Trans-Sundayriders

Megavalanche

2008-07-22T01:58:00.000-07:00

Monday, July 14, 2008

Megavalanche
July 6th.

Arrived at Bourg D’Oisans and found La Camping Cascade with some help from the information centre. We had signed up for the platinum package and so have to sign on at the station in Oz en Oisans, because apparently we’re also racing in the Oz avalanche. This is a lovely wiggly mountain drive past Lac du Verney at Allemont. Luckily the lady at the speaks a little English and says we can’t sign on until Tuesday, but we can sign up for the week long ski pass we’d also paid for. We see a couple of riders coming off the top of the mountain and Gary and Barry get even more excited. Back at la Cascade I meet three guys from Leeds who’re here for the mega and the say that there are doing a ride tomorrow from near the lake. The are driving to the lake and catching a bus from Allemont up to Oz en Oisans for the ski lifts and routes in the area. They said they’d let us know how it went and give us some tips. I was feeling pretty over stimulated from the map reading and navigating, so shut myself away for a sleep and some recuperation. Tomorrow we will probably head out to Les Deux Alps for our tentative first riding in the alps experience.

07 July.

Woke about 7 am to torrential rain and went to sleep until 9.30. We may go shopping whilst it clears. We shopped. Some time later we set out for Alpe Duez. At the top we spoke to some riders from north London who suggested we could go to the top of Dome des Petites Rousses at 2810 hm, to ride the mega qualifier. We took the télécabine up to the next stop (no name) at 2110 and rode down a track people were calling the 4x. This was excellent, a serpentine bermed hairpin wiggle punctuated with wooden bumps all the way back to the Alpe Duez station. I felt quite nervous at the top because it was the first time I’d worn the full face helmet and was quite concerned about how much peripheral vision I had lost when it was on. It was good to get on the bike after we’d faffed about all morning. We rode this once more and then Gary and Barry wanted to go to the top of the mountain to try the top part of the qualifier. This didn’t quite go to plan. Our instructions were to take a short fire road to the next station, we took a footpath that wended it’s beautiful way around several small lakes, and tough hike a bike sections. Pure Trans alps terrain. I hate this stuff with a passion and usually try to get it over with as fast as possible, but I had to keep them in sight. My regret here is that I didn’t turn back as I felt I should, because it was obviously the wrong way. So I was furious with myself, I didn’t need to carry my bike across rocks, I needed to ride it downhill. Still, an hour later we rocked up at the station only to find a half hour wait before the next car. We grabbed a very nice coffee from the lovely proprietor who was just about to shut up shop. At the top whilst the others had a fag break I went to investigate and play in the snow. I punctured quite soon. We rode the fire road down Barry unwilling to stop to look for the right track. We reached number two, this is part of the mega and was quite enjoyable.

08 July.

Go up early to sign on for the practice of the Avalanche trophy. We put our boards on the bikes as no one was allowed on the course without. This was my first experience of a proper full on downhill course. It started on a gentle ramp and immediately dropped into a very steep chute with tight berms, which was ok I can ride this. The next section steepened more into axle deep mud on rounded rocks and was horrible! It was rideable but I felt that I’d only just got through by the skin of my teeth. Next a few more steep chutes and berms, but with more rock under the wheels. Then a flat section which pitched almost vertical downward on a large flat slab of rock with various wheel sized holes and fissures and only a narrow line through. I baulked at this and stopped to look for the way through. At this point Gary came through and rode straight down it! Well done Gary, I immediately followed his line. The rest of the course was steep chutes and berms, all very nice and doable, culminating in a couple of the classic grassy switchbacks with a floaty jump into the arena. Just like on the telly, except there was no one sitting in an inflatable chair and I didn’t skid into the barriers, a la Stephen Peat I’d enjoyed most of the course, it was just the muddy section and the rocky slab that had scared me. I felt that I’d been lucky to get through these sections. And so, hoping my luck would hold, I went straight back to the télécabine and up for another try. The mud and the slab were no easier, though the rest of the course was very nice. At the bottom I saw Barrie, who was pretty shaken up, he said that he’d lost it on the muddy section on his first run. I asked if he wanted to come up with me for another run, but he didn’t. He had the look in his eyes. I knew I had the same look. The ‘Oh my God, I’m in at the deep end and my feet don’t touch the bottom’. Which surprised me as he is the downhiller of the group. I set off for a third run, thinking that I had a mere thimble full of luck left. This time I set off with a group of riders. At the mud (la boue) section the guy in front of me flicked left and rode the rock wall and dropped in at the tail end of the mud section, I followed suit and cleared most of it. Wahey, I think I just traded some luck for skill J On the next sections I moved out to let a few of the faster guys pass on the inside. At the top of the slab we all skidded to a halt and I heard someone shouting chute, chute! At the bottom I could see them picking up and dusting someone off. After a good few minutes the marshal started to wave us through one at a time. As the guy in front was just leaving the slab the marshal waved me through, I popped onto the slab and at that moment the guy at the bottom went over the bars. The marshal screamed at me to stop, but it was too late I was on the slab. I could see him lying across the exit, at this point slomo kicked in and time stopped! I tried to track stand but the bike just moved forward with both wheels locked. So, nothing for it but to try to bunny hop him. I remember hearing my self shouting ‘Coming through!’ and wondering what it would be in French? This motivated the marshal at the bottom, who was suddenly aware that I was on the slab. He grabbed the fallen rider and dragged him to the side as I was lofting the front wheel off the rock step at the end of the slab. Then slomo kicked out and the sound came back on. At the bottom I spotted Gary and Barrie, Gary was holding his shoulder. Oh dear. He’d gone over the bars on the slab and landed on his shoulder. I now realise that Gary must have been the original chute at the top. A quick examination of the shoulder showed a grade one subluxation of his right acromio clavicular joint. We started treatment immediately with cold water and anti-inflammatories. The bike was also fubared, with a broken hose. Practice over. The guys at French Hope were very helpful and would have fixed the brake, but couldn’t let us have any fluid. Barrie took the chance to buy some parts that he’d forgotten. Back at the car Barrie immediately started to bad mouth them for not having enough brake fluid!
We decided to go back to Alpe Duez to do the first part of the qualifying course and the second part of the mega for the afternoon. The upper part of the Q course was incredibly rocky and in places didn’t seem to be a course at all! I could see a few areas where I would be walking and where others would crash. The plan was to turn back to the Alpe Duez station and do parts of the mega, but at the top Barrie followed the signs for the rest of the Q, this took us into the next valley. A quick look skyward showed no sign of cable car wires. I stopped Gary to point this out, but we could do nothing but follow, if he crashed somewhere whilst alone….etc
This section was classic alps xc riding tight rooty hairpins leading into off camber wooded sections. We took this very steady because of Gary’s injury. Though Barrie didn't want to wait.
At the bottom, we met some other guys and I recognised that we were on the road to Oz en Oisons, a couple of km’s climbing would take us to the télécabine station. Excellent if it was open! It was now well over 30’C and the road was open to the sun. I decided not to hang around in the sun and set out to the top. I caught a guy at the front and we rode together for a while until it got windy, when he sat on my wheel. I sat and spun a low gear, a 35lb bike and five inches of travel discouraged any mashing. I saved a bit for the sprint, but as I approached the top a quick check and he was off the back. The télécabine passed over the DH course we’d ridden earlier, it was now bone dry. I called Gary to tell them where to get off. At the top I waited for 20 minutes when I realised that the télécabine had stopped running, they’d missed the last one. I took the opportunity to ride the twisty 4X track to the Alpe Duez station, where I met Roger, Gary’s friend. Gary had called and asked him to go and pick them up. Gary’s car was here, but Gary had the keys in Os. As our campsite was at the bottom of the road to Alpe Duez I jumped at the chance to ride down the famous hairpins. I rode back up in the camper with Roger to pick up the others. Then they went up Alpe Duez to get the car, then Roger came back, Gary had left the key in his bag.

09 July.

The plan today was to ride down from Pic Blanc at 3330 hm to Alpe Duez station. This is the first part of the Megavalanche. At Alpe Duez we unloaded the bikes and Barrie and Gary had a smoke, I took this opportunity to catch the télécabine to the next station and ride down the 4x course. They were just finishing when I got back. The trip to Pic Blanc took two télécabine rides. The second seemed full when we got there but the attendant pushed everyone closer together and squeezed us in. No one seemed to mind that we had three huge bikes with us. The first three km’s is deep snow and very steep, great fun! On the steepest section, I fell and slid for 400 metres on my backside, I remembered to hold onto my bike with one hand! I got some good pictures of Gary tumbling down the deep snow.After the snow came some fantastic rocky singletrack with a huge drop to the left. Here Gary began to suffer with his shoulder and had to ease considerably. Barrie was struggling a lot on this terrain. After a couple of km’s of this fast rocky stuff, a guy came flying past me, his back wheel fishtailing all over the place. At the next bend I see him climbing back onto the course! I ease and wave him on, I don’t want him behind me . He disappears in a cloud of dust. At the next bend I see him overshoot the course and go off the cliff edge. I stop and look over, fearing the worst. Looking down I see that he’s suspended in the ski netting tangled and wriggling like a fly in a spiders web. I ask if he’s ok, and he pushes a hand through the net, shakes my hand and says ‘Hi I’m Chris’ I laugh and drag him up and untangle his bike. And he’s off again like a loon. Barrie passes me here and says that Gary says push to on. I remount and pass Barrie as he struggles with a rocky drop off. The trail then drops into Alpe Duez via a fast swoopy dirt singletrack. Gary crashes and is in pain, so walks back. Barrie says he went off a drop so hard that he blew his 8'' travel forks. I ride straight to the télécabine and ride up to the next station to have one more go of the 4x track. It's dried out a lot and is a bit lose on the corners. Barrie wants another go of the 4x so we go up again. Barrie takes the lead and I settle in behind keeping it nice and steady. On the first jump, he comes down a bit hard and squirrels about a bit. I ease back a bit to give me some space if he goes down. No need though as he goes straight off the next bend into the rough. :-) 10 July Today we decided to ride the second half of the Mega. Gary choose to sit this one out to rest the shoulder for race day. From Alpe Duez the track climbs and then undulates. Now I realise how much I am on the wrong bike. I hang on for Barrie here, he doesn‘t like the undulating nature of the course. We stop a bit longer for him to get his breath back. He goes through as the track turns into the woods and pitches downward with some fantastically tight hairpin bends. Barrie’s technique is quite different to mine. He tends to cut the inside line of the corner, where I swing high. This is fortunate as at the next bend Barrie goes over the bars and I swing high to miss him. I stop to let him come by again, after a couple more hairpins he suddenly brakes hard and stops. There is a large almost vertical bermed hairpin. I shout as I come up to him ‘Go on’ He pulls over and shouts ‘You do it then!’ I squeeze past and see that the exit is a straight run out so as scary as it looks it actually fine,I wait while Barrie walks it. The rest of the ride is great woodsy singletrack with some muddy bits and some stream crossings. We came out in Allemont just below the dam. Note: I had been unable to select granny today, very annoying indeed. A quick look at the bike showed that the gear cable was jamming behind the front mech. How could this happen? A the day before, Barrie had asked me if the bike was ok. I said yes, but the big ring was a little bit hard to select. He said ‘I have a look at that for you’ I said ‘no need it’s fine‘. Some time later I saw him with my bike on the stand! I had a look at the front mech to see why I couldn’t select granny. Barrie had zip tied the front gear cable behind the rear mech and it was stopping the mech front extending fully. Mega Qualifying: My start was 10.00 am Gary was 10.40 am Barrie was 12.00 am A nice early start, I was at the depart 2800 m by 8.55 ! And it was freezing, It was almost like starting a race on Everest, with snow all around, the wind whistling through the race inflatables and everyone dressed in brightly coloured wind proofs. I chatted with a couple of guys from Cornwall and one of them, Vinny, was originally from Redhill! The start dropped into a series of loose hairpins on a loose fire/access type road. I was in the third row and within metres people were overtaking and crashing. I took it quite steady, not wanting to go down on the rocky stuff. I saw the first puncture after 50 metres. Next we dropped of the rocks into snow. The next second my front wheel dropped into a deep rut and I ‘supermanned’ over the bars into the snow, just as the helicopter passed overhead. There were people and bikes all over the snow, so I ran and remounted on the rocky section. The next section was the bit I was most worried about, but it was no problem as everyone was walking anyway. On the rocky singletrack I was riding ok, not too fast but riding the stuff we hadn’t ridden when previously trying out this area. I began to think that I may get a good time, as I was still in the main front group. Then I went a little bit wide on one bend and had to brake, the guy behind me had nowhere to go and cut inside shouting ‘sorry mate’ . He clipped me and I put my right foot down. A searing pain shot through my knee and I heard myself scream. My knee collapsed and I rolled off the side of the trail dropping a couple of metres onto the rocks. I couldn’t stop myself screaming out whilst I tried to examine the knee. Then I could here myself shouting ‘I’m out, I’m out!’ after a few minutes I tried to stand but the leg kept collapsing at full extension. I dragged the bike up to the trail and decided to roll down before the next wave came through. With the knee flexed, because of the low downhill set up, I could pedal without too much pain. It seemed to be only at full extension when stabilising. The next section was open narrow singletrack so I pressed on. I felt that as long I stayed clipped in I’d be fine. I was at the back of the field now, but started to reel a few people in as this was the only climb and rolling section. The rest of the course was fast steep hairpins through the woods. I pulled back a few places here, because it’s like the North DownsJ. I moved over to let two very fast guys through on the inside of a couple of the berms, I guessed the must have been from the following group. I stepped off the bike to be reminded of the knee and yelled involuntarily. I got an ice pack from the medics and rolled down to the lake to meet Roger. I had assumed it was my lateral collateral and meniscus, but I have no tenderness on palpation of the joint margin or ligament itself. I articulated the tib/fib joint and found the pain :-o Later Gary rolled up absolutely ecstatic he'd loved it and was still whooping! Barrie rolled up in a similar state saying he'd done the best ride of his life....hurrah! I must admit I'd enjoyed the course in spite of my leg. 12 July Failed! Not of us qualified for the Mega, not even the Promo, by a loooong way J Mark Spratt just missed qualifying by one place! But managed a place in the Promo. Those who fail to qualify can do the Mega Affinity, which is a timed ride down starting any time after the main event and before 11.00 am. The Mega affinity We awake to loud thunder and rain and the mountains shrouded in cloud. We rocked up to Alpe Duez only to find the upper part of the Mega Avalanche had been cancelled, and would start from the same place as the previous day’s qualifier. So no snow! For me the mega is about the snow, most of the pictures and video show this feature. The mega is riding down the glacier! I am very disappointed to say the least. The mega is stolen away from me. I won’t be doing the Megavalanche after almost a year of looking forward to it. As we get into the second télécabine I say hi to a chap I recognise from somewhere. And he says hi back. Then I realise it’s Mikey Blue eyes, who we used to ride with in Dorking. We chat on the way up and he’s a lot more into the down hilling stuff now. At the top everything is being packed away and we’re only just in time. I roll away not really feeling like it and watch the others accelerate away. After the top rocky section as yesterday, the track turns onto one of the xc sections of the tourist rides into Alpe Duez. Here it passes through and over to the same lower wood section that is part of the Megavalanche route that me and Barrie 'rode' a couple of days ago. It starts off with a couple of short sharp climbs. On the first one I change down to granny and the chain throws straight onto the bottom bracket and wraps around. I get off and have to replace it by hand. This happens twice more, at one point I have to turn the bike over and kick the chain out, and I’m furious. The rest of the course is descending now. I think it can’t be the end already, the woody stuff is fun and greasy. I roll down here and start picking people up. I end up behind Mikey and sit with him as he’s always been a smooth rider. Part way he slips on one of the greasy roots, and I roll past on the inside. At the muddy stream I see Gary resting his shoulder, I’m surprised to see him and I’d assumed he and Barry must have finished a long time before. The last berm opens up onto large muddy drop. I try to get off and end up going down head first and sliding on my arm protection. It works! My computer says 20km., 1 hour 24 minutes. Less than half of the distance of the proper Megavalanche! I have a look at my front mech and find the stops screwed fully. Wtf! I can only assume that because Barrie zip tied the cable behind the front mech he’d then used up all of the adjustment trying to get the front mech to work. And now the mech was throwing the chain fully inboard. Although I understand the reasons for cancelling the event, I‘m very disappointed and have nothing to pat myself on the back about. Epilogue: the mega is a great event, but I think it’s more of an event where I would turn up perhaps a day before and ride it. To me it’s just a raid, a big one, but just a raid, and no different to half a day in the Trans Alp. I enjoyed the riding but after a few days I got bored of the lack of structure and the mega became the focus and eventual liberation, part of my reason for the huge disappointment For the downhill types, there are lifts to everywhere and the chance ‘session‘ the routes, and get a ‘good’ time. The mega sprint is a different matter, this was an out and out downhill course. The fact that I managed three runs impressed Mikey Blue Eyes, as he said once was enough for him. The area is great for road biking and cross country too. If I did return, then I’d want to put in a time up the hairpins of the Alpe Duez. The trails are all cross country ride able, maybe taken a little slower. Gary and Barrie can't wait for next year. Gary is a natural for this sort of riding. With his background of off road motorbikes, he's fearless and an all round nice geezer. Barrie! I had been warned about Barrie, his grasp on the difference between reality and fiction being somewhat tenuous. BS being the most used phrase :-) What I wasn't prepared for was that he is a complete Walter Mitty By the end of the trip I had come to the conclusion that, if anything he said about himself was remotely true, it was so distorted by exaggeration that the truth was utterly inconsequential. At first this is laughable, after a couple of days it becomes unbearable. Even the guys in the tent next to the chalet were dreading his visits :-) I finally snapped when he got out of the car on the return to my house and urinated in the hedge at the end of the road.

Le Grand Traversée du Limousin

2008-05-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Grand Traversee de Limousin adventure May 2008
It’s Tuesday morning and we set off for Dover in Paul’s shiny new van, a Mercedes Vito in subtle fire-engine red with yellow flashes and writing and orange flashing warning lights. An accident on the M25 diverts us slightly then a road closure at Folkstone alters our route and it’s raining steadily but we get to the docks in good time. Just as well as we follow the ferry signs to the wrong terminal and are provided with an owl sticker to get back through customs ‘twit, who?’! At the western docks we find our sea bat and a shop in which to stock up on all our driving abroad goodies which Paul promptly ignores to fit to the van. Manoeuvring into the vessel is interesting as the van has a 4 feet long CB aerial that rattles against the roof like the dodgems. The crossing is remarkably smooth given that the weather isn’t that good and we disembark at Boulougne at 1pm. It’s straight onto the peáge and follow the coast line south-west to Rouens where we stock up on food and diesel at an Intermarché. Back on the toll road towards Tours, the rain is coming in torrential bursts that even the speediest windscreen wiper setting can’t clear. After leaving the motorway we pass through a couple of small villages, one with some good examples of troglodyte houses, to find my friend Pascal’s house. It’s at the end of a small lane next to a forest and is a superb exhibit of 60’s e-bay art deco chic, absolutely immaculate. Over the years of knowing Pascal I’ve heard of every drop of blood sweat and tears he’s spent on this project and was fascinated to actually see it. Pascal is highly amused by our van especially as we now see that the flashing rear lights have been on for some time! He is quite the bonne viveur and convivial host, feeding us with a fantastic taboulet, asparagus and pineapple. We sleep well and awake to yet more grey skies and rain. We plan to head to Limoges but en route get side tracked to a little village museum that Raymond has been told about – Oradour-sur-Glane, a French village that the retreating German army ransacked. SS troops massacred the 635 villagers and used flame throwers to raise the buildings to the ground, it’s been kept as a reminder of the atrocities of war and is both horrific, eerie and fascinating. The weather has turned from rain to glorious sunshine and we continue to St Leonard’s, a town just east of Limoges where a friend of Paul’s has a house. We pull up in front of an enormous ancient dilapidated French townhouse. We tentatively go inside; it’s definitely a work in progress, ‘progress’ in the loosest sense of the word. We are due to meet Julie and KB here tonight, they have flown independently to Lyons and are making their way over, and while we’re waiting we go shopping and start tea. Later they arrive, take one look at the place and decide to move on to a hotel – it’s that kind of place. Unfortunately, as the food was started, the same idea didn’t occur to me.

Stage one – Nantiat to Bénévent 74km in 5:35 After a disturbed night in which every rustle was a rat, we wake and load the van and set off to the sign on village of Chataluz. This will be the eventual finish in three days time. It is misty with a fine drizzle and we arrive an hour or so later. We are directed to park in a field adjoining a lake with a hut that houses the registration. Here we hand in our self endorsed medical certificates and sign on the dotted line. This event is unique in that you can either enter the three days as a race or individual days as a randoneur. The race is solo but, as an additional category, you can nominate four riders to be in a team with the fastest three times counted. KB and Julie are already here and entered, and Raymond, Paul, KB and I enter as a team, Julie declines as she reckons she’ll be slow, I think she just wants the chance to collect wildlife and hunt for truffles as she’s riding alongJ In a white van further down the field Raymond spots Stratobiker, aka Steve Bennett, the guy responsible for us being here after Raymond stumbling upon his excellent blog ‘Stratobiker’, riding with him are his brother Andy and a friend Dave in the colours of Team Pearce and we are all introduced. The trucks to take our bikes and luggage to the starting village of Nantiat are here so we organise what stuff we have to take and load up, in other races we are limited to one bag but here they take anything, people are loading up mattresses, chairs, one even had a chaise-longue! We are then treated to a snack of bread, ham and pasta which the locals are tucking into with gusto. At 11.30 we are herded into a couple of coaches and taken on an hour and a half trip to Nantiat. At the local playing field there is a mass of cyclists as many of the ‘one dayers’ have driven directly here. As we disgorge from the bus a girl catches Raymond’s eye, after hesitating he asks whether she’s Carla, Steve’s wife and authoress of another absorbing blog ‘Limousin Life’, indeed she is and she wishes us well. It’s now almost 1pm and I’ve rather gone of the idea of cycling for the day, also it’s still grey, chilly and drizzly, not the most inviting for a bike ride. We congregate for the start and try to decipher some of the pre race briefing which is all conducted in excitable fast French, none the wiser we just follow the leaders as they set off behind the motorbikes for a neutralised 2 km down the road before turning off onto fire tracks. The next 72km are a bit of a blur, a complete sensory overload and assault on body and mind. I reckon maybe 2km was tarmac, the rest totally off-road ranging from short sections of fast double track to exquisite single-track and no flat bits, just up and down, up and down. The weather is still damp and the previous few days’ downpours have left huge swathes of muddy trails which fishtail your bike and sap every ounce of your concentration. The course is so full on that it is difficult to find an opportunity to eat and after a couple of hours I’m beginning to fade, this is most noticeable in my deterioration at negotiating the muddy sections and the exponential increase in blasphemous utterings and insistence that I AM NEVER, EVER DOING ONE OF THESE AGAIN! My hatred is aimed squarely at Raymond for getting me here in the first place with a little left for Stratobiker for giving him the idea! I curse and mutter my way onwards for another couple of hours. Much later, in the midst of a particularly vile muddy patch Raymond loses his front wheel, steps to balance himself and cracks his knee on his fork, the obscenities ring out, echoing far and wide. I sheepishly find some extra determination from this and the last few kms quickly pass and we drop into Bénévent which reserves a final sharp kick up to the village square and the finish line. We are both absolutely shagged and I rue all those weekends lying in bed when I should have been out training, rain or no rain! We find the hall that we’re sleeping in tonight and try to leave our bikes in the Parc Ferme but the lady overseeing it demands that we wash them, we try to tell her that we never wash our bikes during races, it’s unlucky, but she’s having none of it so, disgruntled, we return to the bike wash after which she admits our bikes with a radiant smile. It’s then time to wash ourselves and get fed. This is where the French excel. We sit and are served a three course meal, salad and bread for starters, steak, pasta and lentils for main course and cake for dessert all washed down with copious amounts of water and red wine. Fantastic! Satiated we retire to our sleeping bags and await the next day’s trial.

Stage Two: Bénévent – Gueret After a fitful night’s sleep it’s up at 7.00am and breakfast of cereal, yoghurt and endless amounts of bread. The sky is shot through with black and grey clouds but it looks like they’re fighting a losing battle with the blue expanse. We wear slightly less than yesterday in anticipation. Our gear is loaded onto the waiting truck and at 10.00am we are herded into some semblance of a group and talked at in French. My ‘O’ level francais is rather rusty but today I do recognise a few words. The motorbikes rev their engines and we’re off on a 2.5km neutralised section through the back streets of Bénévent into the central square where we stop. Above us on the village ramparts are the local press and event photographers and we pose en masse. The route is immediately off road on cart tracks and follows in much the same vein as yesterday albeit with a few splashes of asphalt that are long enough for you to get half a bar or a gel down your throat. The sun is shining and locals are chatting to their neighbours over their garden walls, pausing to wave and shout ‘allez’, ‘c’est dur’ et ‘bon courage’ at us. We wind our way through fields, splash through puddles of varying depth, squelch through mud of varying consistency, clamber up short, steep, boulder strewn climbs and fly down short, sharp, rutted descents. Today I have unearthed my ‘roid blocks and together with actually having the opportunity to eat am feeling much better, far fewer race hate moments and less temper tantrums. I have also come to accept the fact that I’m going to get a wet, muddy backside and stop fannying about in the mud so much – just ride the bloody stuff! I even catch up with the 2nd place girl on some lovely twisty single-track at the top of one of the last climbs but lose her again on the rooty, mulchy descent into the outskirts of Gueret. We cross the finish line in just over 4½ hours. Tonight we are based in a gym and Paul has grabbed us some gym mats to cushion our aged bones. After washing our bikes and taking a hot shower all we need to make life complete is a cold Coke and a strong coffee. Our prayers are answered as a press conference has been arranged for us foreigners and we are ushered into the bar and plied with drinks in exchange for answering questions about the race. Fortunately the Belgians get most of the attention as they don’t need a translator, we only have to answer a couple and KB gets to tackle the rest, this he does with consummate ease and professionalism. Tonight we are fed with mounds of taboulet, a chicken/turkey stew with mashed potatoes and the obligatory cakes with custard, washed down with water and red wine. All this, in a cordoned off portion of a sports hall, in the other half of which locals are playing tennis completely unfazed by our presence. It’s an early ‘lights-out’ tonight ready for an early start tomorrow and by 10pm it’s all snores and farts.

Stage Three: Gueret – Chataluz Breakfast is served at the ungodly hour of 5.30am in readiness for an 8.00am start. We go through our morning packing rituals, load our stuff on the trucks, collect our bikes and go to see how much of the race briefing we can decipher today, 25 years of dust and cobwebs are being slowly blown off my language neurons and a few more words are comprehended. The start is neutralised for 3km as we wend our way into town. We stop, things are said, we go. It is a beautiful day and getting decidedly hot. Julie, Raymond and I ride together, enjoying the scenery and ponder how it looks ‘just like Dorking’ with lush green field, dandelions, campions and bluebells. The sun is drying the trails leaving thick mud rather than watery ooze that requires some effort to get through, we don’t escape the joys of getting drenched though as the trail skirts the lakes and deteriorates into streams in some places and puddles of indeterminable deepness in others. The trick when approaching these is to have some unfortunate in front of you so that they can plough in and discover whether the puddle is only an inch or so deep and navigable or not. A happy chappy dressed in full Bettini – esque world champion white top and shorts passes us and heads for one such puddle and promptly disappears up to his waist. He yells, dismounts and steps over a branch to another puddle to his left and promptly sinks again! – we decide to go rightJ Other obstacles today include a mini waterfall as a lake we have just traversed on narrow single-track, plunges down to a lower level and the one obligatory hike-a-bike section up a slimy dirt gully. Perched here is a guy taking photos. As I struggle to get a foothold I screech that’s it’s too slippery, the man, repeating me, agrees. Raymond shouts at me to swap sides, the man says the same, then Raymond yells to pass my bike up and the man echoes his sentiments, parrot fashion – surreal! Julie is finding her legs today and puts a couple of hard digs in. Towards the end we climb up to a rocky outcrop on which stands a fine statue, a man is parked close by and we ask who it is, he answers ‘notre dame’ . We are delighted to find the trail leads up to the monument so we can get a better look, then we are bemused as the trail clambers right up to the base, throws in a couple of bomb holes and passes at the feet of Mary who just gives us a benign gaze. A rare big ring blast takes us across the last few fields and drops us into the finishing village and we recognise the lake where we left the van. A final kick and we cross the finish line in unison. We go back to shake the organisers hand and thank him for such an enjoyable race – yep, already the grumpy ‘never doing one of these again’ vibes are evaporating!
We scoot off to find the hose pipes and wash our trusty steeds down – this is becoming a habit – and load them into the van. Then it’s a quick shower and we begin to walk to the after race knees up venue, we thumb a lift off one of the orga guys and meet up with Stratobiker, Andy and Dave. Another continuous stream of food is presented, taboulet, pasta, lentils, steak, cake, wine. Finally the presentations, firstly for the stage then overall where I have come 3rd and take to the podium to collect a cup, a bag of goodies (wine, bread, sausage, cake and jam) and a bouquet. I smile a lot and say ‘merci’ in my best accent. Stratobiker collects 3rd in the Vets2 category. Then, to our bafflement, all the Equipe Anglais are called up, together with the Equipe Belgique and we are given prizes for being not French! Magnanimous to a fault! Once nearly all the competitors have prizes and good many glasses of vin rouge imbibed we all disperse, we say goodbye to Stratobiker and co, and JD and KB and hit the roads for Limoges. Hot and tired we make a half-hearted attempt to find a central hotel and see the sights but we reach the tourist information just as it closes and settle for an out-of town euro-chain with free wi-fi and very comfortable beds in which we sleep soundly.

