everyone to line up by side so I ended up starting right at the back and got stuck behind a few people for the first bit of single track. The field soon opened up and I was able to slowly pick off about 10 people as the fist lap continued. I was really enjoying the course, even pulling a little air on some of the faster humps, which is unusual for me as I’m mainly a wheels-on-the-ground type. As you can see from the laptimes below I tired on lap 4 and then got very tired on the last lap.
| 00:20:06 | 00:20:19 | 00:20:48 | 00:21:43 | 00:23:14 |
A quick mention of the eventual elite winner, Wiggle Rider, Lee Williams who was just so friendly and polite as he came past on my last lap, it made a refreshing change to the cut and thrust I’m used to.
The big climb at the start of the last lap had me in granny ring and out of the saddle but I was able to keep the pace up through the single track that followed and managed a reasonably strong finish, but it’s those hills I need to work on…It was pleasing not to tire as quickly and dramatically as I did at Sherwood Pines a few weeks ago. Great event on a cracking course.
Full results available at Timelaps
(photos by Cath)
Event Report – Jan Kjellström Orienteering Festival
The Jan Kjellström International Orienteering Festival is held each Easter weekend in a different region of the UK. This year the North East hosted the event, which consists of a sprint on the Friday, two classic distance races over the weekend and a relay on Easter Monday.
As Cath’s sister lives just outside Newcastle, we thought we would combine the orienteering with a family holiday in the NE, so we decided to run in the sprint and relay, & give the classic races a miss.
The sprints were staged in and around the University and Civic Centre in Newcastle. There was a 
good atmosphere with commentary and and good visible run in. Although I have used sprint specification maps a couple of times before, this was was first taste of a proper sprint race. It definitely lived up to expectations being exciting and requiring intense concentration for the whole race. With legs as short as 17 secs and only 6 legs taking more than 1 minute, the 24 controls flew by and I managed to keep in ‘the zone’ and only made one small error, running the wrong way round a planter, perhaps losing 4 or 5 secs.
The sportident wireless results service kept me hanging for 2 hours as I slipped to 3rd, and then the last finisher of the course pushed me off the podium to 4th on M35. I was very pleased with the result, especially to just pip fellow MTBOer Liam Corner by 14 secs 🙂
After two days sampling the tourist delights of Newcastle and the coast to the north it was time for the JK relays. Other than a problem with the bussing, the event was first class, again with an excellent atmosphere. Walton Chasers teams entered two Mens Short relay teams, with selection for the two teams only being done the night before. Luckily I was put out first in the A team (perhaps my fresh legs after two days just doing a little cycling giving me edge on the others). Lining up in a field of 53 teams for the mass start there was lots of banter, and then on the horn we all sprinted for the gate out into the forest. I had a wobble on the way to the first control ,not seeing a track on the map out from the gate, dropping about 20-30
secs on the main pack, but with good control flow I managed to haul them back in and fight my way towards the front of it by the time a gaffle split us ready for the turn for home. I dropped 3 or 4 places on the final tough climb up to the finish field but handing over to Adam I knew we were not too far behind being in about 11th or so as the main pack streamed through. My result for the leg shows up 13th as I had a ‘little rest’ after handing over, before punching the finish box.
Adam had a stonking run putting down the fastest time for the middle leg before handing over to Rob Little in 3rd place. Rob’s solid performance (fastest on his gaffle!) brought us up one place to silver but not quite close enough to the leader. We knew that if it came to a sprint finish there is no-one that could stay with him up the run in.
Elsewhere the vet women also bagged a silver so it was a good day out for Walton Chasers.
Globecycle – World Record attempt for Parkinsons Research
James Bowthorpe (Brother of Tom who I was at school with) left London on the 29th of March to try to break the World Record set by Mark Beaumont for cycling round the world. He is also raising money and awareness for Parkinsons Research.
His route winds its way through France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Portugal and Spain.
Riding a belt drive Santos bike he has just crossed into the Ukraine on schedule after some good tail winds through Poland gained back some time lost in Western Europe.
He is blogging and twittering his way around the world and has all sorts of technology with him to keep himself amused during his hours in the Saddle.
James also has a live tracking system – http://www.whereintheworldisjames.com/
Good Luck James.
www.globecycle.org
Race Report – NPS #1 Sherwood Pines
Sunday brought the first round of the revamped 2009 National Points Series for Cross Country Mountain Bike Racing. After a poor end to the year in 2008 it was great to see a full entry list for the first round, which was held at Sherwood Pines Forest Park near Mansfield.
I decided to ride it blind as didn’t have time to go over on Saturday evening for practice. I’ve ridden a Midlands XC race there in the past so knew what to expect, ie not much climb and fairly intense riding through narrow singletracks, in and out of the trees.
I got there in time for the Women’s prize giving, seeing British Orienteerings MTBO Team co-ordinator, Hillary Bloor, get 2nd place in grand vet. I then watched a spectacular crash at the start of the Men’s Elite race with fellow MTBO team mate Sarah Bayliss (who raced vets): bodies and bikes were flying all over the place before the peloton disappeared in a cloud of dust out onto the 6km course.
The mens elite train was awesome to watch as 6 riders in line, wheel to wheel, lapped at around the 19 min pace. The race was only decided with a sprint for the line on the last lap. A bag of nerves, I lined up for the start of the Masters (over 30s) race amongst a sea of sponsored riders. However, just before the start I was nicely distracted by the marshalls chastising a very ‘cool’ looking rider dressed in complete replica rainbow world championship winning kit complete with matching helmet. He eventually turned his top inside out after being threatened with a £2000 fine with lots of giggles and comments from those around him.
