{"id":3018,"date":"2011-08-07T16:22:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-07T15:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2011-08-08T09:24:12","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T08:24:12","slug":"sleepless-in-the-saddle-2011-%e2%80%93-midnight-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=3018","title":{"rendered":"Sleepless in the Saddle 2011 \u2013 Midnight hour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Its midnight and I am sat in my tent, perusing some arty photos I&#8217;ve just taken of head torches flashing past and carefully stretching tired limbs (and we are not even half way through yet).<\/p>\n<p>I went off second rider in our 4 man Cycle Shack team\u00a0and put in a fairly solid lap without too much traffic, my second lap\u00a0was really dusty and dry. Early on I took a fairly big fall after the front wheel washed out beneath me. At the time I had no idea what at happened but picked myself and my water bottle up off the floor and just got going again.<\/p>\n<p>My bike needed a hoover rather than a wash after lap 2 with so much dust. However soon after I finished &amp; got back to team HQ,\u00a0the sky darken ominously, and then it chucked it down for about 20 minutes, leaving the course a mudbath. Riders were coming in covered in mud with stories of bikes with wheels that simply would not turn.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily for me the course quickly dried and by the time of my third lap it was starting to get faster again. I saw the reason for my crash on lap 2, a root whitch must have been hidden in the dust. I caught it again but luckily this time recovered it. The forest sections required some light by now\u00a0and the sun set beautifully as I came in to hand over.<\/p>\n<p>The team is currently lying in 13th position and 3rd vets team, but the other Cycle Shack team is flying, leading vets and 5th overall in &#8216;enthusiast&#8217;. Now it is dark we are doubling up, so my next outing will be for two laps. Hopefully this means we&#8217;ll get chance to grab some sleep.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/08\/DSC_0031.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-3019\" title=\"Start of Sleepless in the Saddle 2011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/08\/DSC_0031-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/08\/DSC_0119.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-3020\" title=\"Cycle Shack Stodge\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/08\/DSC_0119-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/08\/DSC_0157.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-3021\" title=\"Midnight at Sleepless in the Saddle 2011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/2010pics\/2011\/08\/DSC_0157-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Its midnight and I am sat in my tent, perusing some arty photos I&#8217;ve just taken of head torches flashing past and carefully stretching tired limbs (and we are not even half way through yet). I went off second rider in our 4 man Cycle Shack team\u00a0and put in a fairly solid lap without too &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=3018\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Sleepless in the Saddle 2011 \u2013 Midnight hour&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-competitions","category-mountain-biking-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3034,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/3034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}