Sunday morning we trundle on to Tours, avoiding the motorway and taking the tourist route through rustic villages. At Chatellereaux there is a car boot sale/bric-a-brac market in the town square so we stop for a wander around. Next we head through a troglodyte village and stop again for another fete this time encompassing two villages and the intervening chateau. It’s very hot and we picnic in a shaded spot next to the river in serene surroundings. Moving on to Tours we book into a hotel and set out to explore but Tours is big and we are hot and tired and another comfy bed is calling. I treat Raymond to a hotel breakfast then we hit the road for the last stretch back to Boulogne and the sea bat back to Dover. The Channel is as flat as a millpond and even the Bank Holiday traffic is light once back in Britain so we’re home before 7pm – an excellent trip all round.

Trans Schwarzwald 2007 by RH

2008-03-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Stage 1: Pforzeim - Bad Wildbad

The race begins:

Having just returned from the very tough Ironbike two weeks previously, with Jane not sure of her form and insisting she was going to take it easy. I was prepared for a holiday of cycle touring through the Black Forest.

After a nice 8k of neutralised zone, we stopped and prepared for the race start proper. Go, and everyone got off and walked the first uphill. Once over the top,we with met some fire road where kb kicked off with jd on his wheel. Jane soon responded and I began to yo-yo off the back. At the next fire road climb, Jane took the front and I found my climbing legs to just about hang with her. She'll soon ease up. I thought, she hasn't got the km's in her legs. 4 hours 24 minutes later I'm still hanging on as we cross the line in 5th place of the mixed category. Still she won't be able to do that tomorrow.... We are 25 seconds behind the 4th placed Bad Wildbad team.

Stage 2: Bad Wildbad - Bad Schapbach.

A lesson taught, a lesson learnt:

We get a good start on a steep asphalt track, putting distance into everyone around us. After a bit of up and down with me hanging onto Jane's wheel, I notice her body language change and the pace quicken slightly. This can mean only one thing........another mixed team ahead! They turn out to be the very strong 3rd placed team who put 25 minutes into us yesterday. My idea is to hang on to their wheel as long as we can, Jane has other ideas. And, in the true belligerent style of a young Lance Armstrong attacking 'le Patron'. She launches an attack on the next rise, they immediately respond and after about 10 minutes flat out, we drop back with a bloodied nose ;) and they rocket off into the distance. We'd like to think that we gave them a scare, but in reality I think we amused them :-) This has pushed me into the red and we have to ease a while to recover. On the last climb, a hike section, I hear a female voice. I see one of the mixed teams and JD. Jane puts puts on a spurt and rides the ridiculously muddy technical downhill(that has lots of people over the bars, notably our own Jim :-)) into the arena to finish 4th mixed. 46 seconds in front of Bad Wildbad. We are 4th overall mixed by 21 seconds!

Stage 3: Bad Schapbach - Wolfach

'Apply pressure relentless pressure, no mistakes' - kb

The Bad Wildbad team came past us just after the fist climb today, with JD in tow. She gave us her wheel and pulled us back to them. We rode with them from now on, Markus puting in strong bursts whenever the trail was flat. Jane's descending improved a lot today and in some instances they were holding us up on the way down. At around five km to go Jane began to weaken a little, changes in pace don't suit her very well, and they began to creep away slightly. At two km to go they made their move. As they attacked all out on the last climb I saw Markus jump off his bike and pull at his chain. He'd jammed his chain around the bottom bracket. Pressure applied mistakes made; now we attacked. He saw us coming and picked up his bike and ran. As we passed him Petra was waiting at the top of the last technical descent, he shouted for her to go, go! Toooo late! Jane had spotted this and cut the corner into the downhill, getting in front now she couldn't hold us up. We came out of the descent onto a small road and a few hundred metres to the finish. Jane was gone in a flash and I had to chase hard, we looked at each other and wondered if we should wait for them and ride back together. We settled for offering commiserations once we'd crossed the line ;-)

Stage 4: Wolfach - Schonach

Hitch a lift on the pink train

Today's stage looked to be the stage for us, a nice hilly profile of six km climb to start and an 8km climb in the middle. We now had 90 seconds on our fifth place rivals Bad Wildbad. We decided to ride with them and let them work for it. Somehow we managed to get in front of them on the first climb and just before it became tight singletrack for the next three km, Jane pushed hard to get past a very slow team struggling as the climb steepened. Result!! No one would be able to pass them for 3 km's. We pushed hard now to get some distance on the other paired teams and then cruised the rest of the stage, staying out of the red and taking it easy, and at one point hanging on to the back of the Pink Ladies as they hammered past on a flat bit. In their haste to catch us our rivals took a wrong turn and lost time(suspiciously JD was with them:)

Stage 5: Schonach - Engen

Out on the wiley and windy moors we'd roll and fall in green....' kb

116 km a bad stage for us. Not the distance,but the profile. A pimple at either end with around 40 km of rolling stuff in the middle. This was a stage for the strong riders and flat landers. We expected to lose time on this stage and maybe even 4th place. We got over the first bump well with our rivals nowhere in sight. On the early part of the flat section some of the bigger boys and girls started to pass us. Then Bad Wildbad passed us going very strongly, slosely followed by the mixed swiss team of Max and Birgit. This was the oldest team in the race, and Max is bulit like a horse and sooo strong on the flat. We just had to watch them go. Some time later, Frank and Irina of the Vaude team eased up to our wheel. They waited a minute or two, must have decided that we were having a bad day and attacked. I was very impressed because it was sooooooo slick. Irina came through very fast on the opposite side of the track alone. When we didn't react Frank sprinted past and slotted straight in front of Irina, who hadn't changed pace at all. And they were gone... fabulous! We kept to our plan of damage limitation and rode steadily, begging for the hills to arrive soon.

Stage 6: Engen - Grafenburg

Team tactics - putting a man up the road.

This stage starts with a six km climb, good for us, but at the top of the climb the race is stopped. There is a wild bull on the trail! After ten minutes, the race slowly resumes and we pass the most beautiful fluffy long haired 'teddy cow 'corralled behind an electric fence. This effectively removes any advantage we had just gained on our rivals. We set off hard, knowing that bad Wildbad are close behind. We hold them off until the flat section around the midway point, when they come barrelling past on the otherside of the trail. Jane immediately jumps onto Petra's wheel and tucks in. I take a little while to bridge the gap, Markus is pulling us along at 40 kph! I wonder how long we can hold this,and how long Markus can too. We hit the bottom of the next steep climb at this speed and they slow up dramatically. This catapults us up the climb and we hit it hard. We meet Jim and Paul here and ride the rest of the climb with them. At the top they give us a tow and we start to put some time into Bad Wildbad. At the check point I sprint ahead grab a bottle of water and Jane rides straight through, Paul and Jim stop to eat. Ten minutes later they catch us again and report that they hadn't seen Bad Wildbad. They have though, pulled the Belgian mixed team up to us. We let Paul and Jim go, and ride for a while with the Belgians. We drop them on the last climb of the day and they come in behind us, but in front of Bad Wildbad.

Stage 7: Grafenburg - Niederhof.

float like a butterly...... Mohammed Ali

Our rivals, Bad Wildbad are seen riding up and down the hill at the start. Warming up, for one last ditch attack? No point, Jane is absolutley flying today and I spend the whole stage just hanging on to her wheel! There are two small small glitches: when we take a sharp left hand bend and there's a small patch of gravel in the centre. I see Jane's front wheel slide and then the back. She recovers the slide but must have grabbed a handful of front brake and is almost stationary when the bike endos and pushes her to the ground. She's back up quickly, but has lost a bit of confidence on the next couple of bends. Then a couple of km away from the finish I see Jane wobbling around and looking at her leg. She's been stung by a wasp! We push on and cross the finishing line, where a glass of beer and a finishers tee shirt are thrust into our hands!

Epilogue: A great race in a beautiful part of Germany. Made all the more fantastic by having our own pit babe the lco, who for a plate of frits and a glass of beer looked after us all week. We met some great people, who helped make it a great trip: Team pink ladies and their pit babe, Rolf and Adrian, Markus and Petra, Frank and Irina, Nel and Michel, Rik, Kai, Sebastian....

Raymond

Ironbike Italy

2008-03-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

The big storm closed Gatwick airport at lunch time for a short while, just long enough to stop our flight to Turin. We were given a flight from Heathrow to Paris, and then Paris to Turin the next day(with overnight accomodation thrown in.)Four hours later we arrived at Heathrow, our flight was delayed three hours. So,in Paris after midnight we only had three hours to check in. We slept on the floor. At check in we were charged for excess luggage,Paul disagreed and asked for our luggage to be taken off the plane. So we missed that flight. Five hours later we arrived in Turin and were met by Gianfranco and after a bonkers two hour drive with Gianfranco at times with his specs over his sunglasses to see signs, we arrived at Entracque(pron.Entrakway) the village depart. Gianfranco became a good friend, and was the man to know. He and the chef helped us out a lot.

The prologue itself consisted of ski run into the village. The course was about 1.5 km., with two 30%+ descents on grass! A couple of km's climbing on asphalt to reach the start showed that three hours of sleep is not a good way to start an eight day race :-)

Stage 1 - Entracque to San Damiano

At 80km this was to be a nice introduction to Ironbike.We started on a nice long asphalt descent for 6 km. Then a steep off-road climb which immediately had me in the 22/34 which I didn't change for the whole 8km!!I caught Paul on the first off-road descent, which was unusual. When we hit a descent I normally don't see him again! He said he was having trouble getting used to riding a hardtail. The terrain ensured that over the next few days he relearned the ways of the hardtail:-)On an exposed singletrack section at the top with Paul riding behind me, the helicopter suddenly appeared from behind the mountain in front of us, I think the pilot was enjoying himself in the Apocalypse Now style. He then swooped towards quite closely and as he passed the force from the rotors blew me off the bike. Cue....Bernard Manning style jokes from Paul about me "getting blown off" as he rode past.On the last asphalt climb to the finish I saw a group working together in front so I eased up to them and we worked together for the last few km's. The approach to the town lit up by the low sun was stunning, and the church front glowed golden in it's rays.Campo base here was in a beautiful sunny field and tea was held in the small piazza in town.
Altogether a nice steady ride to introduce the Ironbike. Ride time for me was about 6hrs.24m. Paul was 6.38San Damiano is named after the run down church in Assisi, where St Francis(one of my favourite saints)heard the word of God from the painted cross, telling him to restore God's house. After repairing St Damiano, Francis later realised that God meant him to restore the Church as a whole:-) aww bless... Wiki

Stage 2 - San Damiano to La Condamine

Today we needed lights!!Over the top of the first climb I start to descend some really rough stuff and a couple of hikers start to shout "Bolsa, bolsa and point at me. I stop and remember that bolsa means bag. My under saddle bag is swinging loose only held on by a few threads. As I move off the trail Paul passes, that's the last I'll see of him I think. It takes a couple of minutes to find some way to tie my bag on and I set off. This is a great slightly cambered singletrack and very fast and enjoyable. But, less than five minutes later I see Paul, this time he's in trouble by the trail... I stop.His rear brake rotor has come loose and the bolts are lost. He has two in his hand, I reason that three should hold it and take one of mine from the rear.The trail now enters a huge rockfield with big drops and slabs of slick rock. I overtake team mamiani here and make good time until I find a gap that the front wheel fits perfectly and I go over the bars. I hang back a to see if Paul's ok, he catches up and then sprints past for the finish of the special stage.At the CP luckily there's a mechanic and he has spare rotor bolts for us both, and we set off together. On a long fast asphalt descent, I notice that it's getting quite cold. After crossing a few beautiful bridges and through small tunnels, we head to the next climb.After starting the climb of the Col de Vars, with a group, I find myself with just a Catalunyan guy at the top. We work together on the descent which takes us to Les Claux. Here, I'm a little bit confused as we pull into a cable car station. Senor Catalan explains that we take a car up the mountain!......bonkers, I must have missed this in the briefing. We share, then spend a nice ten minutes talking about why Catalunya is not in Spain:-) We disembark and ride part way back down the mountain to get on a chairlift over the next part of the mountain. Here the nice French operator bloke takes my bike, stands me on the platform, gives me the bike to hold at chest height and points over my shoulder. At that moment a chair swings in behind me and sweeps my legs from underneath me and I'm away up the mountain trying desperately to hold my bike and grip the swinging seat with my buttocks. Once the seat stops rocking about I find I can pass one arm through the frame work of the armrest and relax a bit. At this point Paul passes underneath on his way to the station.At the top the next descent is footpath designated and the race is only allowed to use it if we respect this and don't ride.From the check point at the bottom we climb the 10km col de Parpaillon on wide off-road double track. Then we discover why we need lights, at the summit is the Tunnel de Parpaillon.

Taken from the Internet Landrover Club website: The road was built by the french army's corps of engineers in the late1800's. What makes it special is the high altitude of 2656m and the 800m longtunnel on top. After the invention of tarmac the neighbouring Col de Vars wasgranted a hard surface as it offered access to the same regions at 500m loweraltitude.

We were stopped at the mouth of the Tunnel by French soldiers and given rather fetching and warm looking green quilted jackets. I declined the offer and set off into the dark.....it was freeeeeezing!!!. It was full of huge puddles of crank deep icy water, I was shaking with cold when I eventually got to the other side of the tunnel.Now only an 18km off-road descent of loose gravel hairpins to finish..hurrah! Five km's later I have to stop to rest my hands and feet! And then again...etc. The last few km's are fabulous rocky singletrack switchbacks which drop us into camp.distance - 118kmI came in at 11hrs 15mins and Paul 11.34

From the IB site:As a note: applause to the French tandem team that after the stage was obligedto abandon the race, for a technical problem. They trained so hard! And weredefeated by the brakes (two sets has been changed since the beginning of theIB!).

Stage 3 - La Condamine to Barge

The Bargesi throw a party.

At breakfast it throws it down! It's not looking good as we line up to start in the pouring rain at 7'C, and so 20 riders decide not to start today. The stage started as a long 20 km grey climb that lasted for ever, I met Paul at the CP and where everything suddenly got better. A switch to narrow singletrack with a huge drop to the left and then some stupid steep rocky descents where I was able to overtake lots of people who were walking. Some hikers went past in the opposite direction and I said 'Good morning' and one said "are you English? We're walking to the Med."....bonkers!At the next CP it was blisteringly hot and Paul sat in a van, before we attacked the Col de Longet. A lot of this was a very difficult carry, sometimes climbing and the dragging the bike up after or helping other riders to pull their bikes up. As the col opened out it revealed beautiful lakes and huge grassy prairees. Then up 15 km's to the Colle del Prete and back into Italy for 20 km's of very technical downhill, culminating in some woodsy singletrack to Barge. My feet are sore!!!! Barge is a special town for the Ironbike and the Bargesi put on a special party in our honour. In the large sports hall of today's campo base (pron. bazzay), rows of tables had been laid with bread, wine and water. Center stage was the local crooner singing along to backing tracks. The songs were performed in Italian, but were almost recognisable British pop songs. A few notes would ring a bell and you'd think 'I know this one!' and then it would slip back into a soupy euro schmaltzy croon:-) ...absolutely fabulous!
I retired to bed early to catch up on some sleep. The Bargesi had other ideas. Half an hour later there was a loud bang, the ground shook and the sky lit up! The fireworks!! I'd forgotten about them and they were directly above. I lay, trying to ignore them for a while, but then got paranoid that sparks might set my tent alight.Paul was outside enjoying the spectacle, as were the locals. Who'd lined up chairs in an orderly fashion to sit and watch the show. It looked like a night at the opera as everyone sat, clapped and applauded each individual battery of fireworks. Until the grand finale when everyone cheered to a standing ovation. This seemed to be how it was done. Each time there was a show the locals would sit in a quite restrained manner to be entertained, and then show their appreciation with rousing applause. L'Italia è bella :-)
distance 116 km
Today I took 11.00 and Paul 11.30

Stage 4 - Barge to Torre Pellice

The lost hour.

Today was a later start after last night's celebrations, and consequently everyone felt relaxed and that it was all over bar the shouting. Even when Claudia announced that an hour was being taken off today's limit no one batted an eyelid.At the 9.00 am start it was already very hot and we set off up a baking asphalt climb out of Barge. This first climb was effectively 26 km's and soon moved onto a steep tree covered off road climb that became very dark and humid. Here I found Paul crouched over his bike. I stopped to help, but he said he was ok and I rolled on. After passing colle de Rucas, a renowned ski resort, we topped out on the colleto Super Valanza. The descent was a wide white chalky powdered track into a quarry, with huge lorries full of stone coming in the opposite direction. From the ironbike website:.....From Rucas athletes go up and down the Col Valanza (1530 m) passing on rough streets full of stones falled down from the trucks that work in this area. Infact, in this valley, the famous “stone of Barge” is produced. It is used for pavements and roofs, all over the world. I took a wrong turn here but was called back almost immediately by the riders Paul was with. I only lost about 500m but it took half an hour to get back up to Paul, he was strong today. After some rolling up and down stuff, we suddenly came to an almost vertical climb. Paul shows me how to shoulder the bike and we hike-a-bike to the top. An almost as steep descent follows where Paul goes over the bars on a muddy section. He's ok, so I roll on.At the CP Paul rolls in just as I'm about to leave and says we'd better hurry, there's only four hours to get back.There's a short descent which leads to the climb of the day ,15 km's the rifiugio Barant. The climb began with an impossibly steep asphalt section, I was in 32/34 and standing for the few km's. After five km's the road became a rough double track, now in the sun the temperature was 35'C plus. The road winds up and up, I glue myself to the backwheel of a friendly Italian rider. I ask the time at the top and realise that It's taken three hours and have an hour to cover almost 30 km's , luckily it's all downhill.....according to the map anyway. I need to be back before 6.30pmI have to average 30kph! I set off down the loose gravel off-road hairpinned descent, as fast as I dare go, the bike sliding around all over the place. But, as is always the case in Ironbike the downs are full of ups too! And I now feel time slipping away from me, this starts doing things to me emotionallyAt first I start to feel angry with ironbike for taking an hour off todays time limit and have a bit of a shout at them. Next I'm frustrated with myself for being weak and not training hard enough, so I have a bit of a shout at myself. Then I start to think about all of the people who've wished me well, and I'm consumed with an enormous and overwhelming sense of shame. Shame that I'm out of the race already, shame that I'm not trying hard enough, shame that I'm letting everybody down, shame that everyone's faith in me is being squandered.I think about each person who has wished me well : Jane, LCO, Maam, tios Grim and Beryl, Greg, The mighty D, KB..... Then the weird stuff happens and I start crying, sobbing with tears running down my face. I start to draw a lot of strength from this, then I pray........Is this the road to Damascus?15 km's of asphalt left and I'm flying, big ring and chain fully to the right. I like to think I'm gritting my teeth, but it somehow feels like a beatific grin :-). It's still very close and I cross the finish line and knowing that I'm within a few minutes either side of 6.30. I ask a guy watching the race what the time is and he says 5.27 and I think excellent three minutes inside the time.As I walk away I realise that he said five not six, and I walk back and say six? "No, five" he says.I'm too weirded to work out what has happened, so I get my bag and tent.On the way in I hear "Vegeteriano!" and see Chef waving to me. He's found me some Italiano veggie burgers and gives me a packet. It seems I've become his pet Vegetariano solo- their term for vegan :-) Just another example of how considerate and friendly the IB is.Tonight we camp inside an ice rink and pitch the tents on the concrete base, the other end is set up for tea. I have a little lie down and and Paul comes over and says " Did you make the cut off?" I said. "Yes" And he tells me that he didn't. I then explain that we didn't need to be in until 6.30 and he smiles. We work out that somehow he'd heard we'd got nine hours to finish(which we had after deducting an hour from the original ten hours)and had taken the hour from the nine. So, he thought we'd only got eight hours for the day!After tea I noticed Claudia had posted something on the wall. It was a print out of the messages that friends and family had put on the website. It was wonderful, everybody I been thinking about earlier had sent us both well wishes and luck. Now I had that stupid happy grin again.Later, I wandered the short way into town. Torre Pellice (pron.torray pelleechay) had put on a little show for us in the main piazza. It was about 10pm and a gently warm evening, people were sitting eating gelato, walking arm in arm or just chatting in groups. In the piazza they were sitting in orderly rows, oldsters all in deck chairs watching the show.The show was a middle aged songstress in tight jeans 'giving it large' to trashy europop, ie Born to be alive..etc - with a gaggle of local teen girls doing an enthusiastic synchronised dance routine in the background. Stupendous!!!!
distance 78km
I take 7.57 and Paul 8.26

Stage 5 - Torre Pellice to Pragelato

La Scala Reale (The Royal Stair Case)

We roll out of Torre Pellice on cobbles to start the huge 20km first climb to the colle de Vaccera, then we have a nice technical downhill to follow.Sometime later I find myself on a long steep busy road, when I hear shouting. I look across and on the other side of the river I see three IB riders, somehow I've missed a sign so turn back and find a bridge a km or so down the road. The trail now wanders along the river, occasionally crossing bridges for forays into small hamlets and then back to the river. I pass Jurgen the friendly Austrian fixing a flat and wailing in despair"It voz a nail" he says. "A nail, a nail on ze road, how can zis be?" and as I ride up the road I can still hear "A nail, a nail on ze road.....how?"A little further on I meet Paul, he's in a bad way, so I decide to ride with him. we ride past huge beautiful lakes and gradually the huge fort of Fenestrelle comes into view. Rising up the side of the valley and perched on the top of a pinnacle is a fairy tale style castle. We cross the road, enter the walls and zig zag our way up a steep ramp to the gate. And shoulder the bikes for a wide set of stone steps to the court yard. This is the start of a special stage and has a CP stacked with food, Paul tells me to try the bread and tomato and...........
......today was the day I discovered bruschetta (pron.brooshkettah locally) At home we might call it tomato sandwiches. In Italy it is a devine feast! Ingredients: A hunk of bread, some chopped tomato, some basil, some sunshine, lots of laughing and loads of loud talking! Ridiculously tasty, it made me bend double in delight :-)
We decided to get moving and rolled down to the start of the special stage, as we got there Paul stopped to fiddle with his bike and I set off. Paul came through the start a minute or so later and called up to me. I stopped and waited for him and we hiked and carried the bikes the 4 km or so of steep spiral track that wound it's way around the peak to the top.Now is the bit we've been waiting for, the Scala Reale 900 steps back down to where we started the climb. Initially the steps are rideable and then we move into the fort and so pitch blackness, now the height of the steps starts to vary and some are missing altogether. In the darkest parts volunteers are shining torches. I try to bail out on one of these sections and hit the wall with my shoulder, leaving a lovely manly graze on my right deltoid. Once outside again we ride bits and walk bits, quite disappointed at how much we have to walk. At the bottom Paul nips past to the stage finish.

Meanwhile at the front of the race sometime earlier:from the IB site-Many of them make all steps on the saddle (unbelivable) others, instead, come down with the bike on the shoulder. It’s exactly on one of those external starways that the brazilian rider does not succeed to brake properly. He falls down, careless of the safety protections. He raises immediately after, under the eyes of emergency personnel that was there to take care of him. He starts again and continues with a scratched arm, while the Cezck Sibl Radoslav and his fried Miroslav were behind him, fighting with the steps of the covered stairway.The fall, gives the brasilian a new force, never seen. He assults the steps with increased determination and comes down until he reaches the square at the feet of the fortress. He detaches Sibl of 6 minutes by because of coefficient 2, minutes become 12. Therefor, in the general classement Hugo Prado Neto is always 2nd but with just 25 points of distance from Sibl.

Now it's just a steady 12 km to Pragelato. It's very hot and the steady ride turns out to be a roller coaster of short sharp climbs each higher than the next, followed by cruel sharp descents that steal any height gained. Paul is seriously flagging now and getting slower and slower, I ease back to wait several times. Eventually we reach the outskirts of the town and are joined by a group of Belgian guys, one them of does a bit of a jokey sprint as we approach the finish and because I'm feeling a bit fresh from riding slowly with Paul, I have a bit of a dig too. Great fun.
Tonight's camp is in a pine wood at the edge of town, and we pitch between the trees.I go down to tea, and see Paul and he says I've checked the results and we're still in the race and under 50,000 points. We managed to get some potatoes which is unusual and delicious.I decide to go back to get my gps that I've left charging in the massage room. While I'm there I have look at the results. It's true we are still in the race, but I notice that Paul is now above me in the standings. I assume that they've made a mistake and reversed our finishing times, but can't understand why Paul didn't mention it earlier when he checked the points. At this point Paul and Claus appear and I say 'I think they've mixed us up when we came in today. Paul then explains that it's not only where you come overall but also how fast you do the special stages and today's special stage was double points.I feel that this is crazy , because it feels like I been penalised by the race for helping a mate when he wasn't going to well.I could have ridden back by myself and saved time, in fact I could have pressed on at the fort when he held back at the beginning of the special stage and called up to me, when I waited. Or when I helped with his rotor and he jumped past at the end of the special stage.............er hold on a minute. And the day after the rotor incident when he suddenly jumped ahead over the special stage finish line, which I mentioned at the time and he said "It doesn't make any difference, you started after me". ............mmmm.As I lay in my tent I started laughing to myself when I realised what could have been happening :-)Did he know all along? As I write this I hear a loud and definite shout in reply from those who know Paul....." Of course he did! It's soooooo Paul" ................ But, I'm not sure.Tomorrow is the day I'm looking forward to, we go to Mount Chaberton!

90km
I took 9.26 Paul 9.29

Stage 6 - Pragelato to Mont Chaberton

The Queen stage:

At breakfast it was announced that only the first 50 people reaching the last Check point would race on to Fort Chaberton, where they would spend the night in the ruins.I was bitterly disappointed, my whole reason for the trip was to climb the mountain to Chaberton - the symbol of the whole race to me. I was lying around 65th at the time and felt like pulling out of the race there and then.
But, first we have to be taken to the start of the race, this means a 15 minute freezing cold chair lift to the top of the mountain. This time I accept their kind offer of a warm green quilted jacket. I wear it like a smoking jacket, but for some reason the danish men amongst us snatch this opportunity to wear it as a skirt! I don't know much about Denmark and so must accept this behaviour as normal :-) Here is where I pick up my first real injury of the race. As the chair swings under my legs, the chain ring stabs into my knee cap and draws blood....ouch!
The start of the stage was a fast, and in places, very steep wooded singletrack. I managed to get a good start not far behind the fast boys and was able to hold on through the technical descent. A fast wide trail then ran alongside the river where I could roll a big gear. The next section was an asphalt climb of about eight km's. I attacked this as hard as I could out of the saddle all the way up. Later I spotted Ludmilla and tried to stay with her. Another eight km's or so of off-road double track followed and then some ups and downs, where the air smelled strongly of coriander. I couldn't see any, but it was incredibly strong and and made me feel a little bit giddy with it's pungency......delicious. This led to a sharp peak with antennae on top. This was a hike-a-bike section extreme! I had fitted my ironbike carrying strap (...... patent pending:-)) and used it in anger for the first time.At the CP at the top I saw Benoit, one of the Belgians who bears a striking resemblance to Paul's favourite tdf rider... Vinikourov, tucking into the food. I thought he must be having a bad day as I've never ridden in his company before. I passed through and left him there.The next 14km was a mix of off-road, road and singletrack descent that dropped me into the CP and to my disbelief people are still setting off to Chaberton! I run around trying to find if I can still go and Lana and Andre grab my bike take it to the front and I run to get some food. They and Gianfranco push me over the line with a jam sandwich.

-Lana and Andre were a wonderful dutch couple we met in the food queue on the first night in Entraque. Andre was racing the Ironbike himself, but crashed out quite spectacularly on day two and spent the rest of the week wearing a neck brace and hobbling around on crutches -

My mind is still a blur, as I set off for Chaberton. I made it, then whoops! I nearly go off a loose bend. I get a bit paranoid in case I crash and don't make it. Then a flying thing gets under my helmet strap and stings or bites me, it's very painful and now I start to worry about anaphalaxis preventing me from finishing today :-) It's now very hot as I start the first part of the climb, some locals pass water to me and one woman runs alongside me and tips a full jug of ice cold water over my groin!!! I yell loudly in shock and everybody laughs - it must be how they amuse themselves in the mountains :-)

Mount Chaberton on Google earth here: You need google earth installed on your machine.

