Another day spent riding around Sherwood Pines trying to find any tracks even vaguely interesting enough to make up a mountain bike course of a suitable standard for elite riders and a couple of Olympians. It hasn't been easy. The selection of trails at Sherwood is limited at the best of times and the parts of the Kitcheners trail I have actually ridden have been so uninspiring I've never bothered to do the whole thing.
The task was made harder by new UCI rules stating cross-country mountain bike courses should now be 4-6km long. Sorry, that's not a mountain bike course, it's a cyclo-cross course through a few more trees. Apparently, it's to make mountain biking more exciting and television friendly, but as the British National XC Series hasn't been televised for over a decade, I can hardly see BBC sport suddenly turning up because we've knocked a couple of kilometres off the course.
And as for more exciting, they've obviously never been to a BMBS venue. Let's face it England is hardly blessed with rugged, mountainous terrain so we always make the best of what we have in difficult circumstances. You can probably make a fantastically hard, testing, technical 5km course in the Alps - just send the riders around the alpine meadow, up the side of the mountain and back down the near-vertical, rocky descent. Job done. Not quite the case in Sherwood Forest, or Berkshire, or Plymouth. Even the hugely expensive Dalby World Cup course is 500m too long now!
So with shorter courses (though all of the BMBS courses will probably be pushing the 6km limit, a 4km course would barely get us out of the car park at most venues) and shorter race durations, this could be an interesting year for British Cross-Country Mountain Biking. Watch this space!
Showing posts with label bmbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bmbs. Show all posts
Monday, 21 February 2011
Monday, 12 July 2010
The Week That Was
It's an odd life being a mountain bike event organiser some times, you never quite know what's going to happen next or where you going to end up.
It all started just over a week ago with my second car accident in 3 months. I've decided now that Dalby Forest is jinxed - I've only ever had two car accidents in my life and both of them have been the night before travelling to Dalby for an event. Nothing major, just a three car shunt this time, very frustrating. My jinx continued when I arrived at Dalby for a week of possible riding only to discover I'd forgotten my riding shoes, also something I have never done in 15 years of mountain biking. So this lead to doing half a lap of the Dalby red route in t-shirt, shorts and trainers (and helmet) balancing precariously on spd pedals.
The Dalby event presented its usual carnage with various ambulances and helicopters popping in and out, yet again highlighting the distinct lack of skillful riders in British mountain biking. This added more fuel to the fire that had been ignited last Tuesday when I sent a rather scathing email to British Cycling criticising their recent approach to exploiting what some organisations are starting to see as cash-cow mountain bikers. (See, it really wasn't a good week!)
Leaving all negative thoughts of Dalby behind it was off to the familiar, relaxing and safe environment of Kielder - well usually, just not when there's a crazy gunman running round the area obviously. Plans to ride off into the wilderness were somewhat thwarted by the possibility of running into either the crazed gunman or "the men in black Range Rovers". I don't think I've ever seen so many armed police officers in a day and driving through a small Northumberland town where every other car is a police car is rather an odd sight.
Still, on to the safety of urban life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for lunch with Saddle Skedaddle. Sadly, even this didn't prove straightforward and the local car thieves were taking advantage of the police pre-occupation with crazy gun man by smashing the driver side window and breaking into Paul Davis's van whilst it was parked outside the Gateshead Travelodge overnight. Luckily they were the stupidest car thieves on the planet (sorry, you'd already figured that one out as soon as I said 'Gateshead' right) and, whilst getting away with a lovely little Tom-Tom, a large chain lock and a couple of in-car chargers, they'd somehow missed the laptop, brand new iPad and 800 quids worth of brand new bike parts and prizes, opting to go through the cupboards for food instead.
The 9 day long trip ended with a very windy and cold 6 hour drive home. Today was spent doing the mundane parts of life - washing, cleaning, hoovering and reading the post. Sometimes normality is ace.
It all started just over a week ago with my second car accident in 3 months. I've decided now that Dalby Forest is jinxed - I've only ever had two car accidents in my life and both of them have been the night before travelling to Dalby for an event. Nothing major, just a three car shunt this time, very frustrating. My jinx continued when I arrived at Dalby for a week of possible riding only to discover I'd forgotten my riding shoes, also something I have never done in 15 years of mountain biking. So this lead to doing half a lap of the Dalby red route in t-shirt, shorts and trainers (and helmet) balancing precariously on spd pedals.
