A bike blog

British Cycling Hall of Fame and more 2010 thoughts

2009-12-17T12:23:00.003Z

The initial 50 inductees to the British Cycling Hall of Fame have been announced, and it's great to see some of the mountain bikers I grew up idolising on that list, in particular the late great Jason McRoy who as a fellow North Easterner and top class racer was a bit of a hero to me in my early teens. Caroline Alexander, David Baker and Tim Gould are also worthy inclusions as some of the best XC racers ever produced in the UK.

Team line-ups for 2010 from elsewhere in Europe and the UK have started to appear, but there's little news on who will be riding for which team in the UK. Liam Killeen, having parted company with Trek and after an injury-hit 2009, will be riding for an as-yet unknown team. There will also be a different look to the BMBS Elite field, especially the Elite Female one, where regular winner and podium finisher Jenn O'Connor is returning to her native New Zealand, and I believe Melanie Spath might be returning to Germany. On the additions side, the top 5 Expert riders by year end rankings should be in Elite for 2010, which should see the likes of Maxine Filby continuing her meteoric rise up the categories and Jessie Roberts joining her, plus possibly some of the Juniors although I believe Carla Haines will be in Expert next year. On the Elite Men's side, Sion O'Boyle moves up from Expert to join his brother in Elite, and Phil Lenney, George Budd and Christian Aucote should join him.

More details are emerging regarding the 2010 UCI cross country World Cup race in Dalby, Yorkshire, but the British Cycling World Cup mini website is still looking a little less polished than the Rare Management equivalent for the Fort William event, though Rare have had longer to perfect it.... As outlined at http://www.olibeck.com , Oli Beckingsale and Nick Craig have been doing some of the course testing and making sure that the 'chicken run' slow lines take more time than the more technically difficult lines, which is as it should be, and unlike the 2009 Mountain Mayhem course! Oli's assertion that the course is a good one and has been improved over the 2009 BMBS event course is good news, and bodes well for a hopefully fun but technically testing race in April.

2010 and looking towards the Olympics

2009-11-30T13:05:00.004Z

There's quite an interesting Luke Webber interview with Phil Dixon, the Great Britain XC coach, at http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtb20091123-Road-To-2012-Part-3-0 in which the plans for 2010 and onwards are discussed. It looks like Annie Last, Lily Matthews, Dave Fletcher etc. will be doing fewer races and less travelling than in 2009. The hard work done by GB's Elite Female racers in 2009 to close the gap on other nations for Olympic qualification means at least there is now a chance of seeing someone on the start line in 2012 in both Elite Male and Female, which didn't appear at all likely 12 months ago. Once the year end UCI rankings are available, we'll know how many nation points GB have amassed from 01/01/2008-31/12/2009 and hence what needs to be done before 31/12/2011 to ensure a least 1 rider in both the Elite Male and Elite Female XCO events at the next Olympics.

There's also talk of R&D work for mountain bike XC which, combined with the news that British Cycling are working with the F1-related McLaren Advanced Technologies, could lead to some interesting developments and components I hope. It's been good to see the GB racers experimenting with different kit this year, for example Reynolds carbon rims and Dugast tubular tyres used by Fletcher and Last for much of the season, the relatively rare FRM CU2 M18 double chainsets or Oli Beckingsale's 1x9 gear set up with chain device.

As far as I can see, there's no news to date on which team or teams the GB Podium or Academy Programme riders will be riding for. Rebecca Romero has been doing some MTB XC racing recently, however, and since it seems likely that her track specialism won't be possible in the 2012 Games, I wonder if she might consider changing sport once again?!

* edit* According to the interview with Joolze Dymond at http://www.xcracer.com/ , Rebecca may do some more XC racing with a view to trying some BMBS national level XC racing in 2010, which could be interesting...

So it begins....

2009-11-25T16:05:00.004Z

Having said in my last post that not many XC racers in the UK are using video as a medium, I know see that Kate Potter and her husband have bought a Flip video camera and uploaded some footage to Kate's blog at http://katepotternet.blogspot.com . It's good to see some footage of the new Cotic CX bike being put through its paces.

Now that SouthernXC are producing videos from their events and Kate is doing the same for her page, the momentum is starting to build for XC video in the UK. Right, I'm off to read the manual for Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 and to get some more practice in with my camera.....

Riders using video to maximise sponsor exposure etc.

2009-11-16T17:16:00.002Z

Although there are a few British XC riders with their own blogs and/or websites, it seems that racers elsewhere in Europe are more likely at present to use these to raise awareness of them and their sponsors. Very few XC racers in the UK seem to be using video as part of this awareness raising.

However, this is possibly beginning to change. Maddie Horton, the Devon-based Elite Female racer, has been nominated for the Plymouth Amateur Sports Personality for 2009, and put up a post on the XCracer forum asking for someone to get some footage of her at the recent Soggy Bottom series race. Since I've already got a number of clips of her racing from this season, I offered that she could use some of those instead, partly as a trial for how this could work in future.

Having checked out a few of the better ones of Maddie, I'm now testing MSN's SkyDrive file hosting in an attempt to easily transfer the raw, uncompressed clips to the Plymouth Herald newspaper for editing in advance of the awards ceremony. At 13GB per hour of raw footage, even short videos are too large to transfer via email in their raw state.

It seems a shame that she's the only individual racer making use of the many hours of footage I shot this year, but if it helps her and helps to expand the sport, it's a step in the right direction. I wonder if any others will be looking for video footage of themselves in future?

2009 BMBS round 5 video

2009-11-04T15:35:00.002Z

After juggling a limited amount of hard drive space, the video from round 5 of this year's BMBS is finally complete. Recording onto miniDV tape means a download to PC needs 13GB per hour of raw footage so it soon eats up a lot of space.....