From here we head off-road, at first shaded by trees and then opens up to the grey rock of the mountain itself. Soon it's impossible to ride and I start to push, the track becomes narrower and much more rocky and I shoulder the bike using my carrying device. An hour later and I drink the last of my water and I have no food. It is still blisteringly hot. I assume that there will be water on the trail somewhere, but I can't see anything as I look up the mountain - only the track winding on for ever. For the next two hours I carry the bike, occasionally getting a chance to push it on the smoother sections. I'm beginning to feel quite thirsty and dizzy from hunger. Now the mountain rears up quite steeply and as I look up, I see a figure walking quite sprightly down the trail. I say hello and he says. " I am hiking to Cesana. I have told them to send water down, everyone has been asking for water. Do you have water?" I say I have no food or water. He replies " I have no water, but I have some biscuits." And before I can protest he hands me half a dozen. I thank him, put them into my pack and press on. Now is the real test. I'm a vegan, but are the biscuits? I'm feeling very hungry and quite dizzy from the low blood sugar. I decide that I can't be sure if the biscuits are safe for me to eat. I look to see if my friendly benefactor is nearby, he's not. I cast the biscuits down the mountain, so that they can't tempt me anymore. I rationalise this by telling myself that "I'm hungry, but not starving" In my addled state I start to think it was a test, the IB is testing me to see if I am strong enough. "Yes, that's it, it was a test" I say to myself......... "Get thee behind me Satan, begone!" ........ :-)

An hour later, I'm three hairpin bends from the finish and breathing is a little more difficult at over three thousand metres of altitude. I carry the bike for 30 steps and rest, 30 steps and rest....... until the top hoves into view and I see the finish line, I stagger across and they write down my number and that's it! No cheers, no fanfare just my rasping breath. I see a bottle of water on the table, take it and down it in one. All around people are lying around in the warm rays of the evening sun, all wearing red fleece jackets, black fleece leggings and white hats. Claudia grabs me and drags me into the ruined building and I am surprised to be walking in six inches of snow! And it's cold, freezing cold, I immediately begin to chill and shake. Claudia hands me a bundle of clothing and shows me to my bed in the snow. I rush outside to get some heat and get changed.

I find my bag that had been sent up - we had to hand in a small bag at registration, containing riding kit for the day after Chaberton - in it I had stashed two energy bars and packet of noodles. Once I'd devoured these, I started to feel a bit better and thought I'd better get a few photographs. I sat on the peak and asked Heinrich to take my picture, an oldish distinguished looking guy moved up next to me and smiled to the camera.
I didn't know who this chap was but found this later on the IB website:
Turin Major Chiamparino climbed the Mountain by feet, in the morning,and wasthere to plause the first to come. He was together with the majors ofClavière,Cesana and Montgenèvre.
Politicians!..... never miss a photo opportunity:-)
I sit on the edge of the mountain and phone Jane in Ibiza, it sounds like she's a few feet away. Tentatively, she says. "Did you get up the mountain?" I say."yes". I hear Yaaaaaaaaaay! and then Yaaaaaaaaaay! in the background, it's LCO on the extension. After several euros worth of yaaaaaays(it's expensive to call Ibiza from Italy), Jane confesses that they'd been practising commiseration platitudes all day. Such as: Never mind I'm sure you tried your best, There's always next time.......etc. So I guess I must have caught them unprepared :-)
As the sun sets it begins to get very cold, someone lights a huge bonfire and warms up an equally huge vat of red wine. We tuck into some pasta..........siempre pasta!

The sky was so clear that you could see a billion stars.

Trans Wales 2007 by PF

2008-03-17T06:06:00.000-07:00

And so on Saturday 12 August 2006 I headed for Wales with Julie M Dinsdale.
What's the M for? It's the road we took to get to Wales.

We were doing a mountain bike event that started the next day.
There were long rides every day that weren't timed but had to be completed within time limits.
On four out of the seven days there was also a time trial which was timed.
Are you following this?
And we would have to camp. This meant putting up a tent every night and taking it down and packing every morning. The food would all be provided.
And in the morning I feasted on a bowl of baked beans, two bowls of porridge & peaches and a bowl of tinned grapefruit.
For those that wanted it there was bacon or sausages.
Anyway we set off the next morning heading north from Builth Wells. There was of course a strong northerly wind.
How annoying was it?
Imagine someone sat opposite you in the pub and just blowing in your face all evening.
Still, it's better than someone blowing off in your face.
It was all on trails I had never ridden before and we were extremely rural.
The trails were excellent. Even the river crossings. I'm second from the right.
We had two bread roll sandwiches for lunch and a cereal bar. I also ate three bananas and a bar of my own.
I arrived back within two hours of the time limit so set up tent then a shower in a trailer in a field. I then started on the snacks I'd bought with me. A bowl of cereal then a scoop of mixed nuts, raisins and prunes.
I then walked up to get some water and passed the finish as I returned to my tent.

As I did a girl crossed over the finish. She got off her bike muddy but not filthy. She started to walk and took her helmet off. She took her hair pin out, ruffled her hair and this long thick stream of red hair cascaded around her. And the glamourous woman headed towards the tents. It was like watching Clark Kent go into a telephone box and Superman come out. Unfortunately she wasn't very tall otherwise I would have been besotted.

Anyway it was nearly time for tea and I was starving.

The toilets were about 400m away, which is a long way to go in the night. Fortunately we had camped by a bush. All that effort and I didn't even need to go in the night.

Breakfast was at 6.00am and I was eating porridge by 6.30. By 6.35 I was onto my second bowl when I looked up. The glamourous redhead was sat at one of the tables with a cafetiere (one of those things you push down on to get real coffee).
Now that's what I call camp style. Get your priorities.

Anyway. This morning was the first time trial. Or 'special stage' as they were called.
We went off individually every 30 seconds in numerical order. As number 216 (it went up to 240) I had a long wait before it was my turn. And I don't mean barbells, they're more heavy weights than long.

But my turn came and I set off. 16km. Up hill for 7km, across the top of the hill for a kilometre then down for most of the rest. I caught the man in front within a minute. In all I passed five people. But two came past me, numbers 224 and 226. They were second and first respectively. I was 13th (in category).
Then it was time for a snack before we did the un-timed time limit stage. We finished in Machynlleth.
It's in Wales. Apparently it was once the capital. Anyway we were camping on the rugby pitch. This meant that the guys who came to do rugby training had to do it on the football pitch. I imagined the footballers were on the campsite.
My god. The redhead's tent was a large four person one. With a pattern on it. Flower silhouettes all over it. I was sharing a two man tent.
Just why didn't I know we would have room to carry so much stuff.
Anyway. There was a pub in town and this was the last we would see all week. So after fish and chips Andy, Julie, Graeme and I had a couple of drinks (each!) in the beer garden.
Then we went back to the campsite for the race food.
There were some Italians in the race and now they were all parading around the campsite on the way back from the showers in bathrobes. Classic Italian cut stripey pattern bathrobes.
I thought I had come to a bike race but somehow seem to have ended up in a lifestyle show.
I've even forgotten my best cycling sunglasses.

Tonight I was glad I'd pitched the tent near a bush. It must have been the beer.

The official toilets for the rugby club had no light in them. Fortunately the ones in the car park were a big secret and only cost 10p. No queues and natural light. Well worth it and a bargain as the man who collects the money wasn't there at 6.00 in the morning.
Yes, by now we had gotten into the swing of early rises.

Anyway. It was a hilly ride today. Again. But something new today. It rained. Nothing unusual about that especially in Wales. No, but when we started the race Wales was actually on drought alert and they hadn't had rain for 8 weeks. And now it starts.
But it was only a contiously heavy shower and was all over before I got back to camp. I started putting tents up when low and behold it started raining again. Very heavily. I put my waterproof overtrousers on and was envied by all I knew.
It did stop raining again which was fortunate as we had to go out and race in the dark.

Yes, we had a night time time trial around the trails of Coed-y-Brenin. We were going off in quickest time order. This meant fastest first. I would be one of the earlier ones to go. Still, there were enough people in front of me to ride past a few with mechanicals. At least four punctures and what looked like a broken chain. The fellow patting the grass around him as he looked for bits he'd only just put down.
I was more concerned about finishing and rode conservatively as a result. Especially on the tight, twisty and bumpy course where I would sometimes have to stop dead and track stand whilst turning the bars frantically to look for the direction of the trail. The only light I had was on my bars so I could only see in the direction they were pointing. Going over drop-offs I just had to react to whatever was on the other side. Anyone who remotely knew the trails had a distinct advantage in knowing what to expect.
Towards the end I was passing people who were running due to mechanicals.

But I finished in one piece and headed back to the campsite for a shower. At 11.40pm I got into bed and set the alarm for 6.30am - I wanted a bit of a lie in after the late night.

zzzzzzzzz

We set off in a misty damp morning. The first section was part of the Coed-y-Brenin trails. Miles of gnarly singletrack. The signposting could have been more frequent but I made it through. A girl in front of me crashed at one point. She was fine but at the next technical bit she tried to put the brake on only to discover the lever wasn't where it was meant to be. Luckily she was fine again although the crash with the tree down the steps could have been worse.
I finally emerged from the trails. 75km of singletrack might actually have taken me up to the time limit, although I was getting quicker and more adept at riding it. Anyway there was now a section on road. Along and down, round a sharp left hander and then straight up the valley side.

As I slowly made my way up the hill I looked to my right. Behind the wall of trees I could see into a garden. It went all the way up the valley side. Tiering like rice plantations in the Andes. But instead of rice were hundreds of lush plants. A thousand greens with a melee of coloured flowers.
It took me quite a while to ride past them and after I'd gone my train of thought was trying to convince myself I hadn't just seen the hanging gardens of Babylon. Not quite the Garden of Eden but could civilisation in the west really have begun in Wales? Could this be a reason why Brutus choose Wales as his place of excommunication after the murder of Caesar?
I feel obliged to mention the rain as this was now a common occurence. Although in between the torrential downpours it was actually very warm and a pleasant August day. But that was only between the downpours.
I arrived at the campsite in between showers and put the tents up leaving them open and covers off to dry from the night before. It immediately started raining heavily.
I finished putting the tents up and put all the gear inside and it stopped raining. I should at this point explain I was putting a tent up for me and Andy to share and I also put Julie's tent up. They took them down and packed them in the morning.
Anyway, next was a shower. We were staying on a campsite. There were two sets of showers. One was pretty good by all accounts but I didn't find those. I only found the ones that could more favourably be referred to as dribbles rather than showers.
I gave up after five minutes and headed for the river. I put my towel on the bank and just got in. It wasn't deep enough to bath but I could just submerge myself by lying down.
The reported sightings of Gollum that day in the Welsh Enquirer should be put down to coincidence. I for one still have a tan from Poland. But yes, it is true we have never been seen in the same room together.
But the day wasn't over and we still had the results ceremony from the night before's time trial.
Cutting through the faff, I won a light. It would have been more useful the night before the time trial so I could have used it. But so what. I'd won an Exposure Lights Joystick:
http://www.use1.com/exposure/products/exposure_joystick/index.php
Street value £165.

Sharing a two man tent isn't the most sociable place to play with your joystick but I awoke the next morning and my first thought was,
"I won a light."

Another day another time trial. Today it was the 15km Cli-Machx trail.
I don't name these things. I thought of Climb-Axe, Climb-Max and O-ive-Come on my way round the course.
Anyway.
Today I was ready to pounce. Go hard and break into the top ten. Perhaps even the top five.
Ha, I'm lying. Kidding myself? No, just lying to you.
I would ride as always. A steady plod. A fast plod, but a plod.
And ten seconds after I started my chain came off when I changed gear. Serves me right for thinking I would hammer this course today.
But I still overtook someone on my way to the top of the course. It was on the way down that more than ten people rode past me like I was standing still.
Well I wasn't standing still. I was frantically trying to change my rear tube as I'd punctured. It wasn't long though before my frantic actions subsided into resigned movements.
Then off I set again, at least I overtook two others on the way down but this didn't make up for the fact that I'd lost upto eight minutes in one of the timed sections. What a slow change.
Fill in your own swear words here.
There was a lovely visitor centre with cafe at the start/finish of the trail and it was about two hours before the afternoon ride.
This meant a flushing toilet then a bowl of hot fresh minestrone soup.

65km this afternoon. Strangely it had stayed dry for the morning time trial. In the afternoon it didn't stay dry. Quite the opposite. It surely was monsoon season. Although I'm not sure if I got wetter from above or from below. The course during the week went through an unfeasible number of river crossings.
Today though was also the day we got lost.
At some point we cycled through a town. Now towns are where people live and some people are right little shits. And it was here that someone removed an arrow that marked our direction to turn so we all rode miles along a road blindly following each other. Eventually the lead motorcycle at the front realised he'd gone astray so those of us near the front all stopped and decided what to do. I didn't care but thought, "The adventure starts here."It didn't. Someone made a decision to go across country. We did and only had to turn back once and go a different way. We weren't lost without hope for any moment and not long later we rejoined the course. And we all made it to the finish within the cut-off time.
Campsite tonight was another sports field. Nice and flat and the sun was out. So everyone tried to dry everything and I found myself in the middle of a Chinese laundry. Alhough I can't confirm what a real Chinese laundry looks like.

Showers weren't very powerful again tonight so I looked for a river. There was a large stream in the woods down the bank from the campsite. I headed down there, walked 100m along a nice little footpath then cut through the forest, undressed and got in the stream. Just deep enough to wash in.
A strange echo in the forest though, it sounded like there was a car driving towards me. I looked up and there must have been a minor road that cut through the forest. About fifteen meters away. There was no point trying to run to get my towel so I just sat down in the stream and watched as the car drove past.

Nothing else to do all evening except eat, clean my bike and eat some more. My massage wasn't until 9.00pm tonight so it was quite late before I got to bed. Easily ten o'clock.
Still it gave us plenty of time to swap our stories of the day.

Today I punctured just as it stopped raining. Amazing, I was able to change my tube in the dry and even let my waterproof dry and air for ten minutes as I did so. I was in no hurry today and had decided to have a relaxing day before this evening's time trial. I even set off almost last. Well I was trying to shelter from the rain before I started. No good though, I would have to start in the persistant rain. Persisting it down it was.

Today was a great route. We followed a beautiful river valley down for miles. Singletrack for endless stretches.
Today was a ridiculous route. We followed a river down stream crossing it eleven times. Not on bridges but fords. The track was flooded in places anyway.
Strangely all of the fords were rideable. This was in spite of the water completely submerging my front wheel at one point.
But all the water, weather and mud takes it's toll. Well it did on me.
I was starting to slow down. Finding it hard to ride, I felt like I didn't have the strength needed to keep the pedals turning. Then on a down hill section I actually slowed down.
It wasn't me then it was the bike. That was some sort of a relief but hopefully my wheel wasn't ruined.
I checked. No the wheel was fine. It must be the brakes. They must be rubbing. I had just ridden hard then descended. Now I took hold of my brake disc. For a fraction of a split second.
I squeeled as loud as possible. The disc was so hot.
My poor fingers. Burnt. Singed. Throbbing. Hurting. What an idiot.
But again the rain had stopped so I was able to bodge a repair in under half an hour and carry on going. The wheel rotated freely but the brake had no modulation, it was either on or off. I sucked my fingers. Later the blisters would be perfectly shaped like the pattern of my disc.

It wasn't far to the end from here but we first had to ride the Cwm-Rhyiadr course. This was fine going up and amusing going down, what with such sharp back brake action.
Today I arrived back at the campsite after Julie and Andy and they had put the tents up. Andy also had a baked potatoe and a burger. He now blamed the burger for his sickness.
There was a timetrial this evening but Andy didn't ride it, instead choosing to extremely projectile vomit.

I did ride it and strangely nothing untowards happened. Ok my back brake made everything on the descent hairy and sketchy but surely that only added to the fun?
On the way up I rode past a rabbit. It was dazed and just sat breathing as I rode past. My wheel inches away. It must have run into someone's wheel. I wondered if it needed putting out of it's misery. That would mean turning round and going back to it. I carried on.
I put enough time back into Graeme to overtake him on the general classification after losing time on the puncture.

So a shower after the timetrial and we even got a selection of beans with the food this evening and not just cheesey pasta.

Also I even had the tent to myself. Unfortunately though this was due to Andy's sickness getting sufficiently bad that he'd abandoned the race and gone to stay in a cottage.
(Visited him the next day and he'd started to recover).

Tomorrow we only had to ride back to the start. No more timed events.

There was a nursery rhyme when I was young:

Rain, rain go away
Come back another day.

Well today was that day. For every time ever a child recited that rhyme a raindrop fell on my head. That's not counting the ones that fell on my neck, shoulders and every square inch below. Some kids really are too big and fat for their own good though, at one point they really hurt. Smashing off my teeth even as I breathed heavily.
Yes, today it rained. And rained and rained.
Did I mention the rain.
The wettest day I can remember. The heaviest rain I have known.
At least it couldn't get any worse. Well that's what I thought at one point. Ten seconds later it did.
This is what hyperbole should be saved for. I was astonished, I was flabbergasted, I was shocked, I was wet.
One of the other racers simply put their arms up to the skies and shouted,
"Bring it on, bring it on."

We crossed many small streams today. Although they could have been footpaths or bridleways as our tracks were equally wet with just as much running water on them.
Many people asked me if my gears worked. One guy who'd spent £67 the night before having his fixed couldn't use more than three gears.
I was turning the shifter and pulling the cable to change the front. The raer needed a quick back heeled kick everytime I needed to downshift.

I ate bananas in the rain, I ate energy bars in the rain and I ate two peanut butter sandwiches under a tree trying to shelter from the rain and failing miserably.

We started in drizzle and it even stopped whilst I rode up the first big climb so I could take my waterproof off. How kind. Then at the top it started again. I put my waterproof back on and didn't remove it until the finish. There was no let up.
Did I mention the rain?

But I wasn't cold and I could keep riding. A puncture or a fall today would have been depressing. Landing in the surface mud that was everywhere.
Oh, today I did have my only fall of the race. Riding down a track stuck in a long long rut, I eventually caught the side and went flying. Amazingly I landed on a grassy bank grazing only my finger and trimming my fingernail.
Then at some point I recognised the trail. We were back on the Cli-Machx trail only heading home. There was a feed station at the lovely visitor centre with cafe. Amazing. It was the only time I needed a flushing toilet and here was one. It must have been the four bananas every day for a week.

The road retraced the first 20 or so kilometres to the start and had cut out a chunk of the original planned route due to the weather. Softies.
Anyway. This meant a long stretch on the road back to Builth Wells. I was with an Italian and we took it in turns to get soaked off each others back wheels as we bit and bitted. (Slipstreamed each other in turn).
And then we entered civilisation. It was strange riding into and through Builth Wells. High brick buildings and streets and shops. People who weren't cyclists or marshalls.
Then the finish.

I showered in the women's showers having arrived home in time before they put a stop to this and increased the length of the queues in the men's.
Hot water. Wasn't I sick of water pouring down on me? Somehow this was different. Perhaps 30 degrees of separation, each one a centigrade.
I hosed my bike and had a massage. Julie and Graeme had finished by now and we could go home. As the sun came out.

Great event. Brilliant course, good organisation for the first year and only one bad point. Did I mention the rain?

Paul Facer
Home and dry.

Garmin Supertravessia - TransPortugal

2008-03-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Garmin Supertravessia - TransPortugal

Todo Bien: The TransPortugal Mountain Bike Race

I’m always looking for the next challenge. It started when the Sunday Riders, a small group of friends who ride together, decided one Sunday to enter the TransAlp. It was 2001 we didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for really (and we were told as much by the other English entrants that year), we just thought it would be a great way to go riding every day in the Alps. Anyway the four of us finished it, weren’t last in the mixed category and enjoyed it so much we decided to enter the first ever TransRockies the following year. We finished that then we tackled La Ruta, the Cape Epic and having completed the ‘big four’ as we called them what was left?

I’d met many friends during these events and remembered Jose Maria telling me about this race in Portugal, from north to south, it sounded good. Guided only by a Garmin GPS device the race had been condensed this year from 11 days into 8 days, I decided I would enter. Unfortunately no other Sunday Riders could make it so I talked it up to honorary member, Keith Bontrager (another friend met during these events) and off we went to Lisbon.

Like La Ruta this is a solo person race. In other ways it is like no other. The rider is totally self sufficient during each stage. You’re allowed to stop and buy food or water but not take anything off any support vehicle or race follower.

Riders are awarded time advantages for being women and over 35 (great, I was both) KB was also over 35 and considerably (sorry) more so than me so I figured a Whacky Racers style event was in the making, him chasing me down every day, me trying to stop the catch by any means necessary (evil snigger).

We transferred from Lisbon to the start in Bragança (a 6 hour drive) and were given a lesson in GPS usage. I was concerned about this but it all seemed pretty straightforward, put the arrow on the pre-downloaded red line route and stay on it. What could be simpler, a blue line shows where you’ve been so if you go wrong you retrace the path and get back on it. I tried it out that evening by leaving the group before dinner and riding up into the amazing fortress town that is Bragança, an array of tiny cobbled streets, surrounded by old city walls, oops I was lost within minutes. After a bit of concentration and a long trip around the old and new town I finally located the hotel and managed to get back just in time for dinner!

24 people were entered this year, four South African Cape Epic finishers, the previous years winner Cal Burgart (another friend met during the big four) who at 63 was even older than KB. The rest were Portuguese including one other woman.
Sunday dawned hot and sunny and Cal set off 11/2hours before the main group, I started ½ hour later, KB some 20 mins after that. It was a 141km stage to the town of Freixo with 3750m climbing. It was tough, 38º a big climb at the start and then constantly undulating dirt tracks and climbs for the rest of the day. The scenery was incredible, really remote riding and the GPS seemed totally reliable, pointing out water stops and any major left or right deviations from the track. I was in a quandary – how do you ride when you’re not in a pack? Just put your head down and try and make up time on the guy in front I guess and don’t look back too often!
There were 3-4 checkpoints each stage; nothing provided just great encouragement and times of the riders in front if required. By 50km I was wondering where everyone was, I hadn’t seen Cal and nobody had caught me yet – weird, it didn’t last long. Ricardo Melo (this years race winner) and the fast boys were approaching, very polite as they passed by and of course they give you that 10 second opportunity to try and keep up with them. Anyway the day ended and only 4 people had managed to overtake me, Cal was still ahead so I ended up 6th. A little crowd had gathered in the tiny village to welcome us, wow this was going to be good.
KB suffers terribly in the heat (despite the fact he’s a Californian) but finished along with 18 of the other riders. Only day 1 but with 6 not finishing and a very long hot day in the saddle for all of us the race was already taking it’s toll.

Day 2 dawned way too quickly. After dinner and the race briefing, there wasn’t much time for sleep and recovery. Freixo to Affliates another long day, 113km but slightly less climbing 2152m, and this mainly in one long 20km slog. Highlight though was a long single-track descent on huge black slate boulders into a deep ravine mostly rideable except for some very exposed switchback corners. This however didn’t help those saddle sores, which most people seemed to have after the day before, it was hot again and the long undulating track for the second half of the race was into a head wind. Many didn’t finish this stage (KB being one of them) so I got 4th! Then the rain started, heavy thunderstorms all night, was really it really summer in Portugal?
Day 3 and Cal set off in torrential rain, me in slightly less torrential rain and it had virtually stopped before the others set off. The thunderstorms continued off and on all day, this was to be one of the easier days with a distance of just 107km and altitude gain of 2100m. It went through the wonderful hilltop village of Monsanto and Antonio the race organiser deviated the course around the cobbled streets so we all got a guided tour. An awesome rocky descent and some lovely climbs made this one of my favourite days of riding, that and the fact that I’d overtaken Cal at last and led the race for at least 2 hours! KB and Cal pulled out of this stage in Monsanto – a great place to do this. Both felt unwell and were unable to eat anything, they weren’t the only ones.
Day 4, more rain overnight and mud, deep, wheel sapping mud alongside a river valley that we were to follow for quite some distance. Cal and I got there before it was too badly churned up but the sheer effort of pedalling and the gumming up of every part of the bike made it really hard going especially for the later riders. This was a rocky stage and we had been warned about the 5km of rocky track we had to cycle along. Flat and awful, you can’t sit down, you can’t get any rhythm and every part of your body aches. This was another of the ‘easier’ days 108km, 2445m altitude gain. The finish was another fantastic hilltop village Castelo de Vide, the sting in the tail was the steep cobbled climb up steps to the tiny street where the villagers had allowed us to finish.

I had to attempt at least a bit of the climb and even managed a few of the steps egged on by a group of local children before the sheer effort of it got the better of me and I had to get off and walk the rest. A few more casualties today including the other woman rider Christina who had sustained a fractured rib on a descent the previous day but had nobly started the stage and continued the next few days too. They’re made of tough stuff these Portuguese women.
Days 5 and 6 were two of the longest stages. 161km with 3650m altitude gain followed by 168km with 2394m altitude gain. How were we meant to get through this given what had gone before? Take it easy and pace yourself was Antonio’s advice. We had now entered the Alentajo region of southern Portugal where acres of arable farmland meant gates became the issue . Not easy-opening gates, but gates strung of wire (sometimes barbed) between wooden poles and fastened so tightly they sprung open and projected themselves across the track in a tangled heap when released.
Now remember I mentioned the Whacky Racers earlier, well KB I actually saw on this stage but unfortunately when he dropped behind a little and I couldn’t see him after waiting a while, I was so concerned with escaping cattle I closed a gate. We’d been riding, 3 of us together, and leaving the gates for the next person to close. KB didn’t see the closed gate as he was looking at his GPS at that moment managed to hit it at some considerable speed and projected himself some distance without his bike. Oops, no evil snigger, it wasn’t deliberate honest! He did however have to drop out later that day with a niggling back injury. Me, I continued, managing to write a note and leave it on one gate for the next person to let them know to close it after I’d spent a considerable amount of effort trying to refasten the bloody thing (yes I was carrying paper and a pen). We were to go through some 60 or so of these.

The finish in Monsaraz was shortened Day 5 to avoid yet another mighty climb up to the village, Antonio was becoming concerned with the attrition rate. Christina had crashed into my back wheel coming out of a descent just before the last checkpoint and she’d fallen again, I got off lightly with a broken spoke. My concern was would I make it back in time for England’s world cup match starting at 18.30. KB was sitting in a bar watching the afternoon match that day as I stopped for water – ‘do you think I’ll make it back in time for the start?’ I said. ‘Not unless you ride like the wind’ was his reply or something similar, anyway it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. ‘You’re so bloody lucky not to be finishing this stage’ I said as I stormed out.

Tears rolled down my cheeks today on yet another rocky section, the saddle sores were agonising and when I was out of the saddle my big toe nail which was near to falling off was banging against the top of my shoe, why am I doing this…….? I think this was my bad day!

Anyway I made it back at 19.00, KB had organised a quick lift for me to the hotel to see the match and I lay down in the bar of the beautiful pueblo style hotel and watched the remainder with a beer (England 2 Trinidad & Tobago 0).

The second 100 mile stage and again Antonio had to step in and change the route a little, mud had made one section impassable so we were grateful to be diverted onto the road. Sunflower fields were a feature of the landscape we were now crossing. We seemed a little closer to the end, grape vines, not seen since the Douro region in the north, were replacing crops and cattle. The weather after a brief reprieve yesterday was back to rain and head wind, the mud was sticky, the gears barely shifted but KB caught me, albeit after 130km. It makes such a difference having someone to ride along with for a while. We finished muddy and tired in Castro Verde but with only two more days to go the end was nigh.
Day 7 saw us riding 117km with 2552m altitude gain. Antonio had changed the course again to miss out a big cross country climb which could have been muddy, unfortunately the first 6 riders that day, me included, didn’t see the arrow drawn on the road to deviate us, we ended up following the original course, we were given time back at the end of the day. Many deep, brown water rocky river crossings later we started into the mountains of the Algarve. The Garmin led us through eucalyptus woods to one of the biggest climbs of the race. Up through many false switchback summits to the top of the mountain on difficult slate rock terrain. This sort of climb you’d love if you had the energy. KB climbed it all, while some of us only managed a few sections. Many of the Portuguese really looked forward to this, it was in their back yard, they were nearly home. An equally long descent led us to the finish in a beautiful Algarve hotel in Monchique where we could almost smell the sea.
Day 8 the shortest day of the race, only 95km and 1950m altitude gain. My 5th place overall pretty secure, I decided to take some photos, and actually take it easy. I’d only taken a few photos during the rest of the race and was deeply regretting not stopping when I saw a huge stork nest perched atop a telegraph pole with the stork mother and chick peering over the side, cute eh (well I am a midwife!) The single track in this stage is the most you see. After one awesome steep descent over a mountain and up the other side, with a gentler bail out switchback descent for the tired among us, you hit the coast at 50km and start along the cliffs behind the beach.

Wow it’s spectacular, even more so when you start riding it, watching and envying less insane people as they sunbathe, swim and throw Frisbees. A few hike a bike sections later and singletrack terrain very similar to the that in Fruita, CO (of all places) you see a lighthouse in the distance that is the finish at Sagres.
The ride to the lighthouse is through pot holed sand, not really easy going and like everything in Portugal constantly undulating. The finish is right on the beach, a bevy of the support staff blow whistles and scream as you approach the ramp that takes you right onto the sand, bemused sunbathers applaud. It’s done, it’s awesome, a bottle or two of Sagres beer seems fitting now. Cal won the final stage to redeem some of his lost esteem after his disappointment at having to drop out earlier in the race and KB rode the last 3 days in fine form.

That evening the award ceremony was held in a local restaurant and we all got our finish certificates and the first three riders their prizes. Throughout this race the organisation and support was incredible. Antonio Malvar the race organiser, an accomplished endurance rider himself, knows Portugal like the back of his hand. All of the stages are off-road with only a few connecting road sections.

