The Love of Cycling

So it's been a while since I last posted. Partly because I've been busy, but mostly because I've been avoiding everything to do with the internet, emails, computers and cycling. There's a reason for that - Mountain Mayhem.

I've been working for Patrick Adams for 9 years at Mountain Mayhem and it has always been a fantastic week, the highlight of my year and something I always look forward to. This year was different. I wasn't looking forward to it. I'm not even sure why. There were various reasons but nothing in particular, just the amalgamation of lots of issues.

As many of you may know disaster struck on Friday before Mountain Mayhem when Patrick was taken to hospital leaving his beloved event, the biggest 24 hour mountain bike race in the world, in our hands. This made an already bad week, worse. But we got through it. (I'm not going to dwell on all the ins and outs of this week, it just wasn't as fun as usual.) There was the usual torrential rain on Saturday evening which turned the course to unrideable sludge and then gail force winds on Sunday morning tearing the arena and the campsite to pieces! But we got through it.

Two days tidying up and litter picking and by Wednesday I had totally lost my enthusiasm. Niggly things were getting to me and there was too much residual bad feeling hanging around. There's just too much politics involved in cycling some times. I've been saying this all year and Mayhem is no different. I'd had enough.

Then when I finally got home I made the fatal mistake of reading the forums about Mayhem. I always tell Paul Davis the course designer not to do this and I have no idea why I did, maybe because I had more input this year and just wanted to know what people were saying. Still, it wasn't a good idea and I got even more fed up! This was when I stopped looking at the internet. It was either that or go off on a big rant. But the damage was done. I didn't want anything to do with cycling.

Now I'm sure my indifference to cycling would have continued to fester if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a slack cyclist and when I unpacked the car I put Olive the dekerf in the dining room. There she sat all shiny and beautiful: incredibly neat welds, the trademark dekerf seatstays, stunningly designed XTR components, precision engineered beauty of Hope Mini calipers and the neat, slimline stiffness of the Rock Shox Team SID suspension forks. How could I stay mad at her?! It wasn't her fault after all.

I resisted for a couple more days - grumbling and moaning and being generally fed up with the world, and cycling and cyclists. Then I cracked. A cosmic alignment of circumstances occurred with Cyclenaut coming over for a few days from America, Deano popping over for a couple of beers, the funniest waitress in the whole world warning me about the 'blue cheese burger' and a beautiful day; I just had to ride my bike.

And it was ace!

I love cycling!

A Perfect Bank Holiday Monday?

So another bank holiday rolls around (aren’t there a lot in May?) and the dilemma of what to do. Actually it’s more like a quad-ilemma but I don’t think that’s a word, so we’ll go with double dilemma for now.

Option a) Cancel your leave and have a long lie in followed by a relaxing day at work with no office staff or managers around, take it easy, watch some TV and drink as much free tea and coffee as you can manage, get home around midnight then have another day off.
Aha? Interesting. It’s a possibility but it is still work. And it does mean travelling into central London on a Bank Holiday – there’s probably engineering works on the train line, replacement bus service, tourists everywhere etc etc and I hate all that!

Okay, option b) Don’t cancel your leave. Have a long lie in followed by a relaxing day on the sofa, eat what you want, watch want you want and listen to the rain pounding on the window from underneath your cosy, warm duvet. Just generally kick back, relax and take it easy.
Oooh! Like your thinking. Now that does sound like a good way to spend a Bank Holiday, because I am still ill obviously…
Well, obviously…
And that sounds like just the kind of thing I need – but I’ve been doing that for the last couple of days really and I’m a bit bored of it now.

I see your point, so how about option c) Go on a mountain bike holiday to the lovely Swiss alpine town of Verbier – take in the fresh mountain air, stay in a luxury chalet, drink lots of ice cold beer, ride great trails all week and just admire the views.
Hey! Now you’re talking! Just one problem – there was a slight error on my part when booking the flights and now they’re going to cost a fortune and I can’t really afford it at the moment because I do have a new bike to pay for…

Fair enough. So option d) Get up at 6am, drive 100 miles in the pouring rain and spend the day doing building trails on a steep, slippery, muddy hillside, hacking through shoulder high bracken and thistles, getting scratched by thorns, stung by nettles and give yourself blisters on your thumbs whilst desperately trying to stay upright in the thick mud and the driving wind and rain. Get soaked to the bone, covered in dirt, freezing cold and totally wear yourself out.
Hmmm…
What?
Well apart from the obvious…
You mean the early start, the mud, the rain, the cold, the wind, the manual work, the blisters, the thorns, the nettles, the slimy bugs…
Oh yes, I’d forgotten the slimy, nasty little creatures, well remembered…
Thanks, so where were we? Oh yes, nettles, the slimy bugs, that nasty little drip that drops off your sodden woolly hat and down the back of your neck. So apart from those…
Yes, apart from those… Oh, arse!
What?!
(sigh)I’ll get my car keys, you fill the thermos, it’s going to be a long, long day…

End of an Era

Another weekend passed working at a Pro-Velo Support mountain bike event - Enduro 6. I've been working with Pat for 9 years now, well, 9 years this Mayhem anyway. It was a chance meeting at Sandwell one June when I turned up for a drink with Chipps at the hotel, the rest as they say is history.