Anyway, I've uploaded the same source file to both Vimeo (as per the rest of the race series) and also to YouTube, as I was keen to see which looked better and which will receive more hits, even though I think I know the answer to both of those questions.

The YouTube version is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cboxA_ryiuU

The Vimeo version is as below:

2009 British Mountain Bike race series round 5 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

Let's see which works better as a combination of footage quality and popularity/views!

The Twentyfour12 video is finally complete

2009-10-22T12:03:00.002+01:00

After quite a lot of work, I've finally managed to finish my video summary of this year's Twentyfour12 race from Newnham Park, Plymouth. I can now finally free up some badly needed hard disk space and get on with finishing the footage from round 5 of the BMBS, also from Plymouth, which I hope to complete very soon.

Anyway, here's the link to the Twentyfour12 video:

Twentyfour12 2009 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

BMBS round 5, Newnham Park, Plymouth

2009-09-29T23:52:00.002+01:00

It was round 5 of the 2009 BMBS this weekend just gone, and for the first time since being kicked in the knee by a clumsy oaf in mid April while playing football, I was able to take video footage of an MTB race without being on crutches. This made the whole event SO much more fun, and quite a lot easier to boot.

It was a UCI C1-ranked event, which brought more world ranking points for the riders, additional prize money, and some interesting overseas riders, including multiple European and World Champion and Gold medallist at the 2004 Olympics, Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjå (pictured). The Norwegian was returning to racing after her 2009 season was interrupted by the birth of her son, Bjørnar.

The sun shone, 'The Pipeline' descent was included in the course for the first time in years, the river crossings were tricky, and all the riders I spoke to and/or interviewed were friendly and happy to chat.

I hope to get the video up soon, but I have to finish another one first....

BMBS round 4, Crow Hill

2009-09-17T13:43:00.001+01:00

Still on crutches after May's knee surgery, I made my way to the New Forest for round 4 of the 2009 BMBS race series. Here's the resulting video.

2009 British Mountain Bike race series round 4 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

BMBS round 3, Margam Park

2009-09-17T13:39:00.003+01:00

Another BMBS race, another day spent hobbling around on crutches, which is a shame as I wasn't physically able to get to the most interesting sections of the course to take any footage.

2009 British Mountain Bike race series round 3 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

2009-05-21T21:42:00.002+01:00

So it turns out that the fairly innocent football tackle a few weeks ago ripped a surprisingly large section of cartilage from the bottom of my thigh bone, at the outside of the knee.

I underwent surgery on it at the same hospital where I had my fractured scaphoid in my wrist operated upon, and am now recovering on crutches, icing and elevating the knee etc. The Chelsea and Westminster hospital really is an excellent advert for the National Health Service.

The good news is that the section ripped off could have been in a worse place, and that hopefully I can cycle again at some point. The bad news is that if new cartilage grows, it will only be 50% as good as the old section, and the risk of arthritis is much higher. I can't do impact sports from now on either, so no more football or tennis, sadly.

Despite the crutches, I made it up to Dalby for round 2 of the British Mountain Bike race series. The new course, built as part of a bid to host a UCI World Cup race in 2010, was a big change from many NPS courses of the past, and reminded me a lot of Fort William with the mini rock gardens and boardwalk sections. It was a proper technical XC course, and caught a few riders out who had not pre-ridden it!

2009 British Mountain Bike race series round 2 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

As I feared, I won't be able to race Mountain Mayhem, nor probably SITS, but should still be at both races with my team to take photos and video and sample the atmosphere, which is some consolation.

Injured again and video

2009-04-25T14:00:00.003+01:00

So after a mere month or two of riding after last year's broken scaphoid, in which I established my fitness was shot to pieces, I'm now injured again, courtesy of football last week. One kick to the inside of my knee, on a leg with all my weight on it, and the knee swelled up like a balloon.

I couldn't walk on it, nor bend it, and even a combined X ray, CT scan and A&E check-up couldn't definitely establish what's wrong, although they suspect I've broken some bone off somewhere which is now floating around. I've now got a brace on it plus crutches, and had an MRI scan last night, but I don't find out the results for 2 weeks yet.

I suspect surgey may be needed, and hence am seriously doubtful I will be able to race Mountain Mayhem, which is a real shame, but I'm trying to be hopeful regarding an 100% recovery, however long it takes.

Anyway, on a more positive note, after various camcorder problems before the event, I made it to round 1 of the British Mountain Bike race series at Sherwood Pines in early April. I need to work on my camera skills, and on my video editing technique, but the initial outcome seems an improvement on last year's digital camera/Windows Movie Maker/YouTube approach. The video's up as below:

2009 British Mountain Bike race series round 1 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

Knee permitting, I'm looking forward to round 2's racing, and hope to produce some better video again from that weekend.

It's round 2 of the UCI MTB World Cup this weekend, but there are very few British riders taking part, which initially seemed a shame. Having looked into it in a bit more detail, however, it seems that the focus on chasing UCI points (to ensure we qualify some places at the 2012 Olympics) will be at 'easier' UCI C1 and C2 ranked events in the UK and Europe, not at World Cups. Sharon Laws, Annie Last and Lily Matthews have been clocking up the miles in recent weeks, and the focus for 2009 seems to be on these 3 riders getting the UCI points needed, at least as far as our Elite Women go. There's still a huge gap to close up to even get 1 place for 2012 for the Elite Women, so let's hope Sharon, Annie, Lily and everyone else race well....

A long time away from biking

2009-02-08T23:50:00.004Z

Another few months have passed so here's a quick update.