The stages finish in some of the most beautiful villages where a food tent was set up for the riders, notably potatoes with olive oil and salt and other snacks and drinks. We were taken to the hotel accommodation for the night our bags were already in our rooms, dinner and breakfast were provided. The food in Portugal is really very good and there was always plenty of it, pork, steak and bacalhau (salt cod) being the staples. Antonio was on hand to help with any bike problems overnight and his team of helpers would do anything they could for you. A briefing was held after the dinner outlining the next stage. This, in true Mediterranean style, happened quite late at night. A brief outline, for those of us who preferred sleep, was provided by Louize (designated English translator) at breakfast.

If you’re looking for a challenge and like to race then this is an incredible event. It’s tough, when you race you push yourself to the limit, doing so you’re going to see parts of Portugal it would take you years to see as a tourist. You’re going to meet some great people too – and you just might get hooked! If racing isn’t your thing Antonio also does this route as a tour, over 16 days.

By the way, I got the picture of another stork nest on the way back from Sagres to Lisbon!

Bike Challenge Poland 2006

2008-03-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

Bike Challenge 2006
This year’s bike trip sees us peeking behind the iron curtain and entering the BikeChallenge race in Poland.

Against all my common sense we have to fly to Poland from Stansted, the thought of a five-day stage race pales into insignificance compared to the ordeal of getting to the airport by public transport and that was before they announced a planned rail strike. I tentatively asked our friendly local taxi-man if he could do us a deal which turned out to be so appealing that we booked him even though the strike was called off. Paul and Jim were getting there by rail but as fate had it there had been a storm during the night, which had damaged power cables, and no trains were running, they too had to resort to a cab at extortionate expense. At the airport we meet up with Ken and Lawrence from Edinburgh, whom we had contacted over the internet, (and googled so we know they’re quite fit) and catch the Ryanair flight to Wroclaw in southwest Poland. We land with the airline’s trademark side-skid effect (– do they train all their pilots to do that?) at a tiny hut in the middle of pasture land and WW2 ruins with a fire engine from the same period escorting us to a standstill. Relatives are cheering from the perimeter fence all of 2 metres away and the terminal is lined with armed guards. The doors close firmly behind us. At passport control, Paul looks so bad that he has to produce his driving licence with another photo as proof that he really is an international athlete, granted it is hard to believe.

Ken had arranged the transfer from Wroclaw to Duszniki with the race organiser and it was Grzegorz himself that picked us up in a van and took us to the starting town, a two hour trip through cobbled street villages, very Austrian looking but just a little bit scuffed around the edges. During the trip we learn that the friendly young chap used to be a pro road racer, having lived in Belgium for 4 years racing with the Colstrop-Palmans pro team – the same as South Western’s very own Roger Hammond. He had retired in 2000 to concentrate on running one-day marathon mtb events and this was the second year for the 6 day BikeChallenge. We arrive at the Hotel Sonata, shower, change and set off to explore this delightful spa town, centred around a stunning sanatorium located in enormous manicured grounds with ornamental gardens and fountains. We find a restaurant and enjoy trying to decipher the menu, very little English is spoken here, we end up picking any meal and seeing what materialises. It’s hard to work out what we’ve ordered even when it’s in front of us! Our pizza is great but Paul’s fish still has its face on and is looking pretty indignant at being eaten by such a dodgy looking cyclist. At the next table are equally dodgy looking chaps, one of whom picks up Lawrence’s camera, we pose for the picture but he gaily wraps his arms around Lawrence and insists on the two being photographed together – cute!

The next morning we unpack the bikes and I’m appalled to spot a rip in my rear tyre and a deep scar in the front. I can't believe it - I’d ordered new tyres weeks before but they hadn't arrived and the spare tyres, that I didn't feel confident on, I'd left behind due to weight restrictions but they'd have been better than nothing! Raymond patches them with strapping and we plan to get new ones tomorrow, the mechanical back-up are bound to have some or there’s a good shop in the next town. We decide to recce tomorrow’s prologue which climbs up the fairly steep cobbled street onto a concrete track, where Raymond spots a dead mole. We continue up in dappled shade through pine trees deviating off road onto a dirt track before rejoining the tarmac for a steep kick to the summit. The track then drops into the local biathlon stadium. We take an off road trail back into the village, spot a sign saying ‘beware wolves’ – scary! and pass through the park stopping to taste the mineral waters en route – yuk! Anything tasting that bad must do you the power of good.
As we prepare to get a good night’s sleep the town is jolted awake by wailing sirens, it sounds like a bombing raid, I stagger bleary eyed to the window to be greeted by the sight of tens of young men sprinting in nothing but their boxer shorts towards the fire station! Within minutes the fire engines, with their now fully clad crew hanging from the doors, are zooming off into the distance. You don’t get that in Dorking!

Monday morning dawns bright and sunny, we wander down to the park to register and collect our race bags. These are still being filled with goodies and there is no sign of any mechanical support crews yet, so we decide to get a taxi to the neighbouring town of Klodzko to find the bike shop and get new tyres there. The taxi-man doesn't speak English, we don't speak Polish but we know the word for 'bike'. He takes us to a bike rental shop that gives him directions for a proper cycle shop, he drives us across town and locates the shop. They have my tyres but only on a fully assembled bike and they don’t seem keen to swap the tyres. They direct us to another shop where we find panaracers that I've used before, we get them but they'll be slow running. Time to get back, en route we see lots of Germans holding a vigil at a shrine and unfortunately resurfacing makes it a slow journey, it's now 1pm.

The prologue. Duzsniki 3.5km
The Bike Challenge is run very much along the lines of other races like the TransAlp with one unique exception – the first day is a proper TdeF style prologue time-trial, with teams setting off at minute intervals. The start is at 3pm, as Team 20, we’re off at 3.20.
After changing the tyres, we eat then decide to get our warm up in, just as we’re ready to go the heavens open in a deluge of torrential rain, thunder and lightning, which soon floods the basement of the hotel. By 2.30 it stops leaving us just half an hour, we start the course then head back to the starting arena where Team 14 are just off, we exchange nervous pleasantries with Team 19 Grzegiez and Arek who are Polish and very excited about the race. Once they've gone it's our turn and as it works out our minute men are Ken and Lawrence (Edinburgh CC) and Team 22 behind them are Skid Marks Paul and Jim! I know we'll be passed by the Scots but I so don't want to be caught by those two! The whistle blows and we're off, straight up through the town on steep cobbled lanes, which are still slippery from the rain. I feel awful, very stressed with a blinding headache. Within minutes I'm breathing heavily and my legs are burning, my heart rate soars, I'm hyperventilating, my legs feel dead and my arms hurt. Then my lips go numb, I try to remember my relaxation breathing techniques but to no avail. I'm getting slower and slower, I look ahead at Raymond whose almost track standing wondering what's wrong. I feel sick and dizzy and have palpitations and as the track steepens I get even slower, Ken and Lawrence have flown past and I'm just waiting for Paul and Jim. Raymond is shouting and encouraging me but his voice is so far away. An eternity later we crest the hill and pedal furiously down the other side into the finish arena at the local biathlon centre. Within seconds I feel normal again - how does that work? To my amazement Paul and Jim come in just about 2mins later, they must have gone really badly not to have made up more time on us. As for me I'm left feeling a bit shell shocked - I've never experienced that total out of control body panic before and it has unnerved me.We are directed back down into the village off road, slippery after the rain. We return to the hotel to clean up then get back onto the course to cheer on some other Brits from the Isle of Man. Once it’s all over it’s off to the pasta party for long queues and little food. The results are up and we’re 113, only 6 secs behind Skidmarks and thankfully not as abysmal as I’d feared.

Stage one: Duzsniki (Pol) – Police (Cze) 82.5km
Breakfast has been organised for 6am, yet we don’t start ‘til 10! We opt for a lie-in, take bags down to the truck and go back to the hotel for breakfast, then return to the start for passport control. Our numbers are checked off by scary uniformed soldiers, as we pass into the Czech Republic these will be recorded, any one not signed in won’t be allowed through. All is ready by 8.30am and we hang out the next hour and a half in blazing sunshine, I get the mechanics to tune my gears while I wait. Finally! We’re off! along the road with legs groaning, the route quickly turns off-road onto pine singletrack which becomes rooty and steepens, a queue is forming in front as people gradually dismount. Pushing the bike regulates my breathing and as we remount we begin to overtake many teams, however, I’m very wary of a repeat of yesterday’s panic and am careful not to lift my heart rate too much. We are in the middle of the ‘heroes’ those too fat to climb and too brainless in descending, scary stuff! The first checkpoint looms stocked with fruit and juice, we refuel then join a swampy track interspersed with boulders and more pine forest trails – it’s just like Dorking… we pass under an impressive viaduct and get our feet wet for the first time in a shallow water channel. The next climb leads us past a big green house surrounded by red and white fencing - it’s the borderline and the armed guards are waiting. After a brief foray into the Czech Republic we pass a couple of soldiers in the forest and are back in Poland and a technical descent back into Duzsniki including the most horrible off-camber, slippery long grass section which is much worse than the rocks and steps. We retrace the prologue course under thunderous skies and pass by a hotel whose residents cheer us up a particularly nasty kick-up in the trail. More forest trails lead onto wide, open farmland and bumpy, stony tracks through grain fields, just like the South Downs… We’re back on the Czech side now and it has got very hot with little shade to be found, I’m still hesitant on the climbs but I am impressed with my descending, this bike refuses to be deflected off course by mere rocks and I’m dropping like a demonJ. By the next checkpoint Raymond’s knee is hurting so I give it a quick massage to get him to the finish at Police. Tonight we are residing in the town’s secondary school, food is scarce for us vegans and just weird – some sort of apple rice pudding cake, the massage is good and the showers pleasingly tepid after the heat of the day.

Stage 2 Police (Cze) – Gluszyca (Pol) 75.5km
We wake to blue skies, have breakfast of muesli and bread, complete passport control then change my rear tyre for Raymond’s front tyre in an attempt to speed me up. Again we hang around until the start at 10, we could easily be on the way by 9! Enthusiasm just drains away whilst waiting, although we did spot a huge crane on a nearby chimney pot. Once away we climb out of the village. There’s a bottleneck as we go off-road into a cornfield but the racers soon spread out as the track ascends to a stone cross monument. We pass through more fields then join an old, cobbled drove road, this deteriorates into large steps and boulders and makes a technical descent. I’m managing quite well until the guy in front of me goes over the handlebars and I decide it’s time to walk. Raymond loses his bottle cage, which snaps from the jolting but he retains his bottle and clears the lot. For once I’m being held up on a downhill! KB’s tyre has fantastic grip on the stone slabs. After the checkpoint we climb again, on firetracks and pine trails, then drop down on loose gravel descents. A girl from one of our rival mixed team falls and gets nasty gravel rash, Raymond thoughtfully takes her picture at the next checkpoint just afterwards. Another climb and we cross the border between red and white hoops in the ground, then it’s a very rooty grassy singletrack descent and a long climb on firm forest track, which narrows and gets progressively more rocky and rooty and Raymond manages to knobble Grzegiez (19) off his bike. We pass workers drinking under the trees and later learn that they’ve been bribed to stop felling whilst the race is in progress by the organisers with litres of vodka! At the top is an incongruous white lighthouse, then it’s a choice of a wide boulder strewn descent or an adjacent tight singletrack which unite on a wide very loose, almost vertical, gravel ski piste - a hairy descent to the final checkpoint. Country lanes take us to today’s highlight - THE TUNNELS at Osowka and the reason we entered the race in the first place! The network was devised by invading German forces during WW2 for the secret construction of V2 bombers. The soldiers murdered all the local women and children and forced the men to build the tunnels before killing them too. The entrance is like riding into a wild west gold mine and you can feel a blast of icy air as you approach. The thought of death and the temperature drop from 32’ to just 7’ brings me out in goosebumps. I forget I’m still wearing sunglasses and I can’t see a thing even though I employ Roger’s trick of closing one eye and sticking one leg out before I enterJ We climb a rickety set of wooden steps, walk up through swirling mists, and take photos. Rounding a corner we bump into a tourist guide and his party in hard hats, they enthusiastically point us in the right direction. I suddenly realise that I’ve still got glasses on, take them off and can see quite clearly, and ride out into brilliant sunshine and searing heat. I can’t help feeling slightly disturbed that I’ve just giggled and shrieked my way through such a poignant place. A gravel climb takes us onto some excellent pine singletrack and a final gravel and cobbled track descends past a tempting outdoor lake crusted with sunbathers and swimmers to the finish. The school accommodation is a bit of a walk from the finish and has SWRC coloured railings, the bikes stay upstairs in the gym and the showers are deliciously luke-warm. Our food has settled into a bizarre combination of either rice or pasta with a choice of three toppings: stewed apple and cinnamon compote (seemingly a favourite) and the unvegan options - blueberries in yoghurt or a milky strawberry coulis concoction. Everyone else seems completely unfazed by this but I think it’s just plain weird! I’m inspired to buy tomatoes for sandwiches tomorrow.

Stage 3 Gluszyca (Pol) – Karpacz (Pol) 73km
Indeed I have tomato sandwiches for breakfast. Blue skies herald another ferociously hot day, which starts uphill through the town and out onto forest track. A mixed team passes us and I get the “Lance glance” off the girl, my climbing legs are returning and with a nod to Raymond we attack as the path steepens, re-taking them and several others besides over the long climb, just as well as I’ve got the ‘fear’ on the downhills today after having descended like a demon the past couple of days. Today we see Skid Marks at the checkpoint – that scares them! After refuelling it’s another long climb on firetracks with very steep hairpin bends, our sort of terrain, many teams are walking but we just grind on past them, then wind down a long leaf-littered channel where a cameraman is filming. The route contours the side of a hill through fields of corn and grass and….lo! we encounter a sofa, perched just off the trail in front of a line of wooden observation towers with magnificent views down into the valley! It’s too great a temptation to miss, I drop the bike and run up to sit on it and get my photo taken, alas as I do this all the mixed teams overtake us, but heck! Who would believe a sofa in the middle of nowhere and brand new at that! Photographic evidence would prove to be invaluable as no one else sees it and I was beginning to think it was all a dream! At CP2 they’ve run out of both water and Powerade, the first glitch in an otherwise superbly organised race. Unfortunately, it’s just before the big climb of the day and it’s reached 36’, Raymond’s having a sugar low but melon and oranges revive him. We travel dry-mouthed on stony caminos through a village with a Madonna and child statue, then see an old couple sitting outside their front door watching the race go by, in front of them are two buckets, green for drinking water and blue for dousing sweaty bodies, ‘tis a miracle! We gratefully drink and fill our bottles. Down the street children are offering out water, not needing it, Raymond motions for them to pour it down his neck and they shriek with delight. This sets a precedent and we later hear cries as other riders unwittingly get showered as they pass! The climb is double forest track but relentless and draining, I chose a baby gear and grind away grateful for the shade provided by the trees. After 12km it’s a fast and furious descent to the next check point where they have spring water, just fizzy enough to be disgusting! A dusty pine descent leads to a heavily cobbled camino where a man with his horse and cart waves us through. Our feet are stinging from the impacts, big black butterflies with white edges to their wings encrust the trees. Another rough camino takes us to the finish and a neutralised section on the road into the tourist resort of Karpacz, the biggest place we’ve stayed in. The official finish lies in the sports ground and the school accommodation is a good walk away, tiring when trying to carry heavy bags. There’s only one shower so we wash under a tap before having a massage and then hit the shops. I’m craving a coke and Raymond buys new sunglasses. Locals say it’s been the hottest day for 270 years – we can believe it! On the street, we are met by Nicky and John (Team Orange) who are very excited. They have just discovered the Kolorama - a dry toboggan run and insist we have a go. We sit in plastic trays, get pulled up a hill on a metal runway and released at the top to career back down through loops and berms, excellent fun. Raymond finds a present for lilcuteone and we chat to Arek and Gzregorz before retiring for the night.

Day 4 Karpacz (Pol) – Teplice (Cze) 78km
This morning we are woken by a stern megaphone announcement to get the bags loaded by 8am prompt and we stagger under the weight to the truck before going back to collect the bike and go through passport checking procedures. It’s 8.30 and already boiling hot, we wait, at 9.30 bags are still arriving and we’re herded into the start pen, and still we wait, there’s no shade and I feel sick from the heat. The neutralised start through town finally gets underway at 10.15 and it’s immediately into rocky singletrack where everyone ends up walking. Raymond looses his footing on a loose boulder and jars his shoulder. Once riding, the track settles in to a lovely middle ring grind, again we’re climbing well and pass many teams, Raymond complains I’m making his legs ache! Join road at top and go through official border control then extremely fast road descent into strong headwind, biggest gear bit’n’bitting with another bloke, sharp turn off-road and forest track past social bike riders with kids and panniers, again we’re riding with Team 19 and discover they’re great Top Gear fans! The trail turns into nice wide singletrack through pines, very swooshy and only interrupted by water bars which get more frequent and more proud with sharp lips, we see lots of people stopped with punctures. I’m just thinking we’ve been lucky when ‘pssssst’ my rear tyre goes flat, as we stop we see Skid Marks a couple of feet ahead also fixing a puncture. Once mended we’re on our way, we pass Skidmarks who’ve flatted again and take the bars more gingerly, they soon peter out and trail gets faster leading onto a gravel road and broken concrete descent with a very dodgy bend which I very nearly overshoot. We blast through the next checkpoint riding more stony and grassy caminos and cornfields, gravelled lanes and wooded singletrack. Skid Marks have us in their sights and catch up with us on tight technical singletrack that leads into our first !!!! warning sign - a steep descent looms and we have to slide our way down only to be met by a !!!!! drop – aargh!, A rope has been put up to aid our descent but just gives us burns on our hands, Raymond has to come back for my bike, it’s weight has been a godsend to my descending but carrying the thing is impossible! Next comes a long flat tarmac section, Grzegorz has avoided asphalt more or less completely so far but the respite is welcome. It undulates through the valley, then it’s back on the staple stony climbs under blazing skies, any degree of shade is ridden for and appreciated. I realise I’m getting low on sugar, get a couple of gels down me and feel a lot better. A gravel track leads into open fields with spectacular views of the rock formations, for which this area is renowned, peeking from heavily forested mountainsides. A last boulder strewn descent into a 360’ hairpin complete with photographer and the finish line. Tonight’s school is very close to all the amenities including freezing glacial melt showers, how I would have loved that when I was sweltering in 36’. The vegetarian goulash for tea was fantastic but incited the boys to gluttony. There is a brief rainstorm and Raymond points to the window saying “está lloviendo”, the ‘low-tech Czech’ (whom we’d met in the TransRockies) looks up, grins and babbles at us en español, we’ve found a common language!

Stage 5 Teplice (Cze) – Duszniki Zdroj (Pol) 59km
We wake to more rain and Grzegorz warns there’s heavy rain and flooding in Duszniki. At breakfast Raymond finds muesli and gorges on two big bowlfuls. The obligatory hour and a half wait for the start today has its bonus as by that time the rain has cleared. We also get to see the tiny commuter train trundle past the school. The start takes us out through the town and uphill on a long winding hair pinned tarmac lane, which then snaked back down again. In his attempt to avoid asphalt where at all possible Grzegorz cuts a few of the corners with off road excursions, the last is deep gravel and we slither to a stop and a queue! There is a tiny metal bridge crossing into the forest with gates to negotiate. Through pine trees and blueberry bushes and a small village with rustic decaying buildings to the first checkpoint and a long climb out on double track where we wave at a spectator who bows back to us. Tarmac and forest tracks continue to climb gently until we round a corner and the trail goes vertical! Manic crunching of gears and swearing follow and we grind up through a dark and dusty ethereal forest. One bloke behind us doesn’t seem to be a low enough gear and hollers himself upwards with a loud “Waarrrhhh” mimicking Brian Blessed in his prime! Not to be outdone, Raymond “Waarrrhhh”’s back and this incites a louder yell from the bloke and another guy behind him joins in. Before long there’s an echoing chorus of groans interspersed with manic laughter. My concentration runs out before my legs and I have to pull over to stop before the final bend, Raymond calls ‘watch out’ and I stand back to let a man through. I didn’t realise that Raymond had meant himself not the other bloke and that I’d stepped right into his path forcing him to stop momentarily but he soon recovered and went on to clear more than anyone else, all but the last 4 feet which really were ~1:2. As we joined a long plateau through cornfields we could still hear distant graunches from people in the wood.
The dry ground spits dust from the wheels in front that gets into your eyes despite glasses. Tractor ruts lead to a small village set on a hill with a cobbled street running up through it that looked like the legendary Huy. Raymond has exerted himself and climbs this one slowly, the steep hair pinned road descent is a blast and we flick off road to cross the border back into Poland. A grassy cobble-stoned jeep track meanders upwards, Raymond is getting slower and annoyed, when he says something to me it provokes an entirely unreasonable angry response and I suddenly realise that I need to eat – getting irritable and annoyed for no reason is my usual cue for sugar. Once I’ve downed a couple of gel shots it suddenly occurs to me that he’s probably sugar bonked too. I urge him to eat but we can hear the noise from the checkpoint ahead. As we get to the top of the hill we find not a checkpoint but a family playing an improvised band on dustbin lids, plastic bottles and cutlery! Raymond stops to photo them and eats. A dusty descent takes us to another multi-day endurance must-have –a water crossing! We leave the road to plough upstream, pass under a bridge and rejoin the same road. I struggle to find my balance on the slippery rocks in the current and hold people up, again the weight of the bike is telling, but the cold water is bliss in the unrelenting heat.
The trail runs through farmland and across wooden bridges over small streams and I get a sense of deja-vu. Sure enough the track drops into the shallow stream next to the impressive viaduct we passed under on Day 1. The final checkpoint is here, we grab some fruit and continue on road that gradually morphs into track then pine needled dirt climb into the outskirts of Duszniki. A rival mixed team is just ahead and we pass them before the top, a good technical singletrack leads back down but a bloke who’s remounting his bike and straddling the whole path blocks me. This allows another mixed team to pass us as we join the road into the finish. The team we had passed attack on the road and we jump on their wheels but it’s been so long since I’ve done this that we don’t manage to pass them. It turns out they were trying not to lose time on the other mixed team over which they had a 2 min advantage! We cross the line in a jumble of bikes and handshakes. Team 19 come in later and are infectiously euphoric at completing the race.

We have reserved another night at the Sonata so ride our bikes up then walk down to collect our bags. Raymond asks where to hand in the transponders and inadvertently gets us interviewed by the organiser’s TV crew. The presentation is set for 6pm, at the hotel we shower and change and just as we’re about to leave the heavens open. We wait for the worst to stop then go into town, stopping by the finish to see if anyone has handed in any lost property, Paul has left all his cycling clothes in the gym this morning. We get to the party to find all the veggie food has gone so we go back for a pizza instead. Later there is a slide show and video footage of the days riding and Raymond treats himself with bib shorts to match the event top. We say thanks to Grzegorz for a very successful trip and leave him to play drinking games. I sleep fitfully in the comfy bed as I’m now used to stone floors.

Grzegorz has arranged our transport back to Wroclaw, we meet him for lunch but he’s carrying a hangover as first prize for last night’s efforts. He’s very keen for our thoughts on the race and we say that the only downside was the relatively late starts, otherwise the BikeChallenge comes highly recommended. Poland and the Czech Republic are beautiful countries, the scenery was fantastic, the weather gorgeous and the race encompassed more off-road than others we’ve done, Raymond described it as all the best bits of the TransAlps squashed together with the tarmac taken out. Grzegorz happily tells us he’s negotiated with the Czechs and the race is secured until 2010, so as the lovely international mountain bike girlie says at the end of the promo film “come and do it”!! JG

Cape Epic 2005

2008-03-17T04:57:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Riders go to South Africa for the Cape Epic – an 8-day mountain bike stage race from Knysna to Stellenbosch, a distance of 900km.

Monday 28th March
Today we go to South Africa, our bags and bikes are packed and it’s off to Heathrow to catch our flight. SAA have informed us that bike carriage is a set price of $60, armed with documents we approach the check-in. All goes smoothly until the woman sees the bikes and mentions something about excess baggage. Suspecting that we are going to get stung per kg I tell her what the airline told me about the fee. She shakes her head and consults another clerk. I get the paperwork out, she looks it over, shakes her head and calls for a supervisor. I retrieve a second paper confirming the price and ask where we can go to pay it. Her frown is deepening and after a scratch of her head she tells us that she’s sure the bikes should go free of charge! All paperwork is hastily withdrawn and we swiftly deposit our bikes into the oversize luggage chute and board the jumbo for the flight to Cape Town. The pre-flight talk tells us that sleeping on the floor is not allowed, we hadn’t thought of sleeping in the aisle but once mentioned it magnified into an all-consuming idyll that continued to torment us as we contorted our aching limbs through endless unnatural positions over the ensuing twelve hours.

Tuesday 29th March
Get taxi to Park Inn Hotel in Green Market Square, slap bang in the middle of Cape Town. Explore the area then visit Shane at Bowmans Cycles. KB has given us this contact and we hope to be able to meet up with him and Julie but there’s no sign of them yet. Bowmans will be the official Shimano supplier for the Cape Epic. I buy new gloves that turn out to be the buy of the week.

Wednesday 30th March
The Epic organisers have set up a transfer service to Knysna from the Protea President Hotel. We get a courtesy bus there from our hotel and bump into another mixed pair from Scotland. I know that a colleague of Jim's is doing the race and indeed it is the same person – Jeff and Maggie (Team Bling!). We load the bikes into a trailer and, as we are about to leave, meet Mark and Viv (Team Refuel) our friends from England. We board a bus decked out in the Springboks colours and set off. Along the way the coach provokes cheery waves from passers-by and toots from fellow road users. As we pull into a service station we are confronted by disappointed faces as people, expecting their national rugby heroes, are treated to the sight of skinny cyclists! The countryside is not very inspiring and the mood is not added to by the gathering of black clouds and a strong wind which we can’t help but notice is coming straight from Cape Town, we could be in for 8 days of head winds! As darkness falls the rain begins, battering heavily on the panes. We eventually roll into Knysna, it’s taken over 7 hours – only later do we find out that the coach had obsolete windscreen wipers and our poor driver had driven as fast as he dared with zero visibility!
We are dropped at the Protea hotel and met by Paul, who arrived yesterday, and our old friends, Cal from San Diego and Jose from Portugal. We also meet Mark and Mel (Team Splott Rockets from Cardiff). We are booked in at the nearby Log Inn and, before we retire for the night, check our e-mails. To our horror we find that our joke at being asked to be seeded in the top 50 has backfired; we in at No 25!!

Thursday 31st March
After breakfast we go over to Paul’s hotel to collect and re-assemble our bikes. We ride over to Knysna Cycles where we pass on regards from Gary who met the owner – another Gary, on his visit there last year. He replies that Mr Gary of Knysna Cycles sends his regards back to Mr Gary of F.W.Evans! We meet another mixed pair, Janice and Jamie (Team Sauna Cyclists) who are over with supporter Steve from Alaska and just happen to be part of the infamous Iditabike organisation – why do I get a dreadful feeling that our Alaskan pipe dream has suddenly solidified??
At 2pm we gather for a pre-race bike ride guided by local rider Ian and organised by the other bike shop in town - Action Cycles. Jim has arrived with girlfriend Dymphna and we meet two affable Dutch judo guys - Fred and Francesco. The ride covers the first 10km of the course and rises steeply out of town through a golf course development. Onto wide, undulating fireroads and ‘off-road’ double track. I’m feeling remarkably good to be on the bike after all the travelling. The pace is comfortable and the terrain non-technical, apparently it isn’t going to get much more taxing than that – we’ll see! Once back we get together with Refuel and Julie and KB who have arrived and dine at a local restaurant.

Friday 1st April
Wake to pouring rain! Raymond and I locate the Knysna tourism centre to send our regards to the CEO Craig from his friend Rod, whom we met racing at Thetford last week. We’re getting quite good at all this networking! Next stop is the bank for money and we’re amused by the sign depicting no full face helmets, no smoking and no guns allowed in the foyer, like it’s quite normal to carry guns anywhere else! Visit Action Cycles, who’ll be accompanying the race, then go to the sign-on tent. Deposit R500 for the transponders that go on the bikes, bags and us, and collect our race numbers, bags and timing chips.
A race briefing follows hosted by a familiar face – Mike, the commentator from the TransAlps, a guy who’s definitely on speed. Later we dump all luggage that we don’t need to take with us on a truck to Spier and try to get a good night’s sleep.