Back then I worked with Ivo, Chipps, Paul McConnon and Ken Ward. A couple of years later a tall, broody Scotsman joined - Chris Duncan. We shared some interesting times as well: the corn field fire, the crazy knife wielding schizo and the SWAT helicopter are just a few of the things we dealt with at mountain bike races!

By the time the event moved to Eastnor only Chipps and Chris were left and we picked up a few more people - Quad Ben and Ickle Paul Davis. This was the infamous Pro-Velo Trail Crew and we were working at more events throughout the year.

There's an odd relationship formed in this kind of family. We only saw each other for one week and two weekends a year and not at all over winter, but the time spent together is intense, especially for the 36 hours over a 24 hour race! After a few years, we'd still only met 6 times, but every time we got together we all instantly clicked and it was as if we'd never been away; Even more unbelievable if you know what a motley crew we are.

Sadly, this weekend was Chris Duncan's last as a member of the Trail Crew. He's still going to be at the events but doing his normal job for Endura who are event sponsors this year, so it won't be quite the same.

I can safely say we're all going to miss working with him. He's got a wit as dry as the sahara and can take the mickey with the best of them - crucial attributes when it's 6am, you're covered in mud, soaked to the bone, it's been raining for 4 hours with no sign of it letting up and you know there's no chance of getting out of this damn field for another 12 hours!

So apart from the odd appearance from Chipps at Mountain Mayhem, there's just me left from the old Sandwell crew. I wonder how much longer I'll be around?

A Trailbuilders Lot...

Not riding for an hour a day hasn't freed up any extra time over these last few days - if anything I've been busier. (And talk about broadening your horizons, one minute I'm building mountain bike trails, the next I'm building websites; two things I'd never even done until a few months ago and now they take up all my time.) I'm so busy in fact that I seem to have given up sleeping. Three days last week I went without sleep and I must have only averaged two hours a day.

FACT: Working nights is bad for you.

I find the best way to get back to normal after nights is to stay busy after the last night - exercise always helps. So three days at Eastnor Castle was just what I needed. And after much head scratching, trail searching, bramble-tripping, branch-flicking, mud-sliding, thorn-pricking, pick-wielding, dirt-shovelling, exploration, I think we have a Mountain Mayhem course! (Well, when I say that, what I mean is we have a slightly less vague idea of where a route should probably go under the right conditions and you can ride all the way round it instead of stopping after only 4 miles, taking off your helmet, throwing your bike down the hill and sitting on the floor crying, whilst mumbling "I hate bikes" over and over again. So that's a bonus.)

I made a quick trip up to Rock Cottage Tuesday. It's lambing season and Tony had invited me over to see the cutesie-wutesie lambs that were only a matter of days, or even hours old! Now, I'm used to walking into Rock Cottage and being pounced on by 10 stone dogs and tripping over various cats, but even I was surprised to see little lambs trotting round the lounge - aaaaaaahhhhh! Hercules, the 10 day old Ryeland was particularly cute, and the two 4 day old hill sheep were particulary stupid, but that's sheep for ya.

"30 in 30" Days 2 & 3

Day 2 was a short, simple spin for an hour. The rest of the day was spent hacking in the dirt and shifting wood at Eastnor Castle, scene of the 24hour Mountain Mayhem race, with Ickle Paul and Quad Ben to start some trail building for this years race.

Day 3 - an off-road ride that covered 4 miles of the new Mountain Mayhem course. It took 1hr10mins. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Shovelling dirt, humping wood and swinging a pick axe for two days is quite a full body workout when you're not used to that level of manual work; and it does wonders for the physique - if you happen to find female body builders or Russian shot-putters attractive? Personally, I don't. Tone is one thing, rippling latissimus dorsi and veiny deltoids are completely different! And my forearms currently resemble Popeye after his spinach.

I can't imagine how much all of this is going to hurt in the morning. Hopefully it will be worth it. But as my Mum always says, 'when are you going to grow up and stop playing in the mud?'

Never Mum, never.