I hope at some point to cover 2008 in a bit more detail, including Mountain Mayhem, Sleepless In The Saddle, more of the 2008 NPS XC series and other topics, but for now I'm trying to look forwards and enjoy after an injury hit 2008.

I was in Shropshire for round 4 of the 2008 NPS at Eastridge, taking photos etc. as usual for http://www.xcracer.com and was riding the race course to find some good viewing spots. The local conditions were amongst the most mixed I've seen for an XC event, with rocks, roots and mud all together for a change, plus a number of fallen trees which had been incorporated into the lap.

To cut a long story short, I ran out of a combination of riding skill, front wheel grip and arm strength over one of the fallen trees/logs and went over the handlebars, winding myself badly and banging my wrist. I was in no fit state to continue riding the course so walked the remainder, taking a few photos en route, and went to get checked out by the Extreme Medics doctors, who diagnosed a sprained wrist and bruised ribs.

Still in a bit of pain 10 days later, I went to A&E to get the wrist looked at in more detail, and it turned out I had actually fractured the scaphoid bone in my left (dominant) hand. That destroyed my plans to race Dusk 'til Dawn, and also meant surgery to insert a titanium pin into the bone to improve the chances of successful healing.

24 weeks after I broke it,the bone has healed but I'm still undergoing physiotherapy to strengthen the wrist, and am still not allowed to ride, which is incredibly frustrating. Still, in the hope I make a full recovery, I'm already thinking of Mountain Mayhem and SITS, plus may race at Wild Boar 24 too.

In the meantime, I've been experimenting a little with video hosting sites, and have decided that Vimeo is a better option than YouTube, as although it doesn't get the same number of hits, the resulting video quality is far higher and less grainy.

I re-used my original footage from the 2007 NPS events at Margam and Sherwood Pines to produce some videos for the 2009 British Mountain Bike XC series, and uploaded them to Vimeo. I think they work quite well. See more at http://www.britishxc.com

Finally, another update

2008-10-19T10:44:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a few months and quite a bit has happened since I last posted, but more of that in other posts.

Before that, I eventually managed to upload my footage from Fort William this year, or at least the women's XC anyway.

It's a real shame that the UCI have dropped XC from Fort William for next year, apparently because the lap time was 'too long'. I'll not be working up there as a marshall next year as a result, having been there from 2005-2008, but may make trip to Houffalize or Offenburg instead, I hope.

Gary Fisher Superfly 29er review and general updates

2008-05-31T16:20:00.002+01:00

First of all, apologies to anyone out there reading this for my lack of updates. I'd like to say I've been spending time doing something worthwhile but I've been merely busy.

Anyway, now that's out of the way, I'm writing this with a new slight injury to my right knee which I tweaked while running around a few weeks ago. I went to see a new physiotherapist today, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I can still race at Mountain Mayhem in 3 weeks' time, which is a huge relief. The bad news is my body core stability is not great, and as I knew already, my hamstrings, hip flexors etc. are generally pretty tight. My Illio-Tibial Band is also tight, which is what's pulling on my right knee, so I've got various exercises and a large inflatable ball to work on. It's good to know that it can be fixed though :)

In preparation for Mayhem, injured or not, I finally bought the Hope Vision Single LED light I've been after for ages. I've only been out using it once, but I'm really happy so far. It's cable-free, takes 4 AA batteries, only weighs around 240g wih batteries, and produces more light than my old 10W halogen system. Well, at least I think so. Once I've taken some comparison photos, I'll upload them here.

A few weeks ago, I made the journey up to Drumlanrig in south west Scotland for round 2 of the 2008 British National Points Series. I don't drive, so was reliant upon public transport, couldn't take the bike for various reasons, and there were rail engineering works, but it all worked out perfectly. I even managed to get a local bus from Dumfries to Thornhill and then walked the 4 miles or so to Drumlanrig Castle itself. £43.50 in total for a return journey from south west London to Scotland seems good value.

While I was there, covering the racing for the XCRacer website, the kind guys at Trek lent me a 2008 Gary Fisher Superfly carbon 29er to try, which meant I could ride the course. I must admit, I wasn't a great fan of 29ers at this point, although I had never ridden one, as I don't like them from an aesthetic point of view. Nevertheless, I tried my best to be open-minded once on board the £2500 machine, which came with X0 trigger shifters and rear mech, Avid Juicy Ultimate brakes, carbon Bontrager cranks, 32mm stanchion Fox forks and wide flat bars but no bar ends. The Superfly has the Genesis 2.0 geometry, which means a shorter top tube combined with a fork which is further offset away from the headtube, to keep the overall bike long enough. The 19" Fisher frame I tried still felt far less stretched out than my 18.5" Inbred.

Over the regular rocks and roots of the Drumlanrig course, the large wheels rolled really well. Medium and fast corners were a revelation, as a combination of the stiff forks (compared to my 30mm Marzocchis) and the large level of grip afforded by the contact area of the tyres meant the bike could be really cranked over and it would stick beautifully to whatever line you chose. Downhill, the wide bars, high grip levels and short top tube made it easy to attack and left a big grin on my face.

The downside of the short top tube, wide bars and no bar ends was uphill however. The bike felt really sluggish as soon as the terrain went up, and even a stiff carbon frame and low overall weight didn't seem to help. Every climb left me wanting to be back on my (probably heavier) 26" wheeled Inbred. The other issue was slow speed cornering, where turning the Superfly felt like trying to turn a supertanker, it was such hard work. The long stem fitted (necessary with the short top tube) combined with the size of the wheels meant every tight bend became hard work. I'm not sure how Fisher could rectify this, as a shorter stem would leave the overall riding position even less stretched out than at present. I suppose narrower bars and bar ends could make some difference for climbing perhaps.