Saturday 2nd April
Race Day 1. Knysna – Saarsveld 128.5km, 2940m ascent, 7hr15

5.00am comes around all too quickly accompanied with that sick, lurching feeling that reminds me that I said I wasn’t going to do one of these again! At the start Mike the Man is beating the crowds to fever pitch. Due to our seeding Raymond and I are in the front paddock with all the Olympiad athletes, fish out of water. A choir sings the South African national anthem which blends seamlessly into ‘put your hands up’, a transalp favourite, then the signature song that will send me scuttling for my bike every time I hear it - U2’s Vertigo. As Bono counts down we set off on a ‘neutralised’ start that sees us hurtle down the road behind the motorbikes at 45kph, by the time we turn off-road we’ve lost any advantage that our seeding gave us as cyclists flood by. Up the steep climb then down a steep hair pinned gravel descent, cross a ford, up a steep hill, down a steep hair pinned descent, cross a ford and so it goes on through dense, lush vegetation. Raymond takes a pee stop and is promptly passed by Paul & Jim. It’s taken them an hour and a half to catch us; I’m surprised we lasted out that long! Jim is suffering up hill so we re-take them only to be passed on the next down hill and so it goes. Flying down the next descent I suddenly spot a deep trench across the trail and slam on the brakes to pirouette to a shaky halt, Raymond just manages to miss me, Jim and Paul hurtle past only to stop metres later to fix Jim’s impact puncture from the trench. I later hear that Julie went over the bars and another unfortunate broke a wrist at the same place. Following the water stop is the ‘treacherous singletrack’ bit we’ve been warned against – I drop off the road in trepidation only to find an overgrown double jeep track, which, although very wet and muddy, is completely rideable, just messy. A steep climb leads us to a village green and the second water stop, we Hi-5 the kids and wonder at the roadside fauna of furry calves and singing frogs. We jump onto some wheels to ease our way to the final stop - only 12km to go. We eat bananas then make a speedy exit as on the horizon comes a peleton of 40+ riders. Steep hair pinned ups and downs on a good metalled road follow, this has encouraged people to overcook things, several corners are decked with bleeding bikers. The finish is uphill and at the 5km sign I hear Maggie’s voice behind, this is all I need to spur me up a gear and we cross the line at Saarsveld university campus. Our finish ritual begins – dump bike in Parc Ferme, pick up race bag, locate a tent, get a shower, sleep, go to dining tent at 6pm, eat, watch winner’s presentation, listen to next day’s briefing, go to bed at 9.30pm.

Sunday 3rd April
Race Day 2 Saarsveld – Herbertsdale 145km 2720m ascent 8hr01

5am, we are woken from our gentle slumber by full-on air raid sirens. Our morning ritual begins – dress, pack, breakfast, load race bag in truck, pick up bike, fill water bottles, line up in designated paddock. This is decided by overall placings and we are in zone C. Manic Mike is in full swing an hour before our 7am start. We climb on a dirt road out of the campus and into lush countryside only to be brought to a sudden bottleneck - a river crossing followed by a short up hill push, there’s uproar! People are grumbling that they signed up for a bike ride not a swim and hike, some even remove their shoes and socks and put them back on dry the other side! Us old-handers just take it in our stride. The jeep track then traverses the mountainside; the views are fabulous from the ocean and Mossel Bay to the left, to mountain ranges on the right. As befitting a Sunday the SundayRiders are re-united, we are all riding together, Paul & Jim, Julie & Keith, me & Raymond, with honorary guests Jose and Nunu. Life doesn’t get much better than thisJ As we climb through wild bougainvillea, hibiscus and finbus we are told that someone has spotted an elephant but it’s shy and we don’t see it.
At the water point we take off layers and apply suntan cream, it’s hot under cloudless skies. Fast, wide gravel roads lead to a ford with a very steep climb out, most walk - the SundayRiders all clear it. Somewhere we lose Julie & Keith but Paul, Jim, Raymond and I manage to catch the end of a fast group and hitch a lift on the 'bus' to the next stop. This is preceded by a deep ford through which I blast drenching Raymond from head to foot. Jim reprimands me for actually overtaking him on a downhill! Julie & Keith arrive as we set off, up a red gravel road, stopping only to oil our chains. Supporters await us at the top playing ‘stand up for the champions’ (a TransRockies revival) and giving me a push over the summit. A few hundred metres later there is an almighty bang. It sounds like a shotgun and makes me jump, then my bike squirms alarmingly – my rear tyre has blown its sidewallL “You’re f*ck*d” is Raymond’s succinct observation. Paul & Jim nod agreement and, with little to do to help, continue. Raymond can always improvise in a crisis and binds my tyre with zinc oxide strapping, it bulges horrendously but it’s rideable. Up hills and flats should be ok but I have to slow to a crawl on the downs just in case it goes. I fancy Jim has cursed me!! Still, only 60km to go…. We are passed by all and sundry on the undulating road, it’s so frustrating. Jose is at the next water point and offers us a leather tyre boot to reinforce our tenuous repair, we exchange horrified glances then throw our vegan principles to the wind and accept! 30km of red gravel to go with a previously eagerly anticipated 15km downhill finish. We complete it at a snail’s pace and roll over the line at the pretty village of Herbertsdale. Keith is very naughty and buys me a new tyre – I still owe him! Tonight we decide we don’t need to see the winners in their jerseys and are quite happy to have the following day’s route come as a complete surprise if it means getting to sleep an hour earlier.

Monday 4th April
Race Day 3 Herbertsdale – Riversdale 104km 1435m ascent 4hr42

From today the start is 8am so everything is an hour later. The mountains are shrouded in mist which swirls ever lower until it envelopes us on the start line in a fine damp cloud. A tarmac start allows the formation of several peletons, I get on the back of one but Raymond doesn’t and hitches a lift with many others behind the tandem couple. The pilot looks over his shoulder, sees the crowd he’s towing and moves out, the guy behind him pats him on the back, smiles, nods and pushes him back onto the front telling him he's doing a good job! Julie & Keith have made a flying start and are out of sight, Raymond and Paul take turns towing our group once we turn off onto gravel track but the fast start has frazzled my legs and I’m having difficulty hanging on. No one stops at the first water point, it’s come round too soon, the mist has sunk beneath us now and we’re in glorious blue skies with mountain tops poking through the sunken clouds. Paul gets a spilt in his front tyre, Raymond hands him the borrowed piece of leather and the tape and we continue at a good pace. We meet Mark & Viv as I stop to put suntan cream on before a long, exposed climb which then undulates through farmland to stop 2 where we see Julie & Keith just leaving. We leave the road for overgrown grassy tracks, pass through a deep ford with barbed wire that I walk but Raymond rides and climb an actual singletrack with Arno & Jurg from Germany. We stick with their group along fast fire roads until – bang – Raymond’s rear tyre has ripped in two places. We stare in dismay realising that we’ve given Paul all our tape. We improvise with recycled duct tape by which time Mark & Viv have stopped and give us more tape, then Paul & Jim arrive and once sure we’re ok, continue. It is baking hot and there is no shade but the repair holds well and we soon reach the last water stop with 15km to go on more undulating track. From the plateau we can see our destination, we pass isolated houses and rejoin tarmac to face a hard head-wind to the finish in the school grounds.
Here we see Jeff & Maggie, they’ve been storming but today she’s fallen and is a mass of bruises. Whilst waiting to shower I’m approached by Karen, a supporter from La Ruta, who remembers me! Later, we change Raymond’s tyre and my brake pads that have been rubbing badly. There's great entertainment tonight, S.Africa’s version of a Pop Idol winner, can-can girls and a band of majorettes. This evening there is a microlight flying low over our encampment and Paul has bought himself a hat tagged with ‘Free PF’ good protest gear to wear if he’s ever arrested.

Tuesday 5th April
Race Day 4 Riversdale – Barrydale 110km 2425m ascent 6h24

Everyone seems tired today and the start is much less hectic than yesterday. We retrace the road then bear left onto hard pack dirt gradually climbing through verdant farmland set in a valley between heavily folded mountains, we ride with Paul & Jim them gaining on the downs, us catching on the ups. We are tracked by the microlight which turns out to be the race film crew. At last we get a ‘proper’ hill winding up the mountain to a quarry at the top complete with a Gaudi digger for LilCuteOne. Meet up with the Nampack boys and Weekend Warriors and water stop 1. The descent is a screamer, fast fine red gravel where we overtake a lumbering lorry and by the bottom I’ve got cramp in both feet. Rolling tarmac traverses the valley and winds through heavily wooded tunnels of trees and much appreciated shade to an oasis and water stop 2. What follows next is a rare treat – proper way-marked cycle track through pretty heathland, just like the Peak District. Excellent rocky climb and double track with a spectacular gorge to our right, precariously close at times. It’s Paul & Jim’s territory and they pass us on a rocky descent, then it's muddy puddles with hidden stones and the cameraman catches Raymond making an unscheduled dismount as he hits a ditch. Next, a steep, loose downhill to a river crossing which I don't even think twice about riding but by the cheers of spectators sheltering under a tree it seems llike most people have walked it. More hard packed trail then we join the main road and form a group with some other teams. We catch Maggie & Jeff just before the last water stop. Paul and Jim soon arrive and we leave to tackle the 15km road stretch that will take us over the famed Tradouw pass. It's hot and very reminiscent of Mallorca, I settle into an easy rhythm, we pass Jeff & Maggie again and after a short, sweet descent the road contours the hillside to the finish. We see an ambulance and Cape Epic van speeding past in the opposite direction and hope it's nothing serious. Raymond has hit a serious sugar low and gets shelter on my wheel as I'm feeling strong and happy. Today there has been no injuries, no mechanicals and no pressure to keep up. Paul & Jim come in some time behind us. They had left the last stop and cycled down the hill before Jim realised that he'd left his helmet behind and had to go back for it! Doh!
The official Cape Epic race jerseys are on sale today so we get money from an ATM in the local shop to buy them and pick up some sweets to hand out to the children. Paul uses one of the conveniences on the way back to camp but discovers that the waste pipe from the urinal isn't directed outside when he gets wet feetJ We take grapes to Keith who is laid up in the medical tent with cramps due to dehydration/mineral depletion, Julie however is flying. We also find out that Mark broke a chain today and that the microlight had crashed resulting in a broken leg for the film man. Wednesday 6th April
Race Day 5 Barrydale - Montagu 107km 1125m ascent 6hr20

Today is the long awaited ride through the Sambona game reserve where we can apparently hope to see the 'Big 5'. I start the day by spraining my wrist putting my sleeping bag away, Raymond forgets his water bottle and the zip on my camelback breaks. On the fast tarmac drop out of town I see a person lying in the middle of the road and assume it's a cameraman. I think what a dangerous place it is to take photos. As we pass by it's obvious that it's not a photograher but a marshal who's been struck by the front runners and is badly hurt, a cyclist lies in the gutter behind her. We can't stop and carry on in disturbed mood. The trail is hard packed, stony double track and we pass Julie who's lost Keith. We enter the national park through large gates, high fences line the trail. The terrain is very much like Moab, stepped rock and deep red sand. The only scenery is scrubby, rocky outcrops, no animals are to be seen other than some ants and the only other live presence are the rangers armed with tracking equipment and rifles. The road is dead straight, although undulating, and stretches into oblivion. The sky is overcast in a monotonous grey and I feel like I'm on a turbo trainer in a painted room. It is interminably boring and my mood steadily deteriorates, only a few squirrelly moments in the sand grab my waning attention. Suddenly I'm jolted awake by some actual mountain biking, the trail drops sharply, then climbs just as steeply. It's loose and rocky. The weird thing is - everyone's walking! Even I can ride most of this (although a few sections are hiking bits). Raymond clears more than anyone else around and when asking someone to move out of the way is told that riding it is 'completely unnecessary'! Then it's back to the painted turbo room for a while. After stop 2 there are annoying dried up river beds with thick soft sandy dips into rock strewn channels. A good rock climb follows and a cameraman tells me I'm looking tired! That's not right! He's meant to say "you're looking good" or "only 10mins/3km (delete as necessary) to go" surely? As I'm pondering this I realise I've wandered back into the turbo room and wonder whether those bits were just a dream? I am filled with a sense of intense vitriol that is all consuming.
We reach stop 3 and have 17km to go. Raymond's knee is painful, possibly due to yesterday's fall, he adjusts his pedal spacer to see if that helps. A wide gravel road thankfully leads us out of the reserve and into farmland. I wake from my turbo nightmare to see people working in the orchards and smell sweet roses, my mood lifts. As we near the finish we pass through the outskirts of Montagu, the road is lined with children shouting for chocolate and holding out their hands for Hi-5's. Raymond asks them for chocolate and pretends to clobber them about their heads. Paul & Jim are at the finish where Dymphna has been enjoying the spectacle. We cross the line with the Warriors who are nursing a puncture. Children swarm around us wanting our autographs either on Cape Epic paper or if they haven't got that, on body parts!
This afternoon's routine is spiced up by a leg massage and by having our weight, body fat and hydration levels measured. Raymond is a svelte 5.8% and pronounced an elite athlete, I come in at 7.7% am told that's dangerously low and to go back tomorrow. I decide not to just in case they stop me riding!

Thursday 7th April
Race Day 6 Montagu - Villiersdorp 115km 1170m ascent 5hr52

Today's stage has been shortened from 127km dur to flooding, odd since we've been sweltering under azure skies. Raymond is seriously considering retiring with his knee and I'm plagued with period cramps - happy days! He lowers his saddle, I munch on paracetamol. It's a road blast to start with but we take it slowly to ease Raymond's tendons in. Then we wind through orchards where workers are singing. we gradually gain height and the trees are swapped for bushes with thorns 2" long. We pass the Evans' boys fixing a puncture, they've had several and Raymond gives them a spare tube. They re-pass but no sooner do so than puncture again. I give them a pack of patches and they thank us as the climb ahead. The road drops into a busy town and stop 1. Paul & Jim are just leaving but we pass them only metres down the road with a flat. The next bit must be the diversion as it's a long tarmac section. I'm feeling strong and pull Raymond and his dodgy knee onto the back of a group. We pass Evans' again and ask them what they're playing at - joking that if they fall out of the top 20 Gary said they'd have to work for us! Raymond is rallying and pulls us up the hill and we slipstream two big guys from Germany down the other side. We bit'n'bit like this for miles until we turnoff onto hard pack road through vineyards and stop 2. Here I stock up on pills from the medical tent and we commence the hike-a-bike section. The sun is high and the sand a dazzling white, it gets into my socks. We sweat profusely as we climb and push the bikes up a steep, loose, rocky hill, hindered by the cameramen and paramedics on quad bikes and motorbikes who overtake only to stall in front of us and upset our rhythm. By the top the sand has rubbed big blisters on my heels. Today the mountainside looks scenic under deep blue skies, the rock and sand descent widens to a gravel road interspersed with tarmac sections and we are confronted by a mirage of three white horses wandering in the middle of nowhere. It's fast downhill through farms, orchards and vineyards to stop 3, we leave in a blaze of bourgainvillea following a wide gravel road which winds upwards then down into a strong headwind. Sharp left takes us between apple trees to what looks like the South Downs, a white track winds across the fields, snaking uphill, dotted with groups of cyclists. This is more like it! Masts mark the summit then it’s a sandy downhill to run parallel to a canal where we meet the Sauna duo who’ve also suffered punctures, we hand them a spare tube. A red road leads into town, then a tarmac drag up to the main street and flat sprint to the finish, two mixed pairs hot on our heels, Raymond leads me out but our rhythm is interrupted by some pedestrians stepping into our path. This allows a third mixed pair to join the chase. The guy from Team Beautiful Day takes his chance and just pips me to the line, but his partner is off his wheel and Raymond & I are microseconds behind. She comes in fourth and the aggregate timing system gives us the win!! We have been cycling with this team a lot but have finished behind them every day until now. We shake hands all round, playful rivalry and good camaraderie is always found in these events, it's that common bond of suffering!
We get ice for my wrist and Raymond’s knee and try to settle into our tents, but the field is completely over run with big black crickets that skuttle everywhere you look. Later, when I try to get more ice for my wrist, I’m dragged inside the medical tent and told a doctor will see me, I say I don’t want to bother them, it’s only some ice for a sprain. Nevertheless a doctor appears. Firstly he asks me if I’m a cyclist as the medical tent is designed for treating the racers, I say yes, he says I look far too fresh! Then he asks what I’ve done, I cringe as I tell him I’ve sprained my wrist packing my sleeping bag up. He stifles a laugh, confirms my tendonitits, which is displaying a lovely crepitus on movement, and decides to strap it up. Meanwhile bleeding guys are being brought in on stretchers, the bloke next to me has a couple of hyperdermics in his bum and is waiting to be stitched!
Julie & Keith join us for tea, he looks awful, Julie is thriving. It’s been far too hot for Keith, Julie just tells him to think of ice cubes and penguins before sprinting ahead of him! We sleep despite the constant barrage of insomniac crickets that sing wildly whilst dive bombing the tents, probably wondering where this infestation of orange triangles has come from.

Friday 8th April
Race Day 7 Villiersdorp – Boschendal 115km 1875m ascent 6h20

What they take with one hand they give with the other. Today’s stage has been lengthened from 103km to make up for our disappointment in yesterday’s shortened stage. But something is missing, no Mike, no loud music, has the PA system packed up? Unfortunately no, there is a much more devastating reason for the quietness, at the start we are informed that one of the riders died in his sleep last night. Shocked we hold a minute’s silence before starting our penultimate day at a sombre pace. We turn left after a stretch of main road onto forest track which gradually climbs, turns into narrow double track strewn with rocks. It winds ever upwards, again lots are walking whilst we relish the challenge and ride on until we burst through the cloud and are confronted with the most awesome sight of the trip. To our right the valley lies under thick fluffy white cloud that looks like it’s just discovered gravity and fallen out of the sky. Standing above, you almost want to throw yourself onto it like a giant bouncy castle. The track is edged by pretty heather-like shrubs and the descent is fast and furious. Julie whizzes past minus Keith, I hurtle down at scary speeds, my descending is improving dramatically. The track then meanders along the valley floor, white sand accentuates the heat and I am fighting a losing battle against my cramps having to stop at the roadside several times to wait for them to pass. We are losing lots of time. Stop 2 provides more medication then it’s a road climb, newly tarmaced and sticky in the heat, our tyres make such a squelchy noise as they adhere to the road and suck at the strength in our legs. A clever one way system has been devised as police escorts traffic up the hill then turns round and escorts others back down. All wave and cheer us on, the descent is tempered by a strong head wind but at least it’s cool. A mixture of tarmac and red gravel roads takes us to vineyard country. We cycle a convoluted course between the vines passing loads of people fixing punctures. These include Paul & Jim, who should have been miles ahead, they’d apparently counted 50+ thorns in their tyres. We shout if they’re ok only for me to puncture just metres ahead. As we change the tube Mark & Viv go past, shortly followed by Paul & Jim. We chase after them, cycle through a couple of dirt-devils/mini tornados, (hoping they’d pick us up and deposit us at the finish, pleading they didn’t drop us back at the start!) and circle a reservoir then back between the grapes, we catch Mark & Viv with 5km to go and hope to reel in the boys, but they are nowjere in sight as we rejoin the road and finish on the driveway of a fantastic wine estate in manicured grounds. This is the loveliest setting so far and we laze under the trees lining the finish applauding as people come in. We are shocked to see the arrival of Paul & Jim, who we assumed had finished, but they'd succumbed to yet another puncture. We get a surprise at tea when Paul bumps into Clayton who’s doing some warm weather triathlon training over here and has come to check the race out! Paul retires to bed early, Jim has a grin as wide as a Cheshire cat, he’s coming into form and rapidly wearing Paul out!

Saturday 9th April
Race Day 8 Boschendal – Spier 45km 1875 m 2h54

Our last day and a short one at that. We are treated to a 9.00am start. Through the vineyards, a bottleneck at a tiny water splash, and through a small village, everyone is out to see us go by. Raymond throws the children sweets, often only throwing two when there are four children, sending them fighting to the floor – b*st*rd!
A long winding forestry track allows us to gain places but on the descents it’s so dusty the riders in front appear then disappear like ghosts. A short muddy patch is followed by deep sand then a short sharp climb through some houses. The next hill is steep with two strips of concrete separated by rubble, which makes overtaking difficult. It’s not helped by people dismounting and walking very slowly in front and not willing to get out of the way of others riding. Finally, even I lose patience and I end up yelling at them for blocking my path. The track levels to contour the hillside that is covered in dense bushy heathers and pine trees; under deep blue skies, it looks and smells wonderful. Just as we get to cruising speed Raymond punctures, both Keith & Julie and Mark & Viv pass us by, but we’ve not yet seen Paul & Jim. Once fioxed we continue and see 'Daytripper' Steve at the crest of the hill taking photos. Next, a loose downhill, which I’m starting to excel at, even going off line to overtake people! and a fast fire road that hides a loose left bend, which is to claim a lot of skin before the day is out. As we twist through some proper singletrack we see Clayton who cheers us onwards and upwards. Again there are too many people walking to ride far so we end up sprinting past them pushing our bikes. Good singletrack through the pine trees follows which thankfully I get a clear run at, more firetrack then a sharp right onto part of the UCI world cup course. Hurrah, lovely swooshy trails, bumps and berms but, dear god, people are still walking and getting in the way!?! I despair, even I can manage this! Leaving water point 2 we start the next stony climb with happy, springy legs after the singletrack feast, we meander through more vineyards then join a main road and encounter a queue. Instead of letting us cross the road, or sending us up to the nearby traffic lights to turn us around, the organisers have improvised a portage through a sewer! Julie and Keith are just emerging from the other side. We wait our turn to clamber down into the drainage chute, balance precariously across a ledge under the road and jump over the smelly water to scramble up the other side. There are several reports of people falling in, yuck! Back on the road it’s only 6km to go, through more vineyards and then criss cross several times through a deep stream. We are neck and neck with another mixed pair and gain the advantage as she gets chain suck emerging from the water. We wade the stream for the last time and re-enter the vineyard. I get ready to sprint but Raymond shouts, he’s got a front flat. I can’t believe this and just scream “nooooooooooooooo!” in despair as our rivals sail past. He wants to fix it but I can just make out the tents so the finish can’t be far off. I ask him whether he can ride on it or else to just pick up his bike and run! He rides, carefully unweighting the front wheel, within a few hundred metres the finish arch is in sight, people throng the road and the Nampack guys cheer us in. Raymond controls things admirably even when, in my excitement, I grab his hand as we cross the line! We’ve done it and done it well, ending up 14th/50 in the mixed category and 149th /460 overall. Julie and Keith are chilling out in the shade of some modern art. Mark and Viv aren’t far behind and Paul & Jim come in some time later having had more punctures and Jim adding his skin to the large pile collecting on that sketchy left bend.

So ends the Magical and Untamed Cape Epic. An amazing experience and an incredible feat of organisation. The logistics behind the running of this event must be staggering. With over 900 racers and 300 staff, we were provided with a tent each! There were enormous marquees hosting the dining tent (complete with tables with tablecloths and table centres, I almost expected a dress code), the kitchens, race headquarters, media tent, race hospital, massages, and bag storage. Bike mechanics were on call day and night. Thought had even gone into the provision of the water, all from the same source to prevent stomach upsets, (the Coca-Cola plant in Cape Town), and tankered in to us daily. The showers, 30 perched on the back of a juggernaut, were provided by Absolute Ablutions and were always hot, a first in our multi-stage experience. Search and rescue vehicles, paramedics on quad bikes and motorcycles and 3 water points / 1 medic tent on the course per day. All this was put up one day, taken down, transported to the finish and re-erected the next, all before the pros got there, which was less than 4 hours after the start on some days! That’s a lot of manpower to call upon. All in all - an excellent race if not quite what I was expecting, not as technical but made up for in sheer distance. For the masochist in me, I didn’t feel like I suffered enough! No 12-hour days, our longest was 8 and that was due to a mechanical not the terrain; I slept too well, we were all provided with 6” foam mattresses! And ate too well, Thomas & Dalida cooked vegan meals even managing to procure tofu which is a feat in itself in London let alone a field in the outback of the southern capeJ Big Hi5’s go to the children, who were carrying bags we could barely lift to our tents, washing our bikes and entertaining us in the evenings with singing, dancing and playing in brass bands. The only downside – no finishers’ presentation of shirts and medals which just left it feeling a bit incomplete. But definitely recommended, especially for roadies wanting to try their hand at a multi-stage mtb event or first-timers before tackling the more technically challenging TransAlps / Rockies or Ruta because despite the ‘big-up’ this race could have been done on a cross-bike JG

24 hours of Moab

2008-03-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Riders and fellow team mates - Skid Marks have entered teams in the 24 Hours of Moab race, so it's off to the US of A....
Monday 11th October
Get taxi to Heathrow Terminal 4 for our direct flight BA 218 to Denver, Colorado. There is a slight delay as mechanics replace one of the undercarriage panels then we’re off. We arrive at 19:00 and await the interminable immigration procedures, to our amazement it is both quick and painless, our fingerprints are taken and our irises photographed and we’re straight through to be re-united with our luggage, none of which has been scattered across the Atlantic, Good job, mechanics!

Raymond and I catch the courtesy bus to pick up our rental car at Hertz. Greg, Julie and Paul get a shuttle bus to the hotel. After 20 minutes Raymond and I are still trying to work out how to open the boot, Rod appears having collected his car from the neighbouring Budget, we have similar models and he helps us load up. Then it’s the scary bit – my first drive for almost 10years – in an automatic, on the wrong side of the road and in the dark!! I follow Rod and despite a minor detour down a huge toll road we find both our La Quinta hotel and the others. The receptionist tells us breakfast starts at 4.00am and would we like a wake-up call, Rod gives her a ‘don’t even think about it’ look. But…..

Tuesday 12th October

...it’s 3.10am and we are all wide awake! We while away the minutes until 4.00am and all head down to breakfast, then unpack and re assemble our bikes. The others manage to sleep in until 6.00 and are picking up their rental RV at 8.00am. We are to meet Jim in Boulder at the youth hostel at noon. With Raymond at the wheel, we again tail Rod through downtown Denver and out into suburbia to the mountains of Boulder. The town is bigger than expected but looks pretty under cloudless blue skies and autumnal shades, we park opposite a diner in which we have our second breakfast and visit a retro roadie bike shop called Vecchio’s.

We book in at the Best Western, which has the Raymondesque suffix ‘Golden Buff’, and get on our bikes to find Jim. He is sitting on a porch outside the hostel with his brand new, baby blue Santa Cruz waiting for the RV. We spotted an mtb shop and a health food supermarket down the road so go off to investigate. At the bike shop we meet Burt from Washington DC who is looking for company for a ride, we agree to meet him back here at 1.00pm, then we stock up on provisions for the trip. The supermarket holds the biggest display of vegan ice creams I’ve ever seen, I have a magnum! We arrange with Jim to all meet up at our hotel at 6pm.

Back at the hotel we change into proper cycling stuff and collect Burt (Jim isn’t there so we assume the RV has arrived) and head off into the Boulder trails as described by the bike shop guy. We follow the riverside path towards the hills, it rises in a gentle gradient but we are already aware of the effects of altitude and any exertion leaves us panting hard! We join a road and exit right, before a tunnel onto a steep, rocky gully, Burt rides, we walk. It climbs through pine forest to a meadow and water pumping station. Here, two ‘Lunachicks’ out on a training ride overtake us. The trail is good, swoopy singletrack but all off camber – I tell myself it’s all good practise. As we stop to repair Rod’s puncture we are unfortunately lapped by the cheerily chatting, not even out-of-breath Lunachicks. The loop leads back to the gully, which I descend well, only bailing out at two points at which Rod has crashed in front of me. The second is caught on camera by Raymond and is appropriately next to the ‘Caution - Danger’ sign. Although Rod escapes with cuts and bruises his back wheel is trashed, Burt happens to own a bike shop, has a spoke-key and knows how to use it, enough to true the wheel enough for Rod to get back. At the bike shop we thank the guy for the route and reward him with business as Rod buys a new wheel. Burt says he’ll try to catch up with us in Moab later in the week. As we cycle back to the hotel there has been an accident and the traffic has come to a standstill. We cycle between the lanes to reach the front where a policeman is directing the diversion. He gives us an appalled look and says ‘Hey! You guys know better than that!’ and we get slapped wrists for riding in such a manner – we aren’t in London now!

Wednesday 13th October
Wake to grey skies, it has rained heavily during the night and in the hills this has fallen as snow. On the TV a weatherman is standing in 2ft of snow next to a tunnel informing motorists that commercial vehicles need to use snow chains. I think they’ve had it bad somewhere and only after consulting the map do I realise that it’s the route we have to travel to Fruita! Well, things should have melted a bit by the time we reach it – hopefully. Raymond holds the car keys today and we tail Rod out of Boulder and aim for Interstate 70. We lose Rod at an intersection but once on the I70 it’s follow ours noses to Fruita. The Colorado Rockies soon loom into view and the ground is covered with a fine dusting of snow, which looks very picturesque.