The Dalby event presented its usual carnage with various ambulances and helicopters popping in and out, yet again highlighting the distinct lack of skillful riders in British mountain biking. This added more fuel to the fire that had been ignited last Tuesday when I sent a rather scathing email to British Cycling criticising their recent approach to exploiting what some organisations are starting to see as cash-cow mountain bikers. (See, it really wasn't a good week!)
Leaving all negative thoughts of Dalby behind it was off to the familiar, relaxing and safe environment of Kielder - well usually, just not when there's a crazy gunman running round the area obviously. Plans to ride off into the wilderness were somewhat thwarted by the possibility of running into either the crazed gunman or "the men in black Range Rovers". I don't think I've ever seen so many armed police officers in a day and driving through a small Northumberland town where every other car is a police car is rather an odd sight.
Still, on to the safety of urban life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for lunch with Saddle Skedaddle. Sadly, even this didn't prove straightforward and the local car thieves were taking advantage of the police pre-occupation with crazy gun man by smashing the driver side window and breaking into Paul Davis's van whilst it was parked outside the Gateshead Travelodge overnight. Luckily they were the stupidest car thieves on the planet (sorry, you'd already figured that one out as soon as I said 'Gateshead' right) and, whilst getting away with a lovely little Tom-Tom, a large chain lock and a couple of in-car chargers, they'd somehow missed the laptop, brand new iPad and 800 quids worth of brand new bike parts and prizes, opting to go through the cupboards for food instead.
The 9 day long trip ended with a very windy and cold 6 hour drive home. Today was spent doing the mundane parts of life - washing, cleaning, hoovering and reading the post. Sometimes normality is ace.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
BMBS Round 1 down...
...4 to go. They say the first one is always the hardest and the first round of the British Mountain Bike Demo and Race Series at Sherwood Pines over the weekend was most definitely the proof of the pudding. There have been some pretty big changes to the race series this year, including adding a whopping great demo weekend to every round. The outcome of which is more work for all involved (and when I say all, I mean just 4 of us).
I've only been working on these particular events for a year now, and although it seems a lot longer I've actually only done 5 weekends, making it still a relatively young working relationship with the head honcho Martyn Salt. And as with all good organisers, there's always an element of trust to be earned before they stop checking everything you do, twice. Can't blame them, it's their event and their reputation on the line (and to be honest I'm the same with my event), but in the end things just get too big and too busy and you have to let go a little and have faith in those around you. I think we're almost there, almost.
The bad weather held off until Monday morning and all in all things went pretty well for a first event with so many new elements added to the mix. And as per usual the post-event aches and pains have appeared. For this kind of work it's not really a lack of fitness, but a lack of general physical activity that's the problem. My day job involves sitting in a chair watching TV, so heading out into the forest doing manual labour for a few days comes as a bit of a shock after 6 months off:
My shoulders and neck ache from hacking down trees and branches, my lower back hurts from standing up for 16 hours a day, my legs ache from running down all the singletrack, my feet hurt from walking and running on rough ground, my hands are cut to shreds and even my fingertips sting from all the zip ties, clips and staple ends. I'm glad I've had two days off to recover from this, even if they did go quickly.
Still, given the choice to race at these events or work on them, I know which I'd pick any day of the week. Can't wait for the next one! Must remember to sharpen my machete though.
I've only been working on these particular events for a year now, and although it seems a lot longer I've actually only done 5 weekends, making it still a relatively young working relationship with the head honcho Martyn Salt. And as with all good organisers, there's always an element of trust to be earned before they stop checking everything you do, twice. Can't blame them, it's their event and their reputation on the line (and to be honest I'm the same with my event), but in the end things just get too big and too busy and you have to let go a little and have faith in those around you. I think we're almost there, almost.
The bad weather held off until Monday morning and all in all things went pretty well for a first event with so many new elements added to the mix. And as per usual the post-event aches and pains have appeared. For this kind of work it's not really a lack of fitness, but a lack of general physical activity that's the problem. My day job involves sitting in a chair watching TV, so heading out into the forest doing manual labour for a few days comes as a bit of a shock after 6 months off:
My shoulders and neck ache from hacking down trees and branches, my lower back hurts from standing up for 16 hours a day, my legs ache from running down all the singletrack, my feet hurt from walking and running on rough ground, my hands are cut to shreds and even my fingertips sting from all the zip ties, clips and staple ends. I'm glad I've had two days off to recover from this, even if they did go quickly.
Still, given the choice to race at these events or work on them, I know which I'd pick any day of the week. Can't wait for the next one! Must remember to sharpen my machete though.
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