Overall, I'm much more of a convert to 29ers than I was before riding the Superfly, but I certainly won't be buying one soon, and Fisher maybe have some work to do so that the bike climbs as well as it descends.

Hope pro riders and the Olympic XC points race is go!

2008-04-01T23:06:00.002+01:00

Hope Hulk green brakes and stem
Originally uploaded by rouleur

Following in the footsteps of the team-only red Magura Marta SLs as used by Specialized etc., Hope have been issuing their pro riders with a range of mint green kit, which is now starting to appear in photo such as the above, which is Andrew Patterson's bike.

The amount of kit being provided by Hope varies from person to person, so in the case of Andrew Patterson, it includes mint green disc brakes, external bottom bracket cups with ceramic bearings, stem, headset and seatpost QR it would seem. It goes really well with his white Endorfin, I think. Oli Beckingsale's black/red Giant Anthem Advanced doesn't look quite as good with mint green external BB cups and disc brakes. The ladies, meanwhile, such as Jenn O'Connor, get the same kit but in the light pink which first appeared in late 2007. Hope are also supporting the likes of Trek/SiS and Filip Meirhaeghe, so I'm keen to see how much of the range they end up with, and any horrific clashing colours too....

In competition news, the race to claim one of GB's 2 Elite Men XC places for Beijing 2008 has now well and truly begun. Oli Beckingsale has already won one round of the K Capital Cup in Ireland, and this weekend won at the Midlands XC. Liam Killeen meanwhile finished 9th at the first NMBS event of the year in the US. Any difference in points at this stage is probably irrelevant, however, given British Cycling's typically opaque Olympics selection criteria.

93 days to go....

2008-03-19T19:45:00.005Z

I'm really looking forward to racing this year, whether as a spectator or actually on course. Despite my initial misgivings about my enforced move up to the Masters class for 2008, I've just had a look at some of my old lap times from National Points Series and Gorrick races in 2005 and 2006, and although I would be nowhere near the front, I would at least have a few people behind me. Of course, I was relatively fit in 2005 and 2006, and not being a hypochondriac about my still not 100% right knee, so I doubt I could repeat those times right now...

On an NPS-related note, I've now rejoined British Cycling after allowing my licence to lapse, so I feel a bit better for supporting our governing body in the UK, despite its many faults.

One thing I could never understand, particularly after working at the World Championships at Fort William in 2007, was why British Cycling seems to make so little use of sponsorship to help support our riders. Italy have Skoda logos all over their strip, Rabobank clearly work together with the Dutch team, and yet all British Cycling seemed to do was use Trek bikes and have a small Adidas logo on the strip. It's all change this week however, with Hope not only working more closely with the XC riders at least, and providing some lovely mint green disc brakes in the process, but also Halfords Bikehut have now joined in too, although I'm not sure if this is for XC and/or DH too.

One thing I hadn't realised when guessing who would be at Mountain Mayhem this year is that the 2008 World Championships take place the same weekend at Val Di Sole. That would explain why there's no Giant team entered, since Oli Beckingsale will be in Italy, and also makes it unlikely that Ian Bibby will be riding for SiS/Trek or Jenny Copnall for any of the teams requesting her as a rider. However, it appears this week that Sue Clarke (formerly Sue Thomas) is making a return to XC after getting married and missing all of 2007's races. She's joined SiS/Trek so could be at Mayhem on their Expert Mixed team, which could now be very strong on the women's side. I had in my head that Amy Hunt was still at Trek/SiS and therefore could be on their team at Mayhem but of course she's at Trek/VW now....

It will be interesting to see how the results of the first NPS of the year go, with Sue Clarke added to the usual suspects of Jenny C, Amy Hunt, Jenn O'Connor, Kate Potter and the like. I hope to be there on 13/04 in Thetford, albeit probably just as a spectator taking photos (badly) and some video footage, but I'll decide that over the next week or so.

Confirmation and Crossmarks

2008-03-13T19:15:00.003Z

It's been a good week in an MTB sense. First of all, my Dusk 'Til Dawn/SITS team mate Andrew and I were out in Swinley Forest on Sunday, and although forecast rain didn't arrive, it was still a little stickier than I thought but I didn't need the TrailRakers. We got some good riding in, managed to find the fun corkscrew section which I had raced down a couple of years ago from Crowthorne and then forgot about, and also some excellently fast bermed singletrack. I'm looking forward to getting back there again for some more training, ideally with my other team mate Roger in tow.

Judging by Sunday's performance, Andrew's winter training has produced some impressive straight line speed, but he was struggling a little technically until he remembered his tyre pressures were really high, let some air out, and was then much happier. While we were out, we heard a PA system nearby, and I remembered that there was a Gorrick race taking place, so we went along to offer some support to the likes of Alex Paton and George Budd. It was good to see some familiar faces, but the event seemed really quiet by the usual Gorrick standards, although it was late in the day and perhaps many riders were at the BUSA Championships instead.

Mountain Mayhem entry confirmations were released in midweek and happily "A Midsummer Night's Team" and I made it into the Sport Men race. It will be our first trip to Mountain Mayhem, and Ian's first race since about 1993, but I can't wait. Some of the teams joining us in Sport looks familiar from Sleepless In The Saddle 2007, such as the Black Riders Of Mordor. The Open Men category seems to contain some potentially very fast teams, now that Elite and Expert Men can only ride in Expert Mixed or Open Men for 2008. Some of the Expert Mixed teams look intriguing too, such as SiS/Trek and Rivette, making another trip across from Denmark after finishing 2nd in Expert Men in 2007, but bringing a number of teams this year. I wonder if Ian Bibby will be riding for SiS, and who their female rider(s) will be? Amy Hunt would seem a good bet, since SiS/Trek is her old team, but we'll have to wait and see.....