As we gain altitude the snowfall thickens, visibility drops and road conditions deteriorate rapidly. Snow blowers and ploughs are out in force but icy patches catch at our wheels every now and then, Raymond drives with aplomb, applying his cycling motto that ice is rideable as long as you don’t try to steer or brake. Snow chains for commercial vehicles are still in force, every so often there are signs for runaway vehicle ramps and ahead of them we see steep snow pistes and, scarily, they all have recent tyre tracks running all the way to the top:-o (how do they get back down again?!). Once over the highest pass, Vail At 10, 603ft, the conditions improve quickly, blue skies abound and the sun is glorious. I take over the wheel, and as I continue westwards a car overtakes me, Raymond waves at the driver – it’s Rod! He says that Greg has been in touch, they had travelled on to Fruita last night when they should have been meeting us! We are to meet them at Loma, Exit 15. Raymond drives the last hour to the village where we stock up on water and energy bars for the ride. The directions were to go through Loma but the road goes miles across the plains towards the hills. I check the map and find we’re heading in the wrong direction, we flash Steve to turn around, head back into Loma and out to the trailhead that is literally just yards out of town! Quickly change in cycling stuff and we’re off – Greg, Julie, Paul and Jim are there in the RV, Keith has arrived as has Chipps and his friend Chris ‘the wrench wench’. It appears Jim forgot about the rendezvouz!
The ride follows part of the Kokopelli trail, which eventually ends in Moab, we do a small loop to begin with. The riding is rock and sand. Keith tells us to beware of ‘goatheads’; small seeds that lie in undisturbed sand which explode into lots of sharp thorns when touched. Riding over one of these leaves so many undetectable spikes in the tyre that cause punctures and it’s easier to buy a new tyre than try to remove them. So, ‘keep to the trail’. Raymond promptly punctures but it’s a faulty valve that’s the culprit. It’s getting hot now we’re riding and the going is hard, I think we’re all feeling a bit like we’ve never ridden a bike before, whether that’s altitude or jet-lag I don’t know but I don’t like it! The others are fairing a little better having ridden some other Fruita trails this morning, Julie and Jim are sporting new cuts, I soon gouge a chainmark into the back of my calf which annoys me, but I am descending well, even if my climbing has deserted me! We only ride 8 miles but it feels like 30.
We’d planned to spend the night in Fruita but the RV is heading on to Moab, we decide to continue the journey which should take a couple of hours and leave the Fruita trails for the return trip. We arrive as the sun is setting and the red rocks that surround us in all directions glow crimson. We bag an extra night in the hotel that Rod had pre-booked for this weekend, it turns out to be a self-contained three bed roomed bungalow and it recommends a pizza house called Isabella’s with free wifi internet connection, Raymond is ecstatic!

Thursday 14th October
Today we are being introduced to the Moab riding scene. Our first stop is the legendary ‘slick rock’. The RV has camped close to the trailhead, we ride up to meet them, pay $2 entrance fee and head for the practice loop that is about 3miles long, the main trail is longer but we don’t particularly want to ride the whole day. The slick rock is deep red and feels like fine grain sand paper, (hence my investment in arm protectors), tyres stick to it like glue making it possible to ride very steep ups and downs but it wears them very quickly.
The practice loop consists of scary undulations over the rocks, there are intermittent white lines for you to follow and some near vertical ups and downs, I let the boys go first and follow warily. I needn’t have worried you can step on the pedals as hard as you like and there is no spin from the tyres and I get up things that look impossible! The only thing that disturbs me is the absolutely awful squeal from my back brake, it echoes around the canyon and everyone knows when I’m slowing down. The only bits I just can’t get my head or bike around are the sudden changes in angles. Going from flat gradually to vertical is fine but when the angles are nearly 90’ I chicken out, commitment is everything and the boys manage extremely well. The practice loop lends onto the main trail and Paul, Jim, Greg and Julie head on while me Raymond, Steve and Rod turn back, on the way past the RV we see Julie who didn’t like the practice bit and hated the main trail which was all off camber for her and got a lot steeper. After lunch we load the bikes into the cars and travel south of the town some 12miles to the race site. A rough road leads off the main highway for a mile or so and at the entrance is a kiosk with people collecting camping fees $10 per person per night. They ask for $60! We explain that we’re just riding the course and won’t be staying; they say we have to pay regardless but eventually concede. The RV has arrived and the others will be camping here until the race is over. We all set off on a recce of the course. Keith has been riding this course almost everyday in the last couple of weeks and knows it intimately, he forewarns us of obstacles and advises us as to how to approach them. The start is sandy single track, the sand is extremely fine and requires you to take all the weight off the front wheel if you are to get through it, I don’t. Keith says, ‘think: all your weight is in your ass’. The track is punctuated by a couple of bombholes filled with deep soft sand; I don’t do these either. We then turn off onto the rocks, these are the size of cars and have deep fissures that stop all momentum and are separated by yet more intractionable sand. The climb is long and I soon run out of concentration and have no go in my legs, I walk to meet the rest at the top. There is nice flat double track on the plateau at the top but even this has sections of squirmy sand, the descent is a sandy helter-skelter with enormous berms as steep as track cycling! The next part of the course is quite technical, lots of smaller boulders and shelves that can be ridden with balls, Keith and the boys work out the best lines down these atrocities, I walk both down and back up the other sides. Keith crashes a couple of times trying out new lines, he’s unstoppable! I am cycling appallingly! And I am in a very bad mood, I try to blame my poor performance on jet lag, altitude, any excuse, but I’m just frustrated because I can do better but it isn’t happening. The last 6 miles is relatively flat, fast double track around a huge rock formation called ‘Prostitute Butte’, there’s another steep downhill with a nasty ledge at the top then undulating until the final crawl up to the plateau and it’s a blast all the way back to the start. It takes almost 2 hours for us to complete this lap! The race is going to be hard work. I think we are all a bit shell shocked at how technical the course is and now face an unsettled night. Friday 15th October
No hard riding today. We decide to do some sightseeing instead, Rod has been here before and suggests the Arches National Park where we can cycle around the viewpoints before watching the sunset behind one of the most spectacular arches known as Delicate Arch. We pack and drive out of town, 2miles later and we are at the entrance!! We cycle up a short climb, which takes us onto an undulating plateau with views of various rock formations and the La Sal mountain range. We drop down off the plateau and slowly climb back out to reach the North and South Arches, Turret Arch and Multiple Arch. We stop here to walk through the arches, which are immense. It is getting very hot and there is little shade, Raymond sits under a bush until we return. I’m getting a bit sun fazed too, Rod wants to stay here ‘til sundown but Raymond and I have had enough; as the saying goes (to paraphrase Mr G. Smith) ‘once you’ve seen one arch…’. We cycle back to the car which includes a 6km freewheel down off the plateau and find a freshly squashed snake on the road. Raymond picks it up and puts it under a bush. It’s not long before Rod and Steve also return. The afternoon is spent browsing the shops and visiting the laundrette. Raymond discovers, reading his e-mails, that our race packages have to be collected by 8pm, we text the others at race HQ to sign us in. We get a frantic call from Paul at 7.50pm, he has signed for his team Skid Marks but needs another signature for the Sunday Riders. Fortunately the sign in is at the town hall in Moab and not actually at the race site, Rod sprints off, mid mouthful, and returns with a goody bag containing our race numbers, timing tags, t-shirt and glo-in-the-dark Frisbees.

Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th October
Race day! We are awake quite early charged with what? Excitement? Anticipation? Dread? We pack enough stuff to last us the weekend and drive the 12miles out of town to Behind The Rocks where the race is being held. This time we pay our camping/entrance fee and soon locate the others’ RV, together with Keith’s two teams and the distinctive Bontrager gazebo. The desert has bloomed into a sprawling village of tents and RV’s. Keith has brought an endless supply of experimental tyres that we can test-ride for him. Our team of Sunday Riders is complete but Skid Marks are still a man down, Paul has somehow managed to rope Chipps Chippendale – UK bike journo and SSMM and SITS course designer - into taking part, this also gives us some leverage in getting demo lights loaned to us courtesy of NiteRider. Before I’ve even emerged from the car, Keith has stuck his head through the window and is telling me race tactics, having been worried at my abysmal performance on the practice lap he has put some thought into how I can get the most from my laps! He is such a sweetie!

The pre-race briefing starts at 10am, it is already blisteringly hot in the sun, the organiser should get an award for speaking for 28hours non-stop, he goes through the race rules, generally the same as for British 24hour races but help is allowed on course but only from another registered rider from your team who can ride out to find you or even accompany you on a lap. The baton exchange is slightly different too, as the rider completes their lap they hand the baton to an organiser then swipe their transponder. The organiser then passes the baton to the next rider who swipes their card on the way out. It seems very labour intensive but works well and has a plus point in that the organiser knows the name of who has just come in / gone out and gives you personal encouragement.

Julie and Paul are doing the run and first laps for Sunday Riders and Skid Marks respectively. The run is quite short, from the tent, across scrubland around a bush and back. The bikes are parked in the corral. We shout and cheer as they all line up and on the stroke of noon the gun goes and people sprint away. It now becomes apparent why so many people lined up were wearing facemasks, there is a veritable dust storm kicked up by hundreds of feet and it is difficult to discern people just a few feet away! In fact Paul said that when he got to the bush there were people running in all directions because they just couldn’t see their way back. Then they start their laps, we anticipate 1hour45mins under race conditions. The adrenalin has kicked in and Paul is back in 1hour 25, and Julie in 1hour 35 – way to go guys!! Next out are Jim and Raymond, whose lap times are separated by only 4 seconds 1hr23:30/4 and then it’s my turn. I feel surprisingly calm yet aggressive which is quite unusual for me, Raymond comes in I take the baton, swipe out and pedal out onto the course. It is so much more rideable than last time! I slither through the sandy singletrack which I completely messed up in practice and once onto the rocky climb, most of which I previously walked, I find I am overtaking people by the handful. The price for this is total hyperventilation and I sound like a steam train! I get my breath back powering along the flat section at the top and fly down the helter skelter descent. Any bits I really don’t feel confident with – a couple of nasty rocky drop-offs and one cliff face climb, I quickly dismount and run over. It actually feels very good to push myself this hard, I haven’t felt like this since the last day of La Ruta and having done no racing this year I was worried that I was getting so apathetic that I would never feel that way again. I get back to the tent to complete my lap in 1hour28.33!! I’m shocked and pleased! Steve is out next followed by Greg, who didn’t think he’d get a daylight lap in but we’re way up on our expected schedule. My next lap starts at just gone 11pm, it is pitch black, there is no ambient light from surrounding urbanisations. The Niterider lights are excellent; I have one on my bars and one on my helmet. I don’t find the night riding as ‘easy’ as I do at home, where I get very nervous but it turns out to be fine, the shadowed rocks make me stall repeatedly and although I go fast on the flatter bits I am still going a lot slower. At the 11mile mark I pick up a guy from Aspen whose lights have gone and we cycle back at a steady pace together. In the last mile I pick up another two lightless souls and look like a mother hen bringing in her brood. They thank me; I say if I can’t be fast, I can at least be useful :-)

The other strange thing is that the rocks hold the heat of day and night laps are warm, then as day breaks and you expect temperatures to rise, it plummets! From 6-9am it’s freezing then the sun bursts over the mountains and the radiation levels soar. Riders come and go, my last lap starts about 8.30 and Steve does the last leg having to lurk a little to miss the noon deadline. Sunday Riders completed 14 laps. As mid-day passes there are flashes of fork lightning over Prostitute Butte followed by low rumbles of thunder. Little did we know that Rod, completing Skid Marks' 15th lap, was there, squirming in the sand, leading the forks a merry dance as he dodged the stormJ Keith's team came third in their category. He stays for the award presentation, we cruise back into Moab, elation having superceded dread and already planning how to improve for next year. We all meet up for a celebratory meal and have a well deserved early night.

Monday 18th October
We sleep like a log and wake quite late. Rod and Steve have planned to go sightseeing at the Canyonlands National Park, we decide to give this a miss, ‘once you’ve seen one view….' We hit the shops for presents and bump into Chipps, Chris and friends. He said he really enjoyed the race and wasn’t feeling too bad – he obviously didn’t try hard enough! He and Chris suggested riding the Amasa trail as a recovery ride and suggests going to the Chile Pepper bike shop (also recommended by Jim at Vecchio’s in Boulder) for internet access. The shop does very good coffee, Raymond buys a slinky red top and we watch some guys ride the steep slick rock outside the shop, then it’s back for another sleep. Once awake all desire for a ride has disappeared so we decide to go for a walk instead. Earlier, in town, we’d seen a creekside pathway, so we decide to explore. A meander through suburban Moab takes us past a thrift shop (US version of second hand shop) and then we spot the trail. This winds it’s way back towards the centre of town, a wood chip track through yellow and green trees makes a welcome change from endless red rock. The trees have weird bark that looks like it has just survived a forest fire. The track surfaces at the hardware store, which Raymond investigates with relish. It’s back to Isabella’s for supper, we walk through the door to be confronted with the only other customers – Paul and Jim! Our number is soon swelled by the arrival of Julie and Greg. Greg has rested today, Julie had intended to ride out to the Arches but missed the turning and travelled the Castle Valley road for a 30mile round trip. We plan to meet up at 9.00am in the morning to ride Porcupine Rim. Steve and Rod think they may try to visit Bryce canyon, even though it is a long drive in the wrong direction, being so inspired by today scenic views. Jim has an early start in the morning, he is catching the 7.30 am bus back to Denver on the start of a long trip back to Aberdeen.

Tuesday 19th October
Today we are riding the legendary Porcupine Rim. Rod and Steve have decided to ride too but drive to the trailhead. We meet the others and cycle the 10.5miles to the start, it takes a good hour to get there. We find Rod’s car with a message written on the side in the dust – they’ve already set off. We sign the trail register and begin the notorious track. After the trials of the race the track seems relatively tame and we manage it without many problems. In fact we are all riding extremely well. At the top of the climb is a magnificent viewpoint over Castle Valley with steep, vertiginous drops made even more perilous by a strong wind blowing into the void. Raymond cheats death by standing, bike aloft, on a rocky outcrop; we settle for just sitting close to the edge for photos. The descent is fast and furious over rock-strewn trails, which we fly over with ease. The track then contours the hill above the river, all the wrong camber for me but I am feeling confident and riding well, surprising myself at how well I do some bits of it! At the end it drops to the road back into Moab, Greg foolishly tries to go for the town sign, Raymond easily out sprints him. We retrieve the car and at lunch we are joined by Keith, there is no sign of Steve and Rod. Raymond and I were planning on going to Fruita this evening but Paul now needs a lift to Denver in order to catch a connecting flight to Seattle so we decide it would be easier stay with them and take up their offer of a night camping at Dead Horse Point. We drive out to the National Park and the RV camping ground, at the entrance of which we catch sight of a leaping deer. The ranger’s office is closed so we go straight through and find a spot to hook up. The only bugbear is that the fires are solely charcoal, wood fires are not allowed and we have nothing but copious amounts of wood. We start the fire anyway and no sooner is it well alight than the ranger appears, we work out how much it is to stay the night and he chastises us for our use of wood. We plead ignorance by assuming the sign meant no wood gathered from the park and he kindly turns a blind eye telling us that we can burn what’s already alight but no more! Julie cooks - superbly as usual. Wednesday 20th October
Slept quite well although it sounded quite windy in the night. Keith has arrived and he, Greg and Julie decide to ride to the view point of Dead Horse Point before the crowds start appearing. On their return Keith gets to grips with breakfast. He is preparing hearty pancakes for us, vegan and regular versions, over the open fire. Raymond is impressed and is determined to try his own at home some time. Whilst the others are packing Raymond and I take the short bike ride to the viewpoint, which is quite spectacular, a huge gorge/canyon with the Colorado River winding it’s way through the floor. On the way back we see some more wild deer. Today, Julie and Keith are planning a hike to see some petroglyphs of childbirth. We decide to head out to Fruita accompanied by Paul and Greg in the RV. Once there we browse the local bike shop, here there are some black glittery arm warmers that we think would suit Paul, Raymond tells the shop assistant the he dresses like the Queen of England! We have coffee in a shop with a ceiling like the National Gallery all bronzed and ornate (and selling vegan cookies) then decide to rest today and ride tomorrow. We find a RV park and start a fire, Paul and I prepare food but realise that we have nothing to cook it in as Julie has the camping stuff. Raymond and I go to the thrift shop and pick up a wok (in which is a stand that Raymond discards) and a frying pan for a dollar each. The wok is a great success but without the stand needs to be supported by rocks in order to balance. Later on we walk to the supermarket then sing around the campfire and settle down for the night. It rains hard throughout the night.

Thursday 21st October
Wake to dull and grey skies. Raymond lights a fire and mixes up some chocolate pancake batter, with raisins and cornflakes, to cook for breakfast. The pan we bought is not the best for the job but the pancakes with a drizzle of maple syrup are very edible. We drive out to the trailhead for our last ride. We do the infamous Joe’s Ridge; scary in places due to exposed nature of trail but apart from stalling on a rather vertiginous bit I ride it all and feel pleased. I also feel this marks the end of my holiday so let the boys go off to play whilst I make my way back to the car. Julie and Keith have come to do a last trail ride too. The boys arrive back an hour later, very bubbly and excited after some frantic trail blazing. Julie and Keith go off riding, I drive us back to book in at La Quinta for a last night of home comforts, hot showers, soft beds and complimentary breakfast. Rod has e-mailed, he and Steve have gone to Boulder for some more high altitude trail training. Hopefully we’ll meet up at the airport tomorrow. Paul comes over to book his flight and I, after a much needed shower, pack away my trusted steed.

Friday 22nd October
I sleep well until the alarm goes off at 5.00am! Why?? Paul shocks us by arriving early!! We’re almost ready, we pack everything into the car and squeeze Paul and his bike into the back seat and set off in a fine drizzle. The weather is meant to get worse as we move east, so we have left extra time for the journey. As it turns out the rain comes in fits and starts and soon peters out altogether. I drive to Vail, stopping only for an agitated Paul to have a pee. Weather warnings suggest icy conditions over the pass so we stop for Raymond to take over. It is bloody cold, the temperature gauge reads 37’F and there is a fine snow falling. The pass, however, is clear. We get to the outskirts of Denver and the road multiplies into five/six lanes and the traffic builds. Paul needs to collect his bike bag from the RV rental place on an industrial estate. We manage to guide a brave Raymond through the bedlam and back out again to the relative quiet of Denver airport. We miss the gas station and ask the rental return guy whether we need wash our filthy car whilst we’re getting fuel, he laughs and says only if we were renting it straight back out againJ. The courtesy bus drops us at our terminal and takes Paul on to another for his flight. We haven’t been there long before Rod and Steve appear and we can check in. The bikes are scanned then we join a long queue to go through security and have our fingerprints and iris photos rechecked. They verify that we are the same people they let in, they do not however, realise our transformations from Slickrock virgins to international 24hour racers. JG

La Ruta 2002 by PF

2008-03-17T04:15:00.000-07:00

Day one was the hardest day. Day two was the hardest day too and of course day three was the hardest day as well.

Good grief what a race, the hardest ever? Well it was actually billed as the ‘toughest’ mountain bike race in the world, I didn’t think they really meant it. Surely they were joking. Yes, they were joking but they weren’t lying. Just laughing at my expense.
The first twenty miles beat me up. I realised how I could sue the race organisers. The toughest mountain bike race in the world wasn’t a race, it was a fight.
65 miles of fighting on the first day. I think some of the battle was ignoring the distractions. Such as the hissing.
There was hissing as I was riding through thick mud along a track through the jungle. There was no one else around so I feared the worst. I looked down, forwards and backwards. I was fine, it was only a snake or something. Phew, what a relief, I thought it was a puncture. In all that mud whilst I was already exhausted, no thanks. Walking up the slippery slidey mud slopes caused my invisible socks to disappear inside my shoes. How can something invisible disappear? Mind you water is pretty transparent and that just seemed to disappear inside me.I drank at least ten litres of fluid a day each day. This was okay but I peed about twice. In three days. This was how hot it was. Actually on the first day before my body had adjusted I peed maybe four times. The second pee was just after carting myself and bike through mud and sand. Of course my hands weren't completely clean from the aforementioned mud and sand, so I ended up with sand in my shorts. Chaffing. Chaffing of delicate parts is something I really wouldn't recommend. Sore testicles as you sit on the saddle really isn't fun. Of course it gets worse. My fourth pee was like treacle. Try pouring treacle, it doesn't flow well but I was in a race so hurried the experience, put myself away and set off again. All the salty liquid wasn't gone and found it's way directly to my now raw right testicle. I was rubbing salt in the wound.To save further information it didn't get any worse. Apart from the pain but by now I felt so beaten up I couldn't even care about that, what with the annoying bits of pineapple stuck between my teeth. The sandy hands experience deterred me from putting my hands in my mouth to pick it out. I did stop to remove most of the stones from my shoe eventually though.
Hey, stopping and taking off shoes loses valuable race time. I was actually quite surprised by how many stones came out when I finally emptied my right shoe. Of course I then carried on with only slightly fewer in my left shoe because they hadn’t passed my annoyance threshold.
So a sore testicle, stones in my shoe and pineapple string bits between my teeth when I arrived at the final checkpoint of the day. I thought there was still about thirty miles to go so when I was told there was only 19 km to go it’s no wonder I set off crying with happiness.

The 19 km to go information also turned out to be true which was unusual because everything else I was told, despite believing was always a lie.
“You’re looking strong.”, “Only half an hour to the next checkpoint/top of hill/end of this section.” were the most common ones.
I was first told I looked strong on day one at checkpoint three. I didn’t. I looked f***ed. It worked for me though, I always believed it and could carry on feeling better and more upbeat. Also feasibly I looked less beaten up than most before me at checkpoint three. This was because 2.5 miles before the checkpoint I had actually lay down at the side of the track. For fifteen minutes. I spotted a bit of shade after a baking climb in the sun and had the most comfortable lie down ever. I think this fifteen minutes of just letting my body adjust to the conditions and letting it know I wasn’t going to run it completely into the ground was the wisest thing I did. The daftest thing of course was simply to enter the race. How foolish was that looking at this moment in time?
The big lie though was the half an hour lie. Everything was half an hour away. Perhaps it was the only English those at the roadside knew but it was just a big lie. Nothing was half an hour, everything in the race lasted at least an eternity. Perhaps even longer. All sections seemed to go on forever.But I somehow made it to the end of day one and I never had to go through that again. Some of the people in the race had done it about five times before. In fact few were there for the first time. Did they have no memories or something? Sunstroke. That’s what it was. I had brilliant suntan lotion which worked. My mind wasn’t frazzled.

The big climb was on day two. The big climb. Which big climb? I guess I mean the big climb. This came after a big climb. Somewhere in between the two it wasn’t a big climb. And before them both was a road section to get out of San Jose. I spotted a guy that I thought looked like a roadie and sat on his wheel for a few miles as we seemingly sailed up the peloton. How can someone on a mountain bike ‘look’ like a roadie? I obviously wasn’t the only one that thought so though. He must have looked the part as before the road got really steep there was quite a line of us in his slipstream. But the road then hit vertical and away he went, like he was looking for a contract with Kelme somewhere over the hill. I and the rest were left to struggle for the next half an hour and the next good few half hours after that too.
Up and up and up and up.
Admittedly much of it was on road but it was still up. And up. With a bit of down and also we went through a strange small concrete village painted all blue. Or perhaps that was just the sky that I was riding up into and seemingly through.
And up.
I was with a Costa Rican who’d ridden the race twice before and eventually he told me when we were half an hour from the top. Or half an hour from somewhere because it certainly wasn’t the top. I remember looking at my watch an hour and a quarter later and I was still going up.
But of course a check point was finally reached and we had three miles of rocky descent. Descent that was over far too quickly before more climbing and a slog along a very muddy track and past the final check point until it was 15 miles to go. 15 miles to go and it was all downhill. No it really was. 15 miles of extreme concentrating watching every bit of ground that came shooting up towards you and under the front wheel. Never mind choosing the right line, that got too mentally challenging. Just ride over what ever was in front and stay on the bike.
Not everyone did. I came flying round one corner to find some guy sprawled across the track a short distance from his bike. Somehow all his wounds were only superficial but this was the descent where elbows and collarbones were broken.
I also stopped by two guys who’d punctured and were in need of a spare tube. Unfortunately I had the wrong valve for the small hole drilled in the rim.
And then the day finished. Well stage two finished and I crossed the line.
Only one day left to go, I was home and dry. It was that easy to convince myself of this and just blatantly ignore the fact that I was exhausted, that tomorrow was the longest distance and I’d covered less than two-thirds of the total distance. I was happy as I sat chatting with James, another British guy doing the race. His companion Gareth was at many of the checkpoints as I arrived and was brilliant. He’d re-fill my water bottle and get me cups of Powerade whilst I stood around like a zombie for a couple of minutes trying to recouperate before I set off on my merry way again. I’d especially felt like the living dead at the checkpoint ‘half an hour’ from the top of the hill today but that was now all over and I was alive again eating my rice and beans and drinking my fresh juice. Tomorrow was another day.

I wasn’t wrong, tomorrow was indeed another day. Another long hard suffering day that went on forever again. I’m sure we set off with a climb but today will mainly be remembered for the train track. That bloody train track. Even the train had given up and no longer ran. Ha! There never was a train. This track was put down just to torture poor demented souls who’d entered La Ruta.
I also got lost for the first and only time. A truck must have been parked in front of the marker arrow because when Jose and I cycled the two miles back to where we’d gone wrong and both independently missed the turn the three huge luminous green arrows were blatantly obvious.
At least it meant we were together and could work as a pair along the next stretch which was about ten miles of tarmac on the state highway.
What’s this? Something positive about the race? No. It may have even been a gradual downhill but we now had a strong headwind. We took it in turns doing a mile each on the front but I was so fatigued. Really tired. I looked round at one point and nearly had us both off at about 20mph as I lost concentration and my front wheel smacked into Jose’s rear one. Somehow we both stayed on. I apologised profusely.
Jose was Portuguese and I’d seen him at some point of the race every day. Today I learned that the Portuguese pronounced their j’s like the English did and so his name phonetically was Joe-zay and not Ho-zay like the Spanish. This of course meant my Spanish fireman joke didn’t work for a Portuguese fireman.
i.e. What does a Spanish fireman call his twins? Hose A and Hose B. (Read it out loud to somebody!)
Anyway we finally turned off the highway and followed a road through a banana plantation. By now there were three of us but I was too tired to stay in the group and had to drop off and make my own way into the prevailing headwind. And so I ploughed on until I saw the blue banners in the distance. The final check point and then only five or so miles to go. I began fantasising that it wasn’t the final check point but the finish. Oh please let it be the finish, I was so tired. But as I approached it became obvious that it was a checkpoint. Oh well, at least…..
And now the really demoralising bit. Today really was the longest day. Much further than the previous two, this wasn’t even the last checkpoint. There was still 40 km to go. FORTY KILOMETRES. That’s twenty-five miles. But I wanted the race to be over now, I’d had enough. I didn’t think I could ride another 25 miles. On some Sundays that’s more than a whole day’s ride. Let alone after already riding 60 miles that day. Much of it down a bloody train track. Bumpity bumpity bumpity bumpity over the damn sleepers. Stop, get off, lift and carry bike across a 100 metre long railway bridge over a river. Now the gaps between the sleepers were 50 foot drops into the river below. Who cares if there were crocodiles in the river, just got to keep going. Keep going down this endless railway track with varying sized sleepers and numerous bridges. Bumpity bumpity bumpity bumpity.
I drank my usual litre of Powerade and water at the checkpoint, had my customary pieces of fruit. Banana, papaya, pineapple, more papaya. Twenty-five miles. I had some more Powerade and a bit more papaya then forced myself to set off. For a couple of miles I managed to sit in behind somebody else but once again had to drop off. Alone again for a while I trundled on. The track changed direction and the headwind dropped. I was going to finish. I would complete La Ruta. I was invigorated and carried on. I even caught Jose and some others. Small bunches began forming and disintegrating as we all started powering towards the end before fading individually then getting bursts of energy.
A bit of fruit and a quick drink at the last checkpoint and I was on my way. A thick set Costa Rican and myself slipstreamed each other for the remaining distance and we crossed the finish line together.
Finished.

What a great race. Brilliant, What a great race. I really must learn Spanish before I come and do this again. I caught myself thinking I wanted to do the race again some year. But I did. I was elated. Did I mention what a great race it was?

For half the duration of the race my mantra was "at least I never have to do that bit ever again". How long after the race did it take me to think, "I can't wait to learn Spanish and come and do that again"? The second I spoke to other people who'd finished. How? Why? Well for three days I wasn't a tourist or a traveller or anything like that. I was part of Costa Rica. People came out of their houses to watch and cheer me on. OK so not me specifically, but hundreds of people cheer you and every kid in the villages you're riding through wants to high five you. The race was reported in the national press and on Costa Rican television. People gave me packets of honey and fresh oranges to keep me going. And I should mention they have no military here, a fact that makes me want to cry with happiness.
The Costa Rican people were wonderful. Every single one of them.
The race was very well organised and I could bore anyone within earshot back home that I had done the toughest mountain bike race in the world.
Where did I come? I finished and that was all that mattered to me. 40% didn’t but I was 139th. About halfway out of the finishers but still room for improvement.Improvement? Ha, I’ll be happy to finish again next time.
Breakfast everyday is rice and beans. Fortunately I love rice and beans.

Paul Facer

La Ruta De Los Conquistadores 2003

2008-03-17T02:29:00.000-07:00

La Ruta de Los Conquistadores
Costa Rica 14th-16th November 2003

This is the 11th edition of the trans Costa Rica event that crosses from the Pacific to the Caribbean coast. Riders compete as individuals or teams of four and can be supported by ‘companions’ – the Costa Rican term for pit-babes. These pay the entry fee and get transported around the course, shadowing their rider and providing any assistance - food, spares, clothing, roadside massages, photos et al. Each of the three stages has five check points, manned with enthusiastic Ticos, water, energy drinks and fruit. Riders can be withdrawn at any of the checkpoints if they are behind schedule for finishing in daylight.
Sunday Riders: Raymond Hallam, Jane Geddes, Paul Facer, Julie Dinsdale, Keith Bontrager

Day –1 Wednesday 12th November
Raymond, Paul and I take Iberia Airlines flight from London Heathrow to San Jose, Costa Rica via Madrid & Miami. The journey is uneventful other than pointless immigration procedures in the US. There’s no one from La Ruta to meet us so we catch a cab to our hotel, the Best Western Irazu. Most of the competitors are staying here; it’s clean, comfortable and has a swimming pool. We celebrate our arrival with beers and a cubalibre by the poolside, entertained by an erotic soundtrack – someone’s pre-race preparations? A tipsy Raymond tests the pool temperature by stepping in unaware that he still has his shoes on.

