A Quiet Year?

In terms of the blog it has been admittedly, but that's only because it's been far from a quiet year in real life. I think I've managed to squeeze in more riding this year than the previous two, but the number of events I've been involved in have also increased so I'm still not riding as much as I'd like - does anybody though?

Since my last post I've skipped through four rounds of the BMBS series almost without a hitch (well, if you discount the two air ambulances we've had to call); finished off The Demo Series; battled through a hectic May that started with another very successful 24 Hours of Exposure at Rock UK that included the European 24 hour and 12 hour Championships this year over one extremely wet and tense weekend, threw in a few days of trail building in Kielder and then nipped over to work on the MTB World Cup at Dalby for 10 days. This was possibly the hardest event I've ever had the misfortune to work on and resulted in an exhaustion related illness - oh the glamorous life of travelling round the country to mountain bike events!

Finally I made it into July and the opportunity to work on the Olympic mountain bike test event at Hadleigh Farm. Maybe it's because I've worked on so many events over the years, or even too many this year, or the fact that I'm rather jaded by the whole 'cross-country mtb race scene' at the moment but for some reason I wasn't as excited about this as I probably should have been and I actually feel slightly guilty about it. Don't get me wrong, it was a great weekend and a fantastic race day, it just didn't feel as special as I imagine an Olympic Test Event should do - that's no reflection on the event by the way, everybody else was positively shaking with excitement, it was just me - so maybe things will be different for the actual Olympics next year. I do hope so! It's been a while since I had that massive event buzz I used to get and I miss it.

Still, having three years of the national series, two World Cups and the Olympics on my resume is still pretty cool. Where do I go from there though?

Time Out

It's very easy to get bogged down with paperwork as an event organiser, so every now and again it's good to get out into the fresh air and get your hands dirty. Last week presented just the opportunity with a trip to Rock UK to do some trail building and maintenance on the 24 Hours of Exposure solo champs race course.

With a handful of willing helpers from Rock UK staff and a couple of huge piles of stone from FC Scotland, the week was spent shovelling, digging, raking, brashing, strimming and compacting on various sections of the route around Priest Hill in Newcastleton.




Despite the typical Scottish winter weather switching from hard frosts to torrential rain, a very productive week was had and good headway made into the task ahead. And, of course, there was lots of splashing in puddles and making mud pies...

The Things You Do

It's been an interesting couple of weeks with lots happening and more than once I have found myself pausing for a second just to get a complete picture of the situation I had found myself in.

For any readers of Tales from the Rock you'll know there was a minor vehicular incident last Tuesday - full story and embarassing phots on Tony's blog here. 'Drive Carefully!', yeah thanks Tony. It's the first time I've ever got my car stuck in 10 years of driving, and I was lucky I didn't hit the power lines! Despite this setback I still managed to get to the meeting with Welsh Cycling on time and all went well.

So it's Tuesday 6th of January and whilst most people are settling themselves back into their warm work places after the Christmas break, I spend the day wandering through pathless woodland in the Brecon Beacons scouting out the venue for the Cycling Festival. The temperature was still below freezing but I still managed to get excited at the prospect of what this forest may hold - the stunning scenery, snow capped hills, bright blue sky and crisp sunshine also played a part in the random giggles of joy.

Now, my friend Paul had driven us over to Crickhowell as I wasn't too happy with the state of my tyres after the incident earlier that morning. Leaving the estate we decided to pop down one of the lanes just to familiarise ourselves with the lie of the land a bit more. Up the hill and round the bend and the road opened out into a huge green field with a large house at the top. It was at this point Paul decided to stop and turn his van round. He began his 3 point turn in the narrowest part of the road next to the steepest part of the verge and no sooner had he completed point two of his turn, he found the van wedged between a fence and the grass verge. Half an hour later, in the freezing cold, dark evening, one of the estate workers used his Land Rover to drag the van out, sideways, down the road. It's the first time Paul's ever got his van stuck in 20 years of driving.

Back to my car and I faced the long drive home across the Cotswolds. Any of you that read this blog regularly will know I'm a great believer in 'signs' and listening to what the universe is trying to tell me. The A40 across the Cotswolds is twisty and dangerous at the best of times, with this cold snap who knows what condition it would be in. I didn't have to wait until I got to the A40; I got just past Ross-on-Wye on the dual carriageway and approaching the roundabout passed an accident on the other side of the road. 'Oh dear', I thought, and as I finished that thought the car took a rather skewed angle at which to leave the roundabout. Aha, black ice. I see. Heart pounding I put the three incidents of the day together and decided to meander slowly and carefully home that night, barely reaching the speed limit at any point. Home safe and sound once more; ready to spend another day in the middle of the countryside in the freezing cold, wind and rain. Oh the glamour.

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…

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.