Finally, my Maxxis Crossmarks arrived today, and although I haven't fitted them yet, I have had the weighing scales out. Maxxis claim a 530g weight for my 2.1", 120tpi 62a eXCeption series tyre, but my pair came in at a mere 484g and 486g. Either my scales are wrong, Maxxis are wrong, or Maxxis' website is a little conservative, but I'm happy at being able to save weight while gaining grip and pinch puncture protection :) I'm looking forward to trying them out this weekend!

Not tired of tyres

2008-03-07T22:21:00.002Z

I'm feeling optimistic that Spring will soon be here after a weeek of sunshine in London, even though the forecast for this weekend is not great, so it's a fond farewell to my Panaracer TrailRaker mud tyres and hello again to my now quite worn Maxxis Flyweight 490s. Luckily they won't need to last much longer, except for the occasional dry hardpack summer race, as I'll hopefully get a pair of Maxxis Crossmarks this week, in their 2.1", 120tpi 62a eXCeption series incarnation.

Granted, it is a 40g per wheel weight penalty from the 490s to the Crossmarks, but I'm hopeful that the larger volume should help me avoid pinch punctures, while still allowing low pressures to be used for grip and lowered rolling resistance. I've only pinch punctured once while racing as far as I can remember, and that was hitting a drop-off too hard while using about 18psi in the rear wheel. Ooops. Judging by the amount of miles of racing, training and road commuting use my 490s have done over the years, the 62a rubber seems to last quite well, so the Crossmarks should be good for a while.

Maxxis have got some new cross-country tyres out too, but not in the eXception series yet. The models are named Monorail and Ridgeline and "offers spacing to grab rough and sandy surfaces, while the stability bars keep flex and rolling resistance to a minimum" and "masters dry trails, offering athletes awesome lean angles with little sacrificed momentum" respectively. The design of the Ridgeline looks very interesting so it will be intriguing to see the first reviews come in.

I'm still awaiting confirmation of whether our team entry has been accepted for Mountain Mayhem, but all those who applied should be contacted by early next week apparently. In the meantime, entries for Sleepless In The Saddle are not yet being accepted, so I suppose I'd better complete our form for Marin Dusk 'til Dawn....

Mountain Mayhem 2008

2008-03-06T22:46:00.003Z

After racing for 24 hours at Sleepless In The Saddle in 2007, I hoped that we could get into its big brother for 2008, Mountain Mayhem. Mayhem is now in its 11th year and is the UK's largest 24h MTB race, but with the size of the event comes popularity, i.e. it sells out within days. Many teams and solo riders, keen to ensure they get in, actually hand deliver their entries to the organisers.

This year, forms were released at the new Mountain Mayhem website at midnight on Friday 29th February. This coincided with me being up north for my dad's birthday, which meant using their geriatric PC instead of wireless broadband. :( With my anticipation levels growing throughout the day, and knowing that getting the entry off early was a priority, I crossed my fingers that a combination of Windows 98, a 333mHz processor and a 56kbps narrowband internet connection would allow me to download and print the entry form.

Midnight arrived and went, and the form could not be accessed. I finally managed to download the form at 12:45am, but on opening the PDF document, it was blank. I checked Singletrackworld's forum to find that the first version was corrupted, so downloaded version 2. Still blank.

My team mate Roger emailed me his download of the file, which was also blank even though he could open it, so my old version of Adobe Reader was the problem, and there was no time to download an up to date copy. Being creative, Roger used Fn + Prnt Scrn to produce 3 JPEGs of the form, then attached them together with Photoshop and uploaded them to his webpage for me. We now had the form over 2 pages, but our ancient printer could not cope with 'fit to A4' so I had to use Boots Photo Editing Software to print it to fit OK.

After sending it off by Special Delivery to arrive by 9am on Monday, I'm now awaiting confirmation from Joolze/Pat that we're in, but I'm hopeful as we couldn't have got it there much earlier except by hand delivery. Fingers crossed....

The event itself should be fantastic, with a 10 mile course, perhaps more climbing than at Sleepless, and up to 2500 people racing. One of the more interesting changes for this year is that there are no team categories for Elite Men and Elite Women, but only an Expert Mixed, which requires not only at least 1 female racer, but that she must do a minimum of 4 laps too. With a relatively limited number of fast female racers in the UK, they are sure to be in high demand! Multiple British national champion Jenny Copnall raced last year in a mixed team, as did top triathlete Julie Dibens who ended up in the winning team, and I wonder if they will both be back? Other names in the frame, if they are not racing Solo, could include the likes of Paula Moseley, Gemma Collins, Sophie Johnson, Amy Hunt and Ruth McGavigan.

On an XC racing note, I'm going to be in serious trouble if I race any NPS events this year, now I have to race Masters and cannot hide in Sport. Looking at the times of the Masters field compared to Sport, and the calibre of some Masters racers, not finishing last will be a major achievement! Oh well, I'd better keep doing the knee exercises and general stretches and do some training....

Losing weight and licences

2008-02-21T22:05:00.002Z

The rules for the 2008 British National Point Series (NPS) races are now out and it looks like there are some not insignificant changes in licences and entry rules. In prior years, I have raced in the Sport class, which was for those aged 19 and upwards, based on ability. Above Sport were Expert and then Elite. In addition, there were the aged based categories of Masters (from age 30) and Veterans for the next age group above that.

However, many racers who were eligible for Masters (in age terms) raced in Expert or Sport. Not any longer. As a result of my 30th birthday approaching fast, I can't choose my category any more for 2008, unless I request so especially, but will be automatically upgraded to Masters. Sport do 3 laps at the NPS, while Masters do 4 (the same as Expert) and Masters racers tend to be quite a bit faster than Sport, at least at the front of the grid. It looks like I'm going to need a lot more training to be able to even hide in the middle of the pack this year!