The start was bonkers with 80 riders sprinting for the gateway, then out over the dusty tracks to the first climb. I think even at that point I knew I was riding beyond my abolity. A quick glance at the heart rate monitor showed I had over committed but I had no choice but to keep going (it was that or to pull off and let everyone go by). The singletracks got a bit bottlenecked but after the first loop the field opened up and I tried to settle into a more comfortable race pace, but I still much faster than I should have been. A steady flow of riders overtook me, perhaps 1 a minute until suddenly I had about 20 pile past me with shouts of ‘on your left’, ‘on your right’ and ‘rider’ as the tops Vets who started a couple of mins behind masters caught me. I did my best to keep out of the way and got quite a few “Thanks”, so I dont think I held anyone up for too long. By now the excess’s of my first lap were beginning to tell and I started to lap slower and slower, with only one familiar face from the Watt bike league cheering me on about half way around the course where he was marshaling.
My last lap was a whole world of pain and to be honest at that point I wasn’t sure how many I’d done, but was dimly aware as I got lapped by the winning masters that it meant I didnt have to do the 5th lap and I could stop in a few minutes. So 70th with lap times of 24, 25, 26 and 28 mins against the best mountain bikers in the UK, for my first NPS race, Im quite pleased, although with a spring and summer of quality speed training ahead I’m sure there is plenty more to come.
Full Report on British Cycling
Spring is here – time for quality!
Spring is here, it’s official! I haven’t had to wear my winter boots now for a week and I’ve ridden in shorts and summer gloves at least four times now.
Following my week off, I now have a full training plan from Adrian Timmis of Cadence Sport. Stafford Sports Borough has kindly funded him to coach me from now until August. After the solid base put down this winter it is time for quality sessions specifically working on speed. Lots of interval training; riding to specific heart rate zones and a plan focused on tapering effort towards the most important races of the season.
The clock changing also signals the move out of the gym and off of the roads for orienteering club training evenings, so I’m looking forward to balmy May evenings running on the Chase on a Thursday night.
A week off !
After my disastrous event last weekend and a long chat with my coach I decided to have a week off training, get some serious sleep and to chill out a bit on my diet. Looking back now its so obvious I was over doing it, but now I am back on track and ready to start on a new quality training schedule that Adrian is currently working on now that the evenings are lighter.
Amazingly even after pigging out for 3 days I found I had still lost weight by Thursday, though I am yet to weigh myself after a weekend spent on a stag do with old friends, staying near Ingleton, in the Yorkshire Dales. On Saturday after a long day walking (well crawling at one point as we were practically being blown off our feet) I tasted the best sticky toffee pudding of my entire life at the Old Hill Inn. In the middle of nowhere this was a fantastic location for entertaining our stag and we had a great evening. We stayed at the Old School Bunkhouse, at the foot of Ingleborough, which is maintained to a much higher standard than many I have stayed in.
As the racing season is now upon us I have decided that my mountain bike needed a bit of a diet. With mapboard and pedals it came in at 26.5 lb which although not heavy is certainly not as light as it should be. 
So with scales out and a little research I concluded that lighter wheels, seat and pedals were needed.
After much web searching I have purchased a pair of Specialized Roval Controle XCs, a Specialized Phenon Seat and a pair of XTR pedals and will be cutting the excess tubing off of my seatpost. Hopefully this should remove approx 3lb from the bike.
I have also decided to ride in some of the National Point Series this year for staright cross country racing. The first race is at Sherwood Pines this coming weekend (5th April), so expect a very tired Stodge’s race report early next week.
Event Report – Dark & White #7 – Sheffield
A blowy morning with 3 up (Fraser and Phil) in the car and two bikes on the roof saw us pootling up the M1 to Sheffield for the penultimate round of the Dark and White Winter series. My car looked quite good with a carbon stumpy and ti Cotic soul strapped to my cheapy halfords rack 🙂
The event was based next to that Sheffield legend that is Eccy Woods on the south side of the city. One thing was for sure the only way out was up and lots of it!
Getting the map at the start I felt I should be able to get all but possibly one control so started out strongly 
in a anticlockwise clearing the controls as I went. I had a couple minor issues finding a couple of them so will definitely be finding a way of carrying the descriptions so I can read them on the bike in future.
It became obvious very quickly once the first major climb was out of the way that there were going to be some very strong headwinds to contend with, although I’m not sure which route offered the best shelter from them. After the Rivelin loop I suddenly was faced with 6km of riding against the wind which grew stronger and stronger. Steve Heading (legend) overtook me and slowly pulled away. At this point I started to struggle and was starting to lose time to people I would normaly expect to be much faster than.
The carry down Stanage Edge was scary, with the bike practically being blown from me as I struggled down the rocks with it over my shoulder. Back on the bike I again just seemed to get slower and slower. I necked my gels earlier than I intended but it didn’t seem to do much good. Turning for home, now with the wind behind me, I seemed to make better progress but it was obvious to me that I was just exhausted so decided to ride in early rather than make myself any worse.
Looking back at the past few weeks and talking to Adrian (coach) I think I have been burning the candle at both ends (and probably along its entire length) for too long. Work has been very hard, with lots of extra hours, training, family and with two races to organise, well……… its obvious looking back.
So better race preparation needed and a lots more sleep ! Another well planned event from Dark and White though, which I really enjoyed.
Full results here……