After D2D 2005 and Sleepless In The Saddle 2006, we were confident as a team that we had learned enough about team enduro racing to make D2D 2007 run smoothly. Oh how wrong we were.
We started out well enough - I got the train up to Brandon, despite the best efforts of Network Rail imposing engineering works on the route, and claimed a pitch near the main arena and close to the portaloos. The rest of the team shared a van, stocked up at the supermarket, and arrived in good time to prep the bikes, fit lights and pre-ride the course.
While they were making final adjustments, I had a look at the Chelmer Cycles stand, and took the opportunity to test-ride £5250 worth of final prototype Cannondale Scalpel team replica (http://gb.cannondale.com/bikes/08/ce/model-8VP0.html). I hadn't ridden a Scalpel before, so can't compare the new shock position for 2008 to that of older models, but the full build (with Crossmax SLRs, X0 etc.) is incredibly light and feels super fast even with high volume Maxxis Crossmarks fitted. The carbon Lefty fork meanwhile felt buttery smooth, at least to my untrained senses. I've fallen in love with this bike a bit.....
The course itself was around 11.7m long, and in contrast to the 2005 D2D, had very few climbs of note, but had gained 4 bomb holes to make up for it. Initial feedback from the likes of George Budd was that it would be very fast, and a quick practice lap supported this.
To the race itself: having learned from past experience how bad the single track queues can be at Thetford, I joined the grid really early in the hope of making a (rare for me) fast start. The race began with a 1 mile or so section before rejoining the course proper, which did a good job at the front at least of creating room to race. With fresh legs and fully-charged lights, the course was an absolute blast to ride.
I soon found myself following in the tread marks of Jenn Hopkins of Minx/Kona (pictured), the 2006 Solo Women's winner, on her singlespeed hardtail Kona. She would escape from me on the singletrack only to be reeled back in on the fireroad. Except for the occasional horrendous piece of riding by me slowing down those behind, I stayed with her the entire lap, a sobering thought when she was to ride at that pace for 12 hours non-stop. Very impressive.
A clean, delay-free first lap saw Steve start lap 2 with us in 15th place of the 52 four man teams - nosebleed territory! Unfortunately it was all downhill from there, starting off with Steve's high speed fireroad crash which cost him time before handing over to Andrew. Steve went off to get patched up by the excellent Extreme Medics (http://www.extrememedics.com/) staff. Meanwhile, out on course, Andrew was making good use of his training and the most powerful lights combination in our team to heat up the lap time rivalry between all of us which began at SITS with an impressively fast lap.
Roger was the final team member to go out, and despite having had little chance to get used to his new bike, bought the night before the event, he had a good first half of the lap and was looking strong on the second part when disaster struck. An unseen root/rock/obstacle sent him crashing heavily to earth, broke 1 light completely and damaged the other, and cost a lot of time.
Following on from Roger, I then punctured, but couldn't get the CO2 canister plus sealant to fix the problem completely, so had to ride with very low tyre pressure which made cornering interesting. Luckily I was near the end of the lap, so I ran the final bombhole and into the arena to try to minimise any damage before handing over to Steve. My Mavic XC717/DT Revolution-spoked front wheel was still almost straight surprisingly - good strength from some quite lightweight kit. With a horrible sense of deja vu from SITS, Steve's helmet-mounted Cateye lights soon switched to flashing mode, a sure sign that the batteries were running out, which didn't exactly help him picking out the trail. Andrew obviously used up all his bad luck at SITS meanwhile as he had another fast, uneventful lap before handing over to me.
Meanwhile, at the head of the field, an unflustered-looking Jenn Hopkins was going head to head with Sally Bigham in the Solo Women, while Andrew Patterson and team mate Jenn O'Connor appearing to be in 2 places at once in the Mixed Pairs, they were lapping so quickly. Yuri Hauswald, flown in from the US by Marin and riding a heavily-stickered titanium machine, was battling with Matt Page and Ant White in the Solo Men. Leading the Team Men's event for Whyte Racing, Billy Whenman was seemingly making the most of the on-site masseurs, going out every lap with freshly oiled up legs.
In unplanned solidarity with Steve, my batteries also ran out earlier than expected, so I spent the entire lap sandwiched between 2 other riders, kindly providing me with light. By this point, I was not particularly comfortable on my new Selle Italia SLR XC saddle. I'm sure it will be great, and it does weigh a mere 187g, but I'm not used to riding on such an unpadded seat yet! On returning to the change-over area, I had no team-mate to swap with, with Roger's crash-related injuries, Steve's lack of lights and Andrew resting after recently doing a lap, so we had an enforced break for a while, before Andrew went out in the dawn light for our final lap.
Despite not exactly going to plan, it was great to finish D2D this time, and to pick up even more knowledge about team endurance racing which no doubt will be useful in 2008. Thanks to my team mates for getting on with it and not complaining when things went wrong, and to Extreme Medics for patching up Steve and Roger after crashes.
No comments:
Post a Comment