The other interesting impact of the rule changes should be fewer people changing category/in the wrong category, or trophy-hunting by dropping down a class from perhaps where they 'should' be. Apparently you will only be able to ride in your particular BC licence class unless you have requested an exemption in advance.

However, there is some good news in my quest to not be embarrassingly slow in 2008. I've shed another 64g from my Inbred courtesy of some On-One 'clever cam' skewers, which cost me a mere £7.35 including postage and packaging! At only 101g, and looking very similar to the Mavic composite levers, I'm very happy so far. If they perform as well as my 1993 Shimano ones have over the years, but with a weight advantage, they will be a good buy. The Inbred still weighs around 11.63kgs (25.6lbs) even now but then it has never had serious money thrown at it. For a (relatively) cheap build, the weight is good, and I love that it is almost certainly unique in its current specification.

Wasted rides and wheel tape

2008-02-09T20:05:00.000Z

Looking out of the window this morning to see clear blue skies and sunshine, it was definitely time to get out on the bike, only for me to get two minutes down the road and experience some distinctly soggy handling, courtesy of a front wheel puncture.

No problem, I thought, having been a sensible boy and packed a spare tube, tyre lever and pump as usual. One quick (-ish) tube change later and I was on my way. With warm sunshine and no breeze, riding conditions were perfect, and I was soon at Richmond Park, looking forward to a couple of laps at speed, and hopefully no crashes this time. After around half a lap, I hit a right-hander at speed, and cranked the bike over to get some more cornering practice in, only to hear a horrible sound of air escaping a few seconds later. *Another* front wheel puncture :(

With only an already punctured inner tube, no CO2 and sealant canister and no money with me, it was time to walk home, which I knew would take me the best part of 2 hours. Oh well. At least it wasn't raining.....

That's 3 front wheel punctures in the last few months, but I never seem to find thorns, glass or nails in the tyre, and they are not snakebite punctures caused by too low pressure either. I think it is time to bin my rim tape and try some electrical tape instead, as the rim tape keeps moving and I suspect it is the tube hitting the spokes/valve hole which keeps causing the punctures. I really must go tubeless soon....

In other MTB news, while the British NPS XC race list has now been finalised, the licence requirements (or lack thereof) have not been clarified yet, and I'm waiting to see what licence level if any will be required before I renew my British Cycling membership. A number of people seem to think it will cost them lots of money to get a licence, but I suspect and hope that the Bronze membership, costing £13 including a free Provisional Racing Licence, will be sufficient to race the NPS this year. With only one of the rounds having UCI points this year, it will be interesting to see if all the UK-based riders do every race, or if they go chasing points in the rest of Europe, and how many overseas riders race over here.

As excited as I am about doing more 24 hour team racing in the UK this summer, in the long term I hope we can do some events in the rest of Europe too. After looking at a number of races listed here, it seems that many of the events have very short lap distances, seemingly in a very compact area, with the winning teams completing 60 or 70-odd laps in 24 hours, compared to say 48 laps from team Giant at Mountain Mayhem 2006. The courses don't look particularly interesting either, at least from the YouTube footage I've seen. I'll keep looking as I'm sure there are events with longer lap times (and hence less chance to get bored) and more interesting terrain out there.

A (very late) Sleepless In The Saddle 2007 write-up

2008-01-28T19:32:00.000Z

Better, late than never, as the saying goes. I finished my write-up from the 2007 Sleepless In The Saddle 24hour race many months ago but then never made time to publish it, so here it is.

After an eventful and not entirely successful introduction to team XC racing at Dusk ‘Til Dawn 2005, I convinced my team mates Roger and Andrew to have another go at Sleepless In The Saddle this year, adding in former colleague Steve to complete the “2.5 beards, an Aussie and a Dutchman” line-up in Sport Men. SITS was to be Roger and Andrew’s second ever race, and Steve had never had a number on his bike at all, so we were hoping the step up to our first ever 24 hour event wouldn’t be too big. The main aims for the event were to have fun, complete the 24 hours, and have a rider out on course at all times.

Leaving London in the early afternoon on Friday left plenty of time for a relaxed drive up to Catton Hall, and a supermarket trip en route to stock up on pasta meals, cereal bars etc. Arriving at Catton, the non- trade/soloist camping area was already really busy, and it took a few laps of the site to find a pitch, but it was a good one, near to the change-over area and the high quality toilets/washrooms, complete with shiny brass door handles – no standard Portaloos here! After setting up the tents, we went to registration to collect our impressive number boards (Roger may well frame his) and vouchers for free Fibrax brake pads for discs/V-brakes of your choice – a nice touch to have options here. We were also happy with the ‘baton’, a vaguely glow-in-the-dark rubber wristband, which would be much harder to lose than the glowstick we had at Dusk ‘Til Dawn in 2005. A quick detour to buy a mixed box of bars from Matt at Torq and it was time for an early night.

Saturday morning saw clearing skies, bright sunshine, and a chance to pre-ride the 7.2 mile course. After an opening long, flat grassy farm track section with some fun high-speed corners, the hard work started with a steep little climb heading into the single track. Much of the course was the same as EnduroPlus 2006, the last time I was at Catton, with the addition of a new section across the public road which had been shut for the event, and was a mix of farm tracks, twisty sticky singletrack, off-camber loose descents, small sharp climbs, a lot of bumps, and some long, thankfully fast and smooth, grassy sections. It wasn’t particularly technically difficult, although definitely harder than my team mates had been expecting, but we were confident it would be fun.