Day 0 Thursday 13th November
San Jose - Jaco

Wake early and unpack bikes. Today we are to be transferred to Jaco where the race will start, its about 2 hours away, Tomorrow night we are back here so we need only take what we require for Day 1 of the race, everything else can be stored downstairs. How everyone knows this I do not understand as we’ve been given no information whatsoever. We hurriedly pack some stuff and store the rest as we’re due to leave at 8am. After breakfast we meet up with Julie and Keith. Everyone gathers in the car park but nothing seems to be happening, manana mode has already crept in. Eventually a truck arrives and our bikes are loaded on, buses to take us are waiting at the other entrance. With little movement going on we decide to buy some food/water for the trip, typically this is the best catalyst for action and the buses are impatiently waiting for us on our return.

On our way we stop at a village to stretch our legs, the air conditioned buses and overcast skies belie the actual heat and humidity outside. There’s another impromptu stop before we reach Jaco to see crocodiles basking on sandbanks under a bridge. Our hotel is the Best Western Jaco Playa and is right on the beach. We register for the race, go for lunch in a café with a pet lizard, which Raymond tries to feed with lettuce, and christens Lizarbet. The race briefing is scheduled for 4 but occurs at 5, we will begin to get used to these time discrepancies in the days to come. There are the usual disclaimers and scare stories but there are some fit looking girlies around and with a 40% drop-out rate from 350 starters it does make me wonder about our chances of finishing. We eat well then get our kit ready for the 3.30am start tomorrow. Raymond is dismayed to find he hasn’t packed any shorts – disaster! Of all the bits of kit you really don’t want to do without on the first day of ‘the hardest mountain bike race on the planet’ Luckily my baggy Endura’s fit him and he doesn’t mind a bit of cross dressing!

Day 1 Friday 14th November
Jaco – Ciudad Colon, San Jose
Distance 65miles Ride time 8hr50

3.30 wake-up call, we dress and check our bikes, my new rear disc pads are rubbing badly, I hope they will bed in once I get going. Breakfast is fruit, rice and beans. We start as soon as dawn breaks ~5am. There’s no signing in like the TransAlp, they just assume you’ll all be there, there’s no real start line or obvious timing procedures either. At the start we meet James Leavesley, the only other British entrant and his ‘companion’ Gareth, who immediately takes us all under his wing, filling Raymond’s water bottles seconds before the off. Down the main street, last year this was the scene of several crashes, people hitting potholes in the dark and fracturing collar bones before they’d even got going, hence the wait for daybreak this year. We soon turn on to fire tracks and Paul and James get a good start. I’m with Julie but Raymond is nowhere to be seen. I begin to worry after a couple of miles, slow down and let Julie cruise away. He finally appears having found his legs empty for the initial climb, we get into a rhythm of short, sharp ups then downs. It’s only 6am but already the air temperature is in the 80’s with a similar humidity, the sweat just pours. At CP1 we are reunited with Julie who is having problems with her gears. Our muddy bikes are jet washed and oiled while we eat/drink. From CP1-CP2 is reportedly the hardest part of the race, with hike-a-bike sections and river crossings through the National Park. It doesn’t disappoint! Muddy gullies 1:3 steep up and the temperature keeps climbing. I’m finding this difficult to cope with, Raymond chivvies me on and carries my bike on the steeper sections. The downs are just as steep but I’m too spaced out to be scared and find them surprisingly rideable. At the bottom of each down is a river crossing, some ankle deep, others mid thigh. I submerge myself in every stream we cross in an effort to get my core temperature down, it helps temporarily but the nausea, utter exhaustion and irritability remains. Before reaching CP2 Raymond is out of water and we’re close to the time limit, we make a determined spurt and just make it. Again Julie is trying to fix her gears and Raymond helps while I try to get juice into my disgruntled stomach. Our bikes are again jet washed and oiled up and we set off on easier, rolling tracks. I discover cold water down my back works a treat and there are plenty of locals with hosepipes willing to oblige, I’m slowly reviving but the extra push has hit Raymond hard. He cycles with Julie as I move ahead. I soon see Keith who’s curled up in the shade by a stream, he’s suffering badly with the heat too. Just before CP3 I see Cal (our La Ruta guru) and James who is beset by cramp. We are met by Gareth who takes my excess gear off me. I eat/drink and wait for the others. It’s onto tarmac to CP4, the road winds ever upwards in a series of hairpinned bends, I can keep a reasonable pace as long as my back is cold but Raymond is down to walking/riding along with Cal. Julie and Keith have stopped for a longer rest. The road continues after CP4, Raymond walks/rides, I ride/wait. A morale boosting road descent is cruelly interrupted by a sudden deviation down a steep, thick muddy drop packed with locals expecting crashes. A short up to CP5 and only 20km left. Most of it’s up, a gradually ascending gravel fire road. I ride or walk with Raymond and enjoy the stunning rainforest scenery, bananas, ferns and vines. At the top a tarmac section undulates and then drops into Ciudad Colon. The finish line is in sight, Raymond and I overtake a spluttering car and cross the line to complete Day 1. We meet up with Paul and James and are shortly followed by Julie who has left Keith to come in some time later. I go to get food but am overcome by nausea so catch the next shuttle bus to Hotel Irazu. Here I promptly faint at check-in, stagger to our room, which has yet to be made up, reel back to reception, get another room allocation and collapse. Raymond is just as bad, we sip water whenever we’re conscious but eating is impossible. Starting again tomorrow is looking highly unlikely, if I’d had enough energy I’d have cried myself to sleep.

Day 2 Saturday 16th November
San Jose – Turrialba
Distance 51 miles, Ride time 8hr 23
We wake at 3.30. The others tried to find us last night but weren’t told we’d changed rooms, they ate well, we’ve had nothing but water and I feel much better, although still very queasy I can at least stand up and keep a little breakfast down. Tonight we are staying in Turrialba, which is where we are joining the Mountain Beach tour after the race. We take all our stuff with us hoping to be able to leave it there and so not to have to return to San Jose. We are bused to downtown San Jose for the start at 6.00am. As we all mill around word filters through that the start has been ‘mananared’ to 7.00, precious time that could have been spent sleeping or eating! Today’s route is shorter but has an elevation gain of 12,000ft. At 7.00 a disorganised, unchecked mob starts to charge through the streets of San Jose, battling with the traffic and jumping red lights. I guess we're off! Paul and James are flying, Raymond, Julie, Keith and I start together but lack of food steals the pace from our legs, Julie storms ahead and we don’t see her again. The road gets very steep and it’s difficult to stay on even though it’s good tarmac. A sharp right turn leads onto singletrack through farmland with dry stone walls and nut trees. There’s a short hike-a-bike section then hard-packed mud/dirt and gravel track that culminates in a ‘seisemic line’ up to CP1. As I approach the bottom I hear an almighty cheer from the top and watch in awe as Brett Wolff , a right leg amputee at upper thigh level, clears it! Brett is an inspiration, he rides without a prosthetic on a quadruple front chain set and is an awesome bike handler and really nice bloke. I wait for Raymond, drink juice and we start the long road climb to the top of the Irazu volcano. Typically this includes frustrating descents that lose all the painfully gained altitude. CP2 is half way up and is stocked with boiled potatoes, I am suddenly ravenous and can think of nothing more appetising, I gorge myself whilst waiting for Raymond to appear. He’s not recovered from the trials of yesterday and wants to retire. I tell him no way! We agree that if we’re too slow and get pulled out fair enough but it’s going to be their call not ours. He struggles on but ends up walking most of the road climb. I’ve gone on to escape the heat and cycle along with Brett and a US ex-pat Italian called Mick. I wait at CP3, the summit. In the time it takes for Raymond to join me the weather has changed completely, a descending mist has thickened into rain cloud and the temperature is dropping quickly. I don arm and leg warmers, a Goretex coat and long fingered gloves for the descent, a rocky, hairpinned track. This is over before it really begins and the track turns left into a farmyard through deep puddles of mud and cowshit. This undulates upwards for what seems like an eternity, it’s now raining hard and rumbling with thunder. Eventually it points downwards again, big slabs of granite with steps and drop-offs all covered by a running stream of water. I’m cold and tired and as I bounce down the hill keep thinking ‘I shouldn’t be riding this, I don’t do tricky, slippery rocks’. Mick and I descend together, I stop at junctions to make sure Raymond doesn’t go astray, he does try to do so at two points. CP4 is half way down manned by bedraggled marshals. I want to keep going but Raymond needs to stop and is given hot sweet molasses to drink. We continue the descent over baby head rocks hoping that the air will get warmer lower down. The track widens and teases us with 20foot stretches of tarmac on the bends, we pass through a village and onto a well made road which climbs to the right. An immediate left takes us through the remnants of CP5, (there’s only a marshall left) but we’re not withdrawn and it’s only 8km to go! A wide fine gravel road winds through lovely dark green bushes bedecked with green and red berries. It’s lush and beautiful and I’m surprised when someone tells me it’s a huge coffee plantation. We swoop down to the finish on a football ground in Turrialba, it’s twilight but we’ve survived day 2! The prize – starting it all again tomorrow. We eat our post-race rice and beans, buy a pair of Ciclo Quilly socks each and board the shuttle bus to our hotel, the Turrialtico. The Mountain Beach group should be here tomorrow night. Paul and James are also here but Julie and Keith are in different hotels.

Day 3 Sunday 17th November
Turrialba – Playa Bonita, Limon
Distance 80 miles Ride time 8hr05

Our shuttle bus is collecting us at 6.30, we breakfast and arrange to leave everything for our return here tonight. The start is at the bottom of the hill, as we pull away we spot Cal sat in his civvies on the balcony but he looks odd. We ask why he’s not riding and he tells us he stacked yesterday with only 5km to go and fractured his left collarbone, Indeed, on closer inspection he’s black, blue, red, road-rashed and swollen, this explains the odd look. We’re all quite upset as Cal is the reason we’re here doing this. The start is at 7.00am but by 7.30 half the competitors still haven’t arrived –Julie included. We slather suntan lotion on having been badly burned on yesterday’s exposed climb. By 8.15 everyone is accounted for, we climb back up past our hotel. As usual James and Paul are at the front, Julie and I are next, Raymond and Keith are behind. At 10km we bear left onto a gravel descent, Julie’s gone on, I’m with Raymond who seems to be rallying a bit. The track deteriorates into knee deep gloopy mud which sucks relentlessly at shoes and wheels alike. It’s punctuated by a small river crossing and continues to a bridge over the main river. Julie is on the other side fixing a puncture, I have weeds wrapped around my rear mech and come to a grinding halt. I’m filmed and interviewed by someone as I try to unravel the vegetation. I catch Raymond at the bottom of the long climb, Julie has disappeared. The stony track is in full sun, what little wind there is makes the banana leaves rustle like rows of prayer flags. We dodge from spot to spot of shade and make full use of the hosepipes offered by the locals. Our skin is burning and we find it better to put arm warmers on and keep them wet than apply lotion. A steep kick up to CP1 and I wait for Raymond to join me. A wide gravel road descends, very steeply in places, (one guy is walking down to spare his dwindling brake pads!) and meanders along the valley before climbing steeply back out. As the sun rises there are fewer shady areas to cling to. I resort to cycling along the shadows made by electricity cables, convinced that I can feel the benefit of a cool line down my back. A steep walking section flattens for a short burst to CP2. Raymond takes photos of the villagers. It’s downhill then flat to the finish some 70km away. The main descent is wide smooth tarmac with hot wind blowing through our hair – bliss. At the bottom we’re directed onto the first section of railway track. This is synonymous with La Ruta, as are the rickety bits that span the fast flowing rivers, and has been eagerly awaited with fear and trepidation. The secret is to keep the speed up and bump across the sleepers. 50metres later it’s onto the parallel track then back again for the first bridge. The bikes have to be carried whilst carefully stepping from sleeper to sleeper in cleated shoes, this has the added excitement of rotten sleepers, slimy sleepers, moving sleepers or even absent sleepers. I’m not encouraged when a guy in front of me slips and lands with one leg dangling through a gaping hole 60feet above a rapidly flowing, crocodile infested river. Back to terra firma and 8 miles on the PanAmerican Highway, Costa Rica’s principal road on the side of which Raymond decides to have a pee. A left turn takes us onto a smaller road past banana and coconut plantations and busy with workers cycling to and from work. CP3 looms, we’re told it’s a good 2 and a half hours to the finish and it’s already 3.30. We are going to have to push it if we’re to finish before dark at 6. At that moment we’re passed by 6 riders going like the clappers, bit’n’bitting it. I yell at Raymond to get on my wheel and chase after then at 20mph. Once caught we stick to them like glue. The track is interspersed with deviations onto the parallel railway, I’m surprised at how fast I can go along the sleepers but the adrenalin fright of not finishing is kicking in and before I know it we’re at CP4. A quick drink, 40km to go, immediately we’re back onto the railway line and several dodgy river crossings. One is double spanned and has several large gaps, too large for all but the longest legs to stride over. Some local youngsters who trip across these daily help us with the bikes. I find stepping outside the rails you can walk on the metal framework, the only disadvantage is it’s only 18” wide with nothing to hold onto over dizzly spinning rapids! The rest of the crossings are small canals. I should try my hand at cyclo-cross after all this quick mount/dismount practice! On one of these the strong girl heading the fast bunch overbalances and falls headfirst into the 10feet trench, luckily she’s unhurt, just shaken. As the sleepers become more proud we deviate onto a singletrack wedged between the jutting sleepers and a deep parallel ditch, then regain the tracks filled with large stones. I repeat a mantra to pedal smoothly and keep the speed up until the end of this section, we’ve ridden over 15km of railway. CP5 is at the end and this is the last chance for them to disqualify us. The sun is slowly setting and I don’t allow Raymond to stop, flying through the check point, we’re again chasing to get on the wheels and bit’n’bitting it, we are averaging 20-25mph dodging the potholes on a dusty dirt path that runs parallel to a palm fringed beach. It’s becoming a race against the receding daylight, 20km to go and we’re pedalling flat out, settling into a good rhythm, biggest gear and powering along, lungs burning, legs screaming but all exhaustion overwhelmed by the lure of the finish. As we take the lead the others lose one of their group and slow up to wait. We’re on our own now, can’t afford to slow down, the path is interminable, I put my head down and forge onwards, there are no markers to tell us how much further. Along the headland we can see the lights of Limon port, they look deceivingly close, but we never seem to get any nearer. We’re passing riders in groups of 2’s and 3’s and I’m charged. We pass a girl illuminated in the headlights of her support vehicle, it’s dark enough to lose colour distinction now and the potholes are getting hard to discern. We fly past a house and people yell 5km to go, we drag every last resource for the final stretch and soon join a tarmac road around the portside. A green arrow is picked up by the harbour lights and we follow a road lined with trees that obliterate the last of the light. We have no lights and hope our reflective clothing is enough to pick us out, oncoming headlights stun the eyes and we stumble our way through departing race traffic to cross the finishing line on the beach, skidding in the deep sand. We’re immediately blinded and deafened by flashing lights and excited shouts of James and Gareth taking photos. We’ve done it!! Paul, Julie and Keith are also there, we collect our medals and sit in an exhausted, happy bunch in the sand.

Epilogue.
Of the 350 starters in this year’s La Ruta, 227 finished.
Our final results:
James 111st
Paul 139th
Julie 184th
Jane 213th
Raymond 214th
Keith retired
And with the best laid plans of mice and men we ended up having to catch the race bus back to San Jose as they couldn’t take us back to Turrialba. As we sped through the night it began to rain and our bus had a front tyre blow-out. This was well controlled by the driver who turned us all out onto the verge whilst he fixed it. We arrived back at the Irazu at 11.30pm and caught a taxi back to Turrialba, the bikes piled on the roof with pieces of cardboard in between, for the start of our island tour with Mountain Beach. (see Costa Rica trip).

Trans Rockies 2002 by J.D

2008-03-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

TransRockies 02
Whilst I would profess to be more of an aesthete than an athlete I may now have to change my mind. Many times during and after the TransRockies Challenge in August this year the 160 competitors were referred to as 'the best mountain bikers from North America and Europe' and 'top mountain biking athletes from around the world'. Well I have to confess some of them were, but not the six of us who travelled from England and Scotland to make up two mixed teams and one men's team. Don't get me wrong we're not exactly novices, competent Sunday riders all, and four of us had completed the TransAlp event the year before, but to describe us as athletes was pushing it.

The race was starting in Fernie and ending up in Canmore 7 days and 618k later, taking in an altitude of 9,200m. At registration we were given the race profile book and our kit bag for everything we would need for the next week, luckily these are ferried from place to place by the organisers. As we met other riders and some old friends from the previous year's TransAlp, the excitement and trepidation mounted. The first day's racing started at 12.00 with a big send off in bright sunshine from the people of Fernie. We were to arrive in Blairmore by 8pm having completed 94.83k, traversed two mountains and forded many river crossings. This was the day we first heard from Ward Cameron, course planner and local mountain guide, he briefed us on the route each day to warn us in advance of potential hazards, the major one of which seemed to be bears!

The first day was tough, some big climbs, mainly on gravel roads, to high passes and some fast descents through wooded trails. This is when it became apparent that the altitude calculations we were given didn't take into account the many undulations along the trail.
There were some sticky situations with some parts of the trail littered with their loggers' debris which even monster trucks have trouble crossing. At one point there was a truck the size of small house stuck, wheels spinning, in a deep, muddy log-filled pool. It finally made it out only to chug along behind me as I climbed the next hill. Well I wasn't going to jeopardise the climb by pulling over! This first day we staked out our competition, reeling in a few people to pass in the last 20k in that all-important bid not to come last!
At camp that night we were unfortunate to experience the cold showers syndrome: the earlier you finish the better your chances of a hot shower. As for the tents, they were already set up in neat rows ready for us to dive into them after our pasta dinner and the awards ceremony.

Day two dawned, literally, we all rose at 6am to get breakfast (cereal and bagels) before the 8am start. It was freezing and had been -3 overnight. Today we faced a less daunting 83.63k, but this was the day we met the seismic lines. Seismic lines are blasted straight up mountains by surveyors and there is no way you can ride them so hiking, pushing or carrying the bike is the only option.
Still, the sun came out and as steep as the trails are up the mountains, so they are down, so you're rewarded with some great fast descents. We crossed the continental divide twice that day and the views from the two passes were spectacular giving us a full panoramic view of the other mountains we were to encounter.
The camp that night, in Dutch Creek amongst the trees, had open-air showers with a beautiful view of the valley and mountains, no time for modesty here!

Day three was another 95k day, over three mountains with a seismic line so unbelievable you almost lost the will to live. Ant-like specks in the distance pushed up the mountain as we hurtled down the descent to join them. This seismic line came complete with false summits too. Was there anything else they could throw at us? Well yes, a broken chain! All mended, we carried on having to make up hald and hour on our nearest rivals through a woodchip-floored track descending through the woods which you could really make some time up on as it looked such a soft landing. Despite our best efforts we arrived too late at Etherington Creek campsite for the showers though; no water left. By now Andy and I were experiencing oozing saddle sores so a trip to the first aid van was in order to get some cream which would hopefully keep them under control.

The next day the weather had turned, it rained and was freezing cold. This was the shortest day at 61k, three early mountains then a long descent into Sandy McNabb.
Everyone anticipated an early arrival at the campsite but it wasn't to be, mainly because of the deep, sticky mud. While we English riders ploughed on through, being used to the adverse conditions, many were really suffering. The river crossings soaked you through and the rain just kept falling: Hypothermia was a serious possiblity and one rider was airlifted off the mountain by helicopter with a serious bout of shivering. Then there were the alder bushes, tough bushes about 4 feet high with the strongest branches you've ever come across. Over 100 riders had passed through the Alder bush-ridden singletrack in front of us but there were no signs of any damage and it didn't stop them lashing arms and legs like deadly triffids and in my case pulling me off to lie there, bike on top of me, wondering whether to just surrender and die! Well I got up and carried on to arrive at the campsite just as the sun began to shine and a double rainbow appeared. It had turned out to be another 9-hour day and now the bikes needed a wash. I now fully appreciate disc brakes - no stopping to unclog those v-brakes today!

Day five was the longest distance day with 118k and the highest altitude gain of 1,918m. The weather was still unpredictable, torrential rain then sunshine.
The big climb of the day came after about 70k just after a hip-deep, very wide river crossing. At this point the rain was so torrential and it was so cold that riders were huddled in the vans at the checkpoints desperately trying to get warm.
Minutes before Andy and I started the big climb we were pulled off the course by a race official who feared people would get lost up there in the mist, at this point even the front riders hadn't emerged from the top of the mountain and the officials were getting worried. So instead of the big climb we now had a 35km road ride over undulating terrain to the finish in Bragg Creek. We rode this but many people just pulled out and got lifts in the vans.
That day we finished 12th overall and felt like complete charlatans doing it! Fortunately everyone survived the day but the race times where somewhat skewed because of the varying courses people had completed. At night we were in a lovely warm gym equipped with gym mats which made for a very comfortable night's sleep despite the fire alarm that rang incessantly for 2 hours until the local police came to disable it. I was so tired I barely heard it!

Day six and the rumour at 6am was that it was snowing. Well confirmation of this came on the way to breakfast with a snowman out front and a good 6 inches of snow covering the ground and our bikes. Sh*t, we had 88k to do in this. It was a lovely day though and as we set off the sun was just coming out. We started with a fast ride on the road then fantastic singletrack through pine forest which was totally covered in snow, we're talking Christams cards here. People were sliding about all over the place and getting hit by massive snow balls melting from the pine trees but it was great riding and made for one of the fastest days of the race.
We ended up on a gravel road cycling past a stunning glacial green lake - mist rising from the snow-capped mountains which by now were surrounding us for the finish at the Kananaskis Mountain Lodge, home a few years ago of the G7 summit. This place was plush; bathrobes, hot showers, giant TV and really comfy beds. We even had tablecloths and wine with dinner which was great. Unfortunately this fooled me into thinking the race was now over and getting up for the last day proved difficult!

The final day at just 75k was starting at 9am to finish at 3. The course was intended to go over a pass but the permit for this was withheld by the Canadian authorities because the race would have to enter a national park. So we ended up with a 40km road race at the start along the Transcanadian Highway - the most traffic we'd seen all week. This along with the head wind made for a horrible start but the leaders set off at a frighteningly fast pace none-the-less.
The next trail followed the road through a forest and was technical singletrack some of which would rival Northshore stuff! Miles and miles on undulating trails following electricity pylons brought us to Canmore and the Nordic centre where we completed the race with a loop of the Olympic World Cup downhill course. Just what you need after 7 days riding, really technical stuff fortunately interspersed with some lovely sweeping descents.
The finish in Canmore was brilliant, right in the middle of town with lots of spectators and happy faces of the riders who'd finished. We felt great and we weren't last by any means! The fastest team had completed the race in 31hr 37 minutes overall, with us managing a much slower 56hr 45 minutes

There were lots of congratulations all round, photos of new friends, then off to the hotel to get ready for the finishers' party and that all-important finishers t-shirt, only given to people who compete and finish every day. 34 teams had dropped out along the way and unfortunately they were not to get a shirt.
This is one race I would have to recommend to any mountain biker who doesn't mind the hardship and the endless hiking with the bike. It's unavoidable on a course like this because to traverse these distances any other way would probably take weeks.
Get a good partner, Andy was great, really supportive and encouraging when things got really tough. He also made sure I ate plenty, believe me it's hard trying to get yet another energy bar down sometimes but without them you'd be in serious trouble. Make sure you're well equipped for any weather and mechanical trouble: There are people to fix the bikes up at the end of every race but when you're on the trail it's up to you. Most of all, go with the stamina to enjoy it, it's probably the equivalent of a Kona 100 every day for seven days, and whilst I didn't do a lot of pre-race training I knew I had the stamina in reserve.
The TransRockies couldn't have had any better organisation, these people know what they're doing and do it brilliantly, catering to your every need.
Go on do it, the terrain is beautiful!

Trans Rockies 2002

2008-03-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

EVENT: TransRockies Challenge
LOCATION: Fernie - Canmore, Canada
DATE: Sun August 11th - Sat August 17th 2002

The TransAlp Challenge is legendary amongst mountain bike riders as the toughest mountain bike stage race in Europe. It successfully completed it’s sixth running this July. In August it’s baby sister was born, the TransRockies Challenge, billed as the toughest mountain bike stage race in North America. Having hauled our battered and bruised bodies to the finish of last year’s TransAlp, Raymond and I thought we’d go back for more and try out this event in its inaugural year. Hence we found ourselves flying to Calgary, Canada on August 8th.

The TransRockies comes to us courtesy of Read & Co. Event Management in association with German company UpsolutMV. The rules are simple, you are provided with a team duffle bag in which to put everything that you will need throughout the weeklong event, only this will be transported to the finish each day. Teams consist of two members who are required to ride together for the entirety of the race. This is primarily for safety reasons due to the remote and severe nature of the course. If one member is injured, the other can find help. Strict time penalties are awarded if team members pass checkpoints more than two minutes apart.The support caravan consists of the luggage truck, a fully equipped medical R.V. with two paramedics following the route on motorbike and one in the accompanying helicopter. The race is filmed for broadcast on German T.V. again both by cameramen on motorbikes and in the helicopter. Each evening a huge mess tent is erected for the pasta party, daily winners presentations, video footage of the day’s events and next morning’s breakfast. The event has been limited to 160 riders/80 teams and each team has it’s own 2-man tent. Care of worn body parts is provided by a team of masseurs and a Chiropractor and worn bike parts courtesy of Bike Shop/Cannondale. Two checkpoints are on each stage stocked by Flash 5 energy foods.

After spending a night in Calgary twelve apprehensive competitors are getting to know each other on the transfer to the race start – Fernie, British Columbia. Six of us have come over from Britain, me and Raymond, Julie and Andy, Jim and Paul. I asked Hedda, a German girl, if she’d cycled in Britain, she said only at Plymouth in the World Cup series when she finished third! She also competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics – this is our competition. A four-hour drive into the wilderness sees us arrive at a small ski town. We unpack our bikes, (I sustain my first injury by slicing my fingers open with a knife, I really couldn’t afford to waste all those red blood cells), and set about fine-tuning them for the ordeal ahead. The registration takes place in the local school, disclaimers are signed, race numbers, road book and team bags issued. An introductory pasta party is held that evening in a torrential downpour and we discover that the fellow racer staying in our motel is none other than Mr Keith Bontrager. We’re starting to get nervous!

Day 1
Fernie – Blairmore
61miles, 6300ft altitude gain
The day starts with the taste of things to come – breakfast of cereal, fruit and bagels. The pre-race briefing starts at 10.00am with organiser Chester Fabricius and course designer Ward Cameron managing to frighten the living daylights out of us before we even begin. The main street has been transformed into the start line and it looks like all the locals have come to see us off. The mayor fires the gun on the stroke of noon and we’re off, paced through the town by the motorcycles. Soon we’re onto forestry fire roads and the climbing begins, care is taken to avoid the large mud holes some of which are deceptively deep and very sticky. A long descent follows and it’s onto a rare tarmac section. Raymond and I make up loads of ground catching teams, tucking in, then going on to attack the next, I finally wheel suck behind Cal (a 65 yr old) until a sharp left turn takes us on to a narrow double tracked climb. Another road section into a ferocious headwind then off road to circle a picturesque lake and the second checkpoint where, to our delight we find we have caught Paul and Jim! The route now gets technical, crisscrossing a river, very overgrown and rocky. It widens to double track and unbeknown to us we cycle straight past a black bear, later to be shown on video!! A steady technical climb follows on which Raymond’s knee starts to give him a lot of pain, then a wide gravel road for a mad dash descent culminating in a sharp left and horrendous grassy drop to the finish line. I would never have ridden it at home but there was no way I could walk it with an audience, so take a deep breath, fingers off the brakes and that’s day one completed! The pasta party is held in an ice rink and we’re in the tents outside.

Time: 6 :17:27

Day 2
Blairmore – Dutch Creek
59miles 7900ft altitude gain

What a cold, clear night, but the stars were spectacular! The only thing to disturb our slumbers was a 300 coach goods train trundling past the tents at 2.00am, mournfully blowing it’s horn every two minutes but could be heard echoing down the valley for more than 20mins. This was repeated at 3.30am for anyone who missed it the first time! There is ice in our water bottles, and we shiver on the start line at 8.00am but soon warm up on the gravel road only to be cooled right down again by the first of many icy fords. These are countered by our first seismic line. These are industrial gouges made for gas lines, if a mountain lies in it’s path, the trees are demolished and the lines just go straight up and straight back down again. At a gradient of 1:3 and steeper these are ‘hike-a-bike’ sections. Raymond has tried moving his cleat position and his knee seems a lot easier and doesn’t trouble him scrambling up these atrocities. Muddy, rooty double track follows but there is rarely one decent line to ride let alone two. Today we cross the continental divide twice and are treated to some ‘awesome’ views of the Rockies. The second pass, Racehorse Pass climbs through alpine fields with flowers but gets progressively steeper until even the motorbikes were stalling out, cresting the top I was given some wild strawberries by the motorbike man – delicious! The descent is a scarily fast, boulder strewn track where we’re closely shadowed by the helicopter. Then it’s undulating gravel track interspersed with stutter bumps to the finish line.
Camp tonight is nestled amongst the trees next to a creek, with the mess tent in a clearing. Shower facilities consist of a large bucket to stand in and a hose attachment out of the side of an R.V. Julie was stood starkers in her bucket, enjoying the secluded views out across the field, when she was inadvertently blow dried by the helicopter coming in to land!