Steve’s jinxed weekend began halfway round the pre-ride when his left-hand crank arm fell off. After much searching around in the mud until we found all the pieces, we abandoned the pre-ride and headed for the Shimano gazebo to fix his bike, which didn’t leave us enough time before the rider briefing to complete the rest of the pre-ride: the second part of lap 1 for each of us would be ‘blind’.

We decided on a 2 lap strategy, and I drew the short straw and had the pleasure of the Le Mans-style start, an 800m run to pick up the bike followed by the opening lap. Looking for a reasonable start to avoid getting stuck in single track blockages, the run went well, and the field soon spread out over the first few minutes of flat racing. Approaching the first climb however, roughly 75% of riders had gone off far too quicky and were walking up it, meaning those like me who wanted to ride it had to politely request they move out of the way between gasps for breath. The course proved to be as much fun as we had hoped, with plenty of overtaking possibilities, loads of high-speed corners and a mix of surfaces.

One of the highlights of the lap was what we called ‘the corkscrew’, a series of inter-linked 180 degree turns up and down hill, with cross-country horse fences to bounce off if you got things wrong. Another favourite was the penultimate descent, which soon gained a crowd of bloodthirsty spectators hoping for crashes and heckling/supporting those racing, depending upon how they rode the downhill and the sharp left corner immediately following it!

The first 2 laps were over soon enough, and it was time to use the well-designed change-over area, where riders continuing to another lap walked through the left side of the timing tent, and those finishing their stint used the right, walking with the bike to hand over the wristband baton to a team mate who could join the course further down the main straight.

The early part of our race proved to be uneventful, only enlivened by our only puncture of the entire event for Andrew. We were lucky to only pick up one – the thorn hedges were freshly cut and I lost count of the number of riders changing tubes by the side of the track.

Andrew, Roger and Steve all completed their first sets of doubles, and as dusk fell, it was my turn again. Unsure of how many watts I would need later on, it was possible to turn the lights off altogether on the open sections on lap 1, but lap 2 saw a mix of 5W and 15W in the singletrack, and even this wasn’t enough in places – time to invest in some new lights…… The night laps were great fun, except for being thrown over the handlebars at 3mph when my back wheel jumped out of the frame – all the bumps must have loosened the QR. Had it happened 15 seconds earlier, in the midst of a 30mph gravel descent, it would have been a lot more painful! After another change-over to Andrew, I headed to bed for a quick 4 hour sleep, expecting to be out on course again at 4:10am roughly, so set my alarm for 3:45am.

Two more consistent stints from Andrew and Roger while I slept left Steve with his first night lap, and his cursed weekend continued. Not only did the forecast rain turn up as a short sharp shower, coating his bike and the course in mud, but his lights failed completely early in the lap. Even using other riders to illuminate the course, a few crashes resulted, and doing a second lap was not an option. Cue Steve riding to our pitch 30 minutes earlier than expected with the baton, and handing over to a still sleepy and half-prepared me. 20 minutes of delay and a swift Red Bull later, I was back on the course, which had miraculously dried and was hardly muddy at all.

Meanwhile, Andrew had slept really badly after his last session, so when I walked through the timing tent to hand-over to him, there was no-one there – he was still in his tent and in no fit state to go out. I did not fancy a third lap of my stint, and Roger and Steve were also sleeping, so we took an executive decision to have a break. Andrew got some breakfast and more sleep while I cleaned all the bikes, and we resumed with Roger’s stint, leaving Steve and Andrew to make up their missed laps later.

A quick position check from the commentary position at around 10am found us in 117th place after our 2.5 ‘lost’ hours with no-one on course, having dropped from 99th to 101st earlier. Time to get a move on..

With the sun shining and blue skies again, the final hours of the race were great fun. Andrew handed over to me at 1326 and, keen to get as many laps in as possible, I produced my fastest lap of the event to get through the timing tent with 3 minutes to spare, overtaking a number of lurkers enjoying the sunshine at the top of the last descent in the process. The final lap was very relaxed and with hardly any riders on course, the singletrack was flowing nicely, and all too soon I found myself crossing the line for the last time and receiving a handshake from Pat Adams. The 24 hours was over! We ended up 109th of 142, with the final lap bumping us up a few places.

For our first ever 24 hour event, it went pretty well, all things considered. The atmosphere for the whole race was really friendly, numerous overtaking places meant there was very little aggression in passing other riders, and the weather was great for most of the event. Granted, we didn’t manage to have a rider out on course for the entire 24 hours, and the 2.5-3 hours we lost could have been used for another 3 laps or so, but the whole team had fun and learned a lot.

Thanks to Pat Adams and everyone involved in organising such a great event, the marshals and support staff, Salsa/Thetford MTB Racing for fixing Steve’s brakes, and Shimano for adjusting malfunctioning gears.

Spring is in the air?

2008-01-27T22:53:00.000Z

It's still January but the sun was shining today and the trails seem to be drying, at least for the moment. The Gorrick spring series started today, and the dates for most of 2008's races are already available.

One target for 2008 is to improve my speed, particularly downhill, and I've been trying to really lean the bike over in corners with my weight over the outside pedal, and the crank at 6 o'clock. I've definitely seen some improvements recently, but I got it a bit wrong today. Trying to carry a lot of speed over a wet wooden bridge, I ran out of grip, washed out, and sent my bike cartwheeling towards a group of runners who didn't look best pleased with my riding! Apart from a grazed hip/shin/ankle, no damage was done, and it's another lesson learned :)

I've been testing the Torq gels over the last few months, and although I like the Orange And Banana flavour, and am getting used to the Forest Fruits With Guarana, the clear winners are the Strawberry Yoghurt and Black Cherry Yoghurt, which are absolutely delicious! They remind me of Fruit Corner yoghurts, they are that tasty. I've no idea how well they work compared to other gels, but they certainly work and I'll be staying with Torq for 2008, having used Science in Sport gels the last few years.