Time: 7:56:15

Day 3
Dutch Creek – Etherington
60miles 6900ft altitude gain
Bright and cold night with a meteor shower at 3.00am for those not able to sleep. Awake at 6.00am for our customary 8.00am start. Although frosty when we set off the temperature during the day is in the low 80’s and we’re both getting sunburnt. We follow gravel tracks onto double track with deep mud holes then have a wide grin factor blast on rolling, swooping track with large berms and bomb holes. This finishes at a river crossing that is knee deep. A long forestry section leads to a couple of seismic lines back-to-back, cresting the first gives you a heart wrenching, muscle cramping view of the second larger line. The descent is equally severe and claims it’s first victim, a guy with a broken elbow gets airlifted to hospital. The next climb winds it’s way through pleasant forest tracks covered in weird mulch, which should ride like sand but has remarkable grip. Another full-on head wind road section leads onto thick gravel then undulating grassy/muddy trails with the added attraction of deep bogs cunningly hidden until you suddenly cycle to a halt. Even picking the bike up and walking with it is difficult, as the mud seems intent on sucking your shoes off. One of the motorbikes has sunk into one such bog and Raymond helps to heave it out, he waves at us as he later passes us walking a steep rocky ascent. The remainder of the climb was very reminiscent of Leith Hill trails but with more false summits than we cared to count, then a superb steep descent in the weird mulchy stuff. I manage my first crash when a stick jumps into my front wheel but the blood soon dries on a big ring blast through narrow, winding single track into the finish arena. I was unable to get my granny ring all day so Paul kindly tweaks my gears as I carbo-load on chocolate.

Time: 8:34:02

Etherington – Sandy McNabb
41miles 4600ft altitude gain
The short day, NOT to be confused with ‘easy’. The day starts on a much damper, mistier note than we’re used to and waterproofs are packed as a precaution. At least the rain and cloud cover kept the temperatures from plunging last night. The initial track is superb tight swooping single track, sometimes technical, sometimes blazingly fast and covering 10miles! Then a rocky rutted climb through Welsh looking hills, without the sheep but with the weather, and a steep peat descent. The next climb started innocently enough with a couple of switchbacks through grassy fields, but by now it was raining hard and getting cold. As the track got steeper it also began to get more overgrown with alder trees, these continually whipped against bare flesh producing nasty weals and provided you with a wet shower. The trail got progressively more obscure and at the top we donned our Gore-Tex and tried to bring some life back into hands and feet before the descent. The next rise was very open to the elements, strong cold winds and driving rain and followed by another painful drop through the trees. A wide, very greasy slippery track led to the checkpoint. We were immediately greeted by the doctor who checked if we were fit enough to continue, those suffering were huddled in the back of the van smothered in emergency space blankets and given hot drinks. We’d warmed up once we’d got off the mountain so just kept going, only 9miles to go, it couldn’t take all that long? - yes it could, within a mile the track had got so muddy it was virtually impassable. It was that very special sticky ‘Alberta’ mud that clung to the bike for dear life and added 20lbs to its weight. Pushing the bike was impossible as the rear stays got clogged which mimicked having the rear brakes on full, we covered the final miles at about 2mph! Very frustratingly we could hear the music from the camp long before we got anywhere near it and the sting in the tail was a knee deep 5m wide ford with a strong current. The front wheel of my bike dipped into the water and the bike was wrenched from my hands, Raymond to the rescue! Once safely back we hear that a couple of girls have been airlifted off the mountain with hypothermia! That evening a short cloud burst was followed by the most strikingly beautiful double rainbow.

Time: 8:54:40

Day 5
Sandy McNabb – Bragg Creek
70miles 9100ft altitude gain
The long day! The trials of yesterday have taken their toll on men and machines and several teams have quit the race. The start is overcast but dry although it rained during the night and everything in the tent was wet. The first 30k is on the road/wide forest track and we get a good place in the second peleton and make good time. We pass a huge skid mark on one descent and see a guy pick himself up 50ft below the track, he has cuts to his head and concussion. The single track that followed was much like Friday Street, very rutted and rooty and of course obligatorily muddy. Raymond whiles away the miles by singing Johnny Cash hits with an American called Nate. We emerge from the trees into a barren rocky riverbed which hides a 15m ford that comes up to upper thigh level and is bitterly cold, even the big strong blokes have trouble staying upright in this one. (Hedda, however, is captured on video striding effortlessly through the torrent carrying her bike on one shoulder and her teammate’s on the other. She then hauls her teammate out of the swell just as she’s about to disappear downstream.) Raymond remembers his scouting days and tells me to traverse upstream. As we pass through the second check it’s obvious they’ve had a lot of rain and it begins to drizzle, we set off on road then a reasonable climb which becomes steeper and rockier, views upwards are of a cliff face escarpment shrouded in low cloud. We stop to eat and don jackets and are caught by 6 riders who inform us that due to the deteriorating weather conditions everyone behind is being turned back at the checkpoint. The organisers were a little disturbed by yesterday’s retirements and weren’t risking any more casualties. We continue to hike up the mountain, encountering many false summits, the track was ridable in short bursts then interrupted by walking bits. The broom wagon motorbike shadowed us down a treacherous rocky descent and we were expecting to be pulled out as the route crossed a road. To our amazement they seemed content to let us continue, another long hike up a steep mountain pass, Powderface pass. I’ve now developed a huge and bloody blister on my heel, which makes walking both slow and painful, but it does encourage me to ride down the very technical, wet and slippery rocky descent to the final check despite the fact that the Dutch guy I’m with falls heavily and injures his knee. The last section has been altered for safety and now consists of highway all the way back to camp. The signs however point off the road and we are tempted to follow them, only utter exhaustion and the bitter cold convinced Raymond to assert authority and get us back onto the road. We check our course with a local ranger and get convoyed by our support R.V.s. We later learn that Team 52 follow these signs and cover half of tomorrows course, they are found at 9.00pm in a field by a ranger! All day we’ve been passing signs for a place called Texas Gate, I finally twig that it means cattle grid!! We are the last to cross the line and it’s just gone 7.00pm! Those that got turned back have been in four hours, been fed, laundered, and rested and incurred only an hour time penalty. Tonight we have reached civilisation and are staying in a school gym, the locals tell us that heavy snow is forecast – but it’s August!!

Time: 11:01:45

Day 6
Bragg Creek – Kananaskis Village
46.5miles 4750ft altitude gain
I’m so knackered I sleep like a log, outside is surprisingly quiet, when we look out we see why, the predictions are accurate, we’re greeted by an endless blanket of thick, fresh snow! A school bus takes us to the start and breakfast. The weather has taken the organisers by surprise too and the intended climb to 2000m is hastily re-routed. While this is being engineered we are given an extra hour to eat, the start has been postponed until 9.00am. This also gives us time to don anything that is clean, buy gardening gloves from a local store to supplement our mitts, Raymond wears bagel bags on his feet and we stuff bin liners down our chests and around our knees. I also fashion an earmuff from a spare arm warmer. We scrape the ice off the bikes and hit the road, the sky soon breaks into a glorious blue and the track shoots off into single track through the fields. We slip, slide along in a perfect winter wonderland, frequently falling and constantly disturbing plops of snow from the trees. The fords feel relatively warm and the intended climb is replaced by a soft, shaly highway, it’s difficult to stay on one side of the road. The check point lies by an idyllic lake, by now the helpers were not only ferreting between our legs trying to refill our bottles and running after us oiling our chains, but also taking our glasses off our faces and washing them and even peeling our bananas as we were eating them! Do all pro-racers get this first-class treatment?

We contour the lake, and then peel some layers off as we climb to a track following telegraph lines, we’re now bathed in glorious sunshine. The track undulated and we were in the company of another mixed team, the hints of rivalry are budding and they gain time when my derailleur jams in the stays after a heavy hit on a rocky downhill. We motor to catch up and the last 2k follows a winding uphill cycle path. We jockey a bit for position and they are certainly on the offensive. Raymond reminds me to bide my time and we let them lead us out to the finish before mounting a terrific sprint to take the line. The commentator tells us off for having ‘an all-out sprint’ but I just think how pleased a certain Mr Smith would be of his protégés!
Tonight we are at Kananaskis Mountain Lodge, a sponsor of the event and home to Mr Blair and the G8 summit a few weeks earlier. Very deluxe rooms, banqueting hall and a chef who prepared a special vegan supper and breakfast for us! The BikeShop mechanics replaced my worn rear disc pads, just as well I’d taken spares as they didn’t have any Hope components and Julie sold her spare disc pads for $40 a piece making a tidy profit!

Time: 5:23:42

Day 7
Kananaskis Village – Canmore
47miles 3450ft altitude gain
The last day and a somewhat diminished field line up at 9.00am for the final start. After such unaccustomed luxury no one is keen to go and the commentator is herding us all up with only 5 mins to go! We had potato wedges and ketchup for breakfast yum! And used the hairdryer to dry my shoes – heaven!
We roll out under cloudless skies for a 40km stint on the Trans Canada Highway. The start is meant to be paced by the motorbike, however, he seems to think 45mph down the hill and out of town perfectly acceptable! We latch onto a group near the front and Raymond sets a scorching pace, never have I used my 44:11 so much. The first 10m was covered in 28mins and the 25 in 1:04 (my pb for tt and on knobblies!) on a definitely sporting course. My only faux pas was an unplanned deviation off the highway when I echeloned a bit too enthusiastically and cycled off down the verge. Onto damp, rooty single track with wooden staircases to negotiate. This gave way to gently undulating grassy tracks then road to the Canmore Nordic Centre, scene of the ‘88 Olympics, the World Cup MTB Championships and the ‘24hrs of Adrenalin’. At the last check we can see and hear the finish line only a mile or so away but a tour of the centre’s trails has been cunningly devised. 10miles of going up, down, under and over bridges, from the air we’d have looked like a manic Benny Hill style chase. We soon got to the point when we didn’t know if we’d done bits before or not and we catch up with a bloodied Cal who was staring blankly at a trail wondering the same thing. He was a bit high from just being thrown over a tree trunk and endo-ing several metres before hitting the deck. The course joins a riverside pathway then opens onto the main road and the finish banner. The area is heaving with spectators, relatives and media. We’re each given a lovely plastic medal and there are hugs and kisses all round.

Time: 4:45:00

Epilogue
Minutes after the final team has crossed the line you would never have known anything had gone on in the street. Our superbly trained entourage have removed every scrap of evidence that a race was ever in town! We book in at our motel and luxuriate in showers and clean clothes. The final pasta party is held in the local school, the daily awards are presented, then each of the finishers are congratulated by the organisers and given an original/unique finishers t-shirt (all non finishers t-shirts are burned), full results list, certificate and badge. The local policeman even dresses in his finest Mountie gear for us! In the Mixed category Raymond & I finish 6th (52:52:55) and Andy & Julie 8th (56:45:37). Paul & Jim come 20th in the Mens.(46:38:47). We retire to a pub until the wee hours.
However, the highlight is yet to come, idly watching T.V. the next day, the news reports on the race inform Canada that 160 ‘highly trained international athletes’ have just completed the first TransRockies Challenge, that over 4000 applied and ‘only the cream of the crop’ got in! This is repeated in the local papers. Ahh! True recognition!! How soundly we slept, how sweetly we dreamed!

Trans Alps Challenge

2008-03-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

EVENT:The Trans Alp Challenge 2001
LOCATION: Mittenwald, Germany to Lake Garda, Italy

DATE: Sat 21st – Sat 28th July 2001
On the way back from a road biking week in Majorca Raymond buys a cycling magazine, an article in it covers a mountain bike stage race in Europe. On our next Sunday ride, Paul mentions an article he’s read about the ‘toughest mtb stage race in Europe’..... a holiday is hatched!

Day 0
After an uncomfortable night on the floor of Stanstead airport Raymond, Paul, Julie and I check in for a flight to Munich. Due to foot and mouth restrictions our bikes are unpacked for disinfection, otherwise our journey is hassle free. From Munich we catch the train to Mittenwald. As we wind our way through the forests of southern Germany it begins to rain. On our arrival it is chucking it down. This has its plus point, Mittenwald is a picture postcard perfect chocolate box village with pristine geranium decked chalets painted in pastels with cherubs and ornate wooden shutters. Locals are walking around in lederhosen and Tyrolean hats. If it had been sunny it would have been too kitsch for words!
We register at the town hall, collect our race transponders and numbers. Julie and I walk a couple of miles to pick up our race bags then we track down our quarters for the evening. We are staying in the local army barracks and entry is gained via gates in a steel perimeter fence. These are constantly guarded and we are saluted by boy soldiers each time we pass by, this makes Raymond quiver!
We unpack and assemble our bikes and then trek back into town for the pre-race pasta party. Raymond is tired and decides to get an early night, (those guards!) we eat copious amounts of pasta and tomato sauce whilst being entertained by a dance troupe (possibly the local aerobics class?) and introduced to the race organisers supported by a dancing phone….

Day 1 Mittenwald – Reith
Distance 53.2m (85.1km) Altitude gain 6509ft (1984m)
The pre-race briefing is at 10.30am, the weather is overcast and drizzling but the locals say it will soon clear and hot sunshine is forecast. By the start at noon, blue sky has broken through bringing with it unhampered views of the surrounding mountains. At least hidden behind cloud you could pretend they weren’t all that big, now we have no illusion about what we have to face.
The start is impressive, just like Le Tour with full paraphernalia; trade tents, media and throngs of people, the entire village and more have come to watch the spectacle. The race is started by the mayor and police outriders pace us through the village. The pavements are deep with people waving rattles and cheering, grinning inanely, we ding our bells back.
Once out of the neutral zone we join a slowly winding, wide gravel track, which follows the valley past stunning waterfalls and then persistently climbs, the gradient slowly but perceptively increasing. It’s not as technical as I was expecting and we overtake lots of teams. The reward for this climb is a scarily fast hair pinned downhill, the front runners have carved a narrow path through the fine gravel allowing us behind to follow the fastest line and probably at quicker speeds than we’re used to. I’m enjoying this swooping feeling immensely and just as I’m thinking how wonderful life is my front wheel wanders, just clips the gravel at 30mph, wipes out and catapults me over the bars. I body surf a good few metres and leave most of the skin from my left arm and thigh on the ground. My bike is fine. My wounds are patched up and we continue on tarmac to the feed stop/check point. Here the bar-coded photo card we’ve been issued with is swiped and our times electronically taken. Another steady climb follows on wide single track with spectacular views, alpine flowers and ‘lilac’ cows, then a grassy/rocky descent with a sneaky waterlogged bit at the bottom. Still numb from the fall I descend this remarkably well. A very steep road descent joins a riverside pathway to a steep side road -the sting in the tail for today- and we crest into the main street of Reith. Again everyone is out cheering even though the winners must have come through hours ago.
Our lodging tonight is the local school with cool marble floors. My weeping wounds stick to my sleeping bag. Raymond cracks himself on his cross bar bringing tears to his eyes and a falsetto to his voice.

Day 2 Reith – Sterzing
Distance 73.9m (118.3km) Altitude gain 11,890ft (3624m)

From today the start time is 8.00am. Breakfast; bread, jam and compulsory cheese and cold meats, is at a quaint hotel in the village. The start line is partitioned into 3 groups depending on yesterdays finish times – we’re near the back. However the start is a steep road climb and we climb better than most and make up many places until the track narrows and a walking bottleneck ensues. A rooty off-camber single track leads us to our first ‘carry’ section, up and over rocky outcrops that were challenging enough without the bike. The handbook estimated 20mins, we took 45. During the walk we met a herd of lilac cows one of which took a fancy to Raymond and licked his arm enthusiastically. A single track descent follows and Raymond takes a pee-stop, it's red. He quickly convinces himself it's an overdose of red energy drink rather than the fact he's passing blood from yesterday's impact, and carries on! We join a mani road that runs into the valley then back out and up, a tough long drag through scary dark tunnels, one controlled by traffic lights that we completely ignored, to reach quite the biggest dam I have ever seen. My climbing legs have deserted me and the view from the check point is horrific – the second ‘carry’ section, big stone slabs like a giants causeway stretching upwards with the leaders forming an antlike line to the horizon. Demoralised and with burning neck and shoulders we haul our bikes through this rocky torture for two hours! (How did the tandem pair cope with this!?!) Not only are we now perilously close to being last but also dangerously near the cut off finish time of 8pm. We have 2hours to cover 20miles. The descent begins as a gravel track followed by a superb road section which we bit’n’bitted, then back off road to the finish, which we make with 15mins to spare! I feel absolutely knackered and there is little veggie stuff to eat but we’re so hungry that dry bread and pasta is forced down. Tonight we’re sleeping in a huge sports hall, our earplugs are appreciated! A blindfold might also have been advisable, which ever way you look creams are being slapped with gay abandon on scrotes and labes alike!

Day 3 Sterzing – Brixen
Distance 42.6m(68.1km) Altitude gain 7,605ft(2318m)

The trouble with communal sleeping is that when one person gets up everyone else has to get up. The Germans decide the day starts at 5.30am!
Bread and jam for breakfast then we make our way back to yesterday’s finish – today’s start. We arrive with 5mins to spare to be greeted by an empty field! Every trace of our entourage has gone, we race back through town and as good people do in an emergency – ask a policeman. He points us in the right direction but as we ride up the street 700 cyclists are racing all out towards us, PANIC! We are gently jeered by the peleton and confuse the locals by heading back to the start line, we register, turn around and race back after the disappearing riders, cheered on by the bemused crowds and kind policemen who re-stop the traffic!
Once the road climbs we start to catch and pass the tailenders, onto a track like ‘rookery’ only 3miles long. The trail opens onto the mountainside, Raymond spots that a wire fence has fallen and lies across the track, he innocently picks it up and gently buzzes – it’s electrified, passing riders find this hilarious! Who says the Germans have no sense of humourJ
We climb boulders to cross the river and continue upwards reaching the snow level and stopping for an impromptu snowball fight. After traversing the glacier we reach the pass summit. The way down is via a rope attached to some rock, throw the bike over one shoulder, grasp the rope and lower yourself down some 20ft or so. Then a steep descent through soft deep snow, grooved by previous competitors which soon turns into an uncontrolled run to the meadow below and a tight hair pinned singletrack. Julie rag-dolled off the track and bounced down the mountainside to rejoin the track lower down, gaining several places in the process! A fast fire road then tarmac descent leads to the checkpoint, then a riverside pathway where Paul falls into an unsuspecting bush and we pass a guy with a broken frame- oops! A rooty single track winds through a pine forest where Raymond, in the guise of helping Julie up a hill, manages to push her off. The track undulates to a steep road descent into the beautiful cobbled, winding streets of Brixen, where we finish in the town square. Making our way to the sleeping quarters one of the outriders gesticulates at us, he thinks we’ve missed the finish line, having seen our faux pas this morning! Paul pulls up quickly causing Julie to plough into the back of him and record her third fall of the day!
Tonight we’re sleeping in a sports hall, but first it’s back to the square where a party is in full swing, with a live band and dancing. We eat out and then have the pasta, it’s still 28 degrees and has been best day so far.

Day 4 Brixen – St Vigil
Distance 38.6m(61.7km) Altitude gain 8,615ft(2626m)
Up bright and early and start to the strains of the TransAlp anthem – ‘Highway to Hell’. Motorbikes pace us out of town then it's straight into the first off-road climb, a wide rocky/gravel track up a gulley that criss-crosses a stream with dodgy wooden bridges. The track changes to double track and I begin to notice a dull pain in my right knee. On the descent it feels fine but the next uphill, a very long forestry road, it gets too painful to apply pressure through and I have to walk – very annoying as this is my sort of terrainL Raymond walks with me and we see the last of Julie and Paul who press on to give the other British couple – Jon and Nicky – a bit of competition. Surprisingly I can walk with no pain at all and I can walk fast, we still end up overtaking some of those riding!
At the checkpoint I get some Voltarol and an ice-pack from the race doctor and just managed to stay on the pace down the road descent and onto a gently undulating wide track through pine forest. The end is on road, gently climbing and we were perfectly placed to attack for the line but my knee was now acutely painful and felt like a drawing pin had been wedged in it. Almost crying with frustration I crawled across the line accompanied by heavy black clouds, a flash of forked lightning and a huge crack of thunder than made the earth shake. I make full use of the superb medical facilities and stock up with painkillers for the morning.

Day 5 St Vigil – Alleghe
Distance 49.1m(78.6km) Altitude gain 10,564ft(3220m)
After breakfast we roll down from the school to the start, a guy rides past with squealing brakes, as he periodically applies them, in perfect 2:4 time, it sounds just like the Blue Danube overture. 'Da, da, da, da-da, sqeak-squeak, squeak-squeak'. Raymond starts singing and is soon accompanied by a whole choir of deep German baritones as the peleton joins in. My knee isn’t too bad on the flat road section but soon hurts on starting a white gravel climb into Dolomite country. We try raising my saddle height which helps. The descent is barely rideable – a slippery wooden railed staircase with quite deep steps at times. Everyone I see carries their bike but I did hear rumours that some did ride it! By the next forestry track climb the overdose of painkillers was beginning to kick in and with an occasional walk to relieve the pressure I manage to ride most of it although unbearably slowly. Raymond is showing remarkable patience and continues to sing, earning him the title ‘das singing englandler’.
The next climb was a steep road some of which I again had to walk, then more forest tracks to the checkpoint and Voltarol. We pass the start of a chair lift and I wonder if it goes our way, an hour later we pass the finish of the lift and I wish I’d jumped on at the bottom! The heavy sky has finally given way to rain and we don our Goretex to descend. I find out first hand why Raymond is walking down an easy looking gentle grassy downhill, my wheels touch the greasy greenery and instantly I'm sliding on my backside to the bottom.
The rain soon stops and most of the final descent into the town consists of rough, rocky dirt singletrack that meandered through villagers back yards and under washing lines! I ride more than would even dare at home – a combination of being too tired to be scared and just pleased to be riding, my knee is fine downhill.
Our parc ferme is the cable car station and we are staying in another school a short bus trip away.
We have time to get food from the local shops and bump into the town planner, who is quite concerned as to whether we are getting adequate nutrition, and then have chips for tea! We’ve walked about 20miles today and my cycling shoes make very comfortable hiking boots. I stock up with pills although I reckon I’ve taken enough anti-inflammatories to rot the gut lining of a rhino and still have three more days to go.

Day 6 Alleghe – Imer
Distance 46.4m(74.3km) Altitude gain 8,136ft(2480m)
The coach to take us back to the start was late so we have a revised start time of 8.15am – hurrah! My knee is uncomfortable just walking today and aches as soon as I start riding. We initially descend then face a very steep road climb through tiny villages, I didn’t think they could lay tarmac on such a gradient! A technical, wet rooty single track and another road climb follow. We stop at one village to tape my knee and continue to walk/ride to the top to earn a lovely road decent leading onto a hair pinned forestry track with wide open views of the mountains and villages. Then it's back onto a super-fast tight road. We fly down overtaking two cars, a lorry and a tractor. By afternoon the pills are working and we travel a scenic undulating forest track to a steep, greasy road descent to the finish. The skies are thunderous but we seem to have come in behind the rain.
Tonight we’re sleeping in a gym complete with climbing wall. We get goodies from the local supermarket, have a drink in a café and are treated to a spectacular thunderstorm in the early hours. It can be heard ricocheting from one valley to the next and even brings those staying in tents indoors.

Day 7 Imer – Folgaria
Distance 70.88m(113.4km) Altitude gain 11,617ft(3541m)
This is the second longest day, I feel as long as I can finish this I’m there. The first half is surprisingly good and fast consisting of a long steady uphill climb, again it’s walk some/ride some but the reward is a fantastic road descent that seemed to go on forever. The air was getting progressively warmer and thicker as we lost altitude, winding through sleepy villages with pencil sharp red steepled churches. All sane Italians are siesta-ing and everything is quiet. At the checkpoint it is absolutely baking, the view a shimmering heat haze. We follow the valley along winding roads very reminiscent of those in Mallorca. At the 50mile mark we stop at a village fountain and splash ourselves cool, a couple of small boys say hello and after concentrating intensely ask us our names in schoolboy English and repeat them after us as we continue on our way. We have a long road climb ahead and my knee wasn’t capable of too much sustained pressure so it was a mixture of cycling and power-walking – I should have very firm buttocks at the end of all this! It takes about 2 hours to reach the top, we pass through many road tunnels and as we near the top it winds backwards and forwards in tighter loops. We are accompanied by black skies and the not so distant rumbling of thunder. We deviate off onto good forest singletrack but the final drag seems interminable. At last we regain the road for a scarily fast drop into Folgaria, we think we’re flying when we get overtaken by Chris & Kirsten on the tandem, they pass us like we’re standing still (their speedo clocks 88kph). A short kick uphill and we finish on another quaint cobbled street.
Tonight we’re staying in a leisure centre. The village is cute with a centrepiece of a straw filled manger inhabited by baby rabbits! We settle to sleep, there is a lot of coughing and one guy calls the paramedic, he’s checked over and told to report to the medical tent the following morning, if his temperature hasn’t subsided he won’t be allowed to start. Everyone who had thought about asking for cold remedies miraculously cure themselves! As the lights are turned out the fire alarm goes off. Over 400 people just lie there, ignoring it totally, too tired to even bother about being burned alive. Finally someone silences it by throwing a shoe which knocks it off the wall.

Day 8 Folgaria – Riva Del Garda
42.8m(68.5km) Altitude gain 7,402ft(2256m)
After breakfast we make our way to the start, filling our water bottles at the fountain on the way. We are asked by a local man where we have come from, how long it has taken us and where we’re heading for. He seems amazed when we tell him we started in Germany. It’s the last day and I occasionally thought I’d never get here, the last rendition of Highway to Hell and we’re off hurtling through the town and into the fields. We haven’t gone far when we see the front runners riding back towards us, a wrong turn has been taken. We all turn around and for a scary couple of moments we are leading the race!! We end up going back through the town, all the Folgarians who had gone back to their daily business began cheering and waving again as we made our unscheduled encore!
Everyone’s been lulled into a false sense of security by the map profile for today, we should know by now it isn’t going to be that easy! The road leads onto a fairly steep track, as we slog our way up we're overtaken at some speed by the motorbike paramedic. At the top we find his charge, a guy with a broken collar bone. The descent is very technical, large boulders and drop-offs. I push over most of this and crack my ankles on my pedals incessantly.The next road was a walk/cycle and wound upwards getting progressively steeper for an eternity. Julie was feeling quite ill, as were a lot of riders, and walked with us. Paul, in chivalrous mode, had gone on. Towards the top the road was unfeasibly steep and more unkempt, we were also getting caught by the broom wagon so a decisive burst of power walking was called for. The track plateaued through coarse farmland and potato fields, then a steep down hill and more of the horrible bouldery stuff. The next road stretch had been newly laid and sprayed every 2 metres with the name PANTANI in readiness for the Giro.
The next wide gravel track was a favourite with the local mtbers and we met lots of groups out enjoying themselves, the descent was made up of 'baby head' rocks which vibrated your hands to oblivion even with suspension. Just as we breathed a sigh of relief for finishing that bit the track turned into more boulders. A million cracked ankles later I was at breaking point, then the guy in front of me picked up his bike and hurled it with all his might into the trees and just sat down and cried! This made me feet so much better! I passed him with his partner trying to console/cajole him into continuing. Paul caught up with us shortly after and thought the guy had had a nasty accident until we explain. On the next down hill I realise the full benefit of disc brakes as I hurtle round a corner only to be met by a huge Merc straddling the lanes, I leave a trail of rubber in my wake! At the last check we are told it's all down and all road so we yell in despair as we're sent back up off road through an olive grove. As we enter Riva it’s dual carriageway with policemen controlling the traffic giving us priority at every junction. With the end in sight we sprint along, all pain ignored but with an ominous clunking noise emanating from Raymond’s bike. We hit a cycle path and pass under the finish barrier in a haze of deep chippings. I slew into the girl presenting the medal and we receive a bottle of champagne. Raymond discovers his Middleburn crank has snapped - a good job he didn't pull a stylish wheelie coming into the finish line. Paul and Julie are right on our tails, their only mechanical is a broken spoke.
We book into our hotel, luxuriate in showers and clean clothes and return for the final presentations, an exclusive finishers t-shirt and certificate. We have completed 668km (415m) and have climbed a staggering 22,000m (72,346ft), Raymond gained 10years and I lost 12lbs. Three days of well deserved rest and relaxation await.

Jane Geddes 2001

Trans-sundayriders

2008-03-16T15:21:00.000-07:00