Having lost our 12h/24h team member Steve, who has returned to Australia, it looks like we have a replacement lined up, and we're finalising our racing plans now. The aim is to do the below races as a team of four:

21-22/06 Mountain Mayhem
09-10/08 Sleepless In The Saddle
04-05/10 Dusk 'Til Dawn

I'm really looking forward to racing as a team again, but need to get some new tyres and better lights before then. The new Hope Single LED model is looking favourite at the moment for the latter.

A quick update

2007-12-14T23:23:00.001Z

The days are short and it's cold outside but looking back at photos and video footage from this season and earlier is keeping me in the mood to get out on the bike.

The Panaracer Trailraker mud tyres got their first outing of winter 2007/8 last weekend, in Swinley Forest. The weather forecast was for stormy weather and heavy rain, which luckily didn't materialise, but it was definitely a wet ride all the same. Leon and James, two old work mates who raced across Costa Rica with me in February 2006, also came along for the ride, and we all got in some good practice on the wet roots, thin mud and short steep climbs and descents. The riding area at Swinley is larger than I though, and there are many more trails we didn't get to explore, so I'm looking forward to a return there in early 2008.

On an equipment note, my Truvativ Stylo Team GXP chainset is still doing well, with no play in the cranks etc. but the bottom bracket is creaking a little every now and then. I'm going to leave it as long as I can and hope it gets through the winter/spring before buying some replacement GXP external bottom bracket cups, now available from Chain Reaction and other good bike shops. After getting many hours of riding in on it to adjust to a relatively unpadded lightweight saddle, I'm now really happy with my SLR XC saddle. I'll let you know if the saddle rail snap problem others have reported happens to me!

Winter riding and looking forward to 2008

2007-11-15T12:28:00.001Z

DSC01130 Rosara Joseph
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

Well, it would appear my concerns about a lack of progress on who would run the 2008 British Mountain Bike XC/National Points Series were unfounded, with the announcement that Thetford MTB Racing (http://www.thetfordmtbracing.com) will be taking over from Martyn Salt and his Inevent team.

I know how well run events managed by Frank and Paul etc. from Thetford can be, both from the Marin Winter Series enduro races and from Dusk 'Til Dawn, and am sure the series is in safe hands for 2008. It will be interesting to see which venues are selected, especially if, as suggested, there will be a return to Scotland for one of the rounds.

2008 will be a massive year for XC racing, in particular because of the Olympics, but also at national level. It looks fairly certain that there will be 2 Elite Men riding in GB colours in Beijing, with Liam Killeen and Oli Beckingsale the most likely candidates. Oli deserves to ride in China for the amount of travel he did in 2007 alone while chasing UCI qualification points! If Oli gets back to his 2005 and 2006 form, and Liam is fully fit, I am hopeful GBR will have a chance of some high finishes, not only in the Olympics, but in Italy at the Worlds, on a climber's course which should suit Oli.

At national level, particularly amongst the Elite Women, the competition is really heating up, with Amy Hunt now a real challenger to Jenny Copnall as British #1, and hopefully there will be more world class racers like Rosara Joseph (pictured) and Mary McConneloug making the trip to race in the UK.

On a personal note, I've not been out on the bike as much I would like, but riding round Richmond Park in SW London at night is a far better experience than during the day, with no pedestrians or dogs to slow down for! I've finally got round to putting more air in my forks so will start experimenting with the best pressures from now on.

What will next year's British national series look like?

2007-10-25T13:00:00.001+01:00

DSC01131 Oli Beckingsale chasing Burry Stander
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

After a break of many years from XC competition, I started going to XC races again in 2005 including the national events, then known as the National Points Series, which became the British Mountain Bike XC Series for 2007. The series under both titles was run by Martyn Salt of Inevent and supported by Trek and others, and was characterised by a wide variety of courses, spread over England and Wales mainly, with good facilities and a friendly atmosphere. It compared really well to the early to mid 1990s when I used to race, has been growing at around 15% per year in numbers terms, and had begun to attract top class riders from Europe and around the world, such as South African champion and top U-23 racer Burry Stander, pictured leading Oli Beckingsale at Thetford this year.

However, it is all change for 2008 - Trek will not be acting as a major sponsor, and British Cycling are seeking a new organiser to run the series, and to build upon the good work done by Inevent. BC made the announcement seeking new organisers a while ago, since when there has been no news whatsoever. There are no British national series races listed on the UCI calendar for 2008 (not even dates with venue TBC) and the final cut-off point for inclusion in the UCI calendar is approaching fast.

It would be a disaster for XC racing in the UK if the national series went backwards, with no UCI points and/or a step backwards in organisation etc. I hope for the sake of the sport that there will be some news soon, and good news at that.

Marin Dusk 'til Dawn 2007 review

2007-10-09T20:34:00.001+01:00

DSC01661 Jenn Hopkins
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

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.

Marin Dusk 'til Dawn 2007 preview

2007-10-05T12:46:00.000+01:00

After a disastrous first Marin Dusk 'til Dawn (www.thetfordmtbracing.com/) in 2005, when we suffered punctures, broken bikes and broken riders, we're having another go at the fast-growing 12hr overnight race this weekend. The event has grown a lot in the last 2 years, is sold out this year, and has attracted some strong riders such as Jenn O'Connor who raced for NZ at the 2007 World Championships, Kate Potter the BMBS Marathon series winner, and some fast men's team such as Whyte Racing. The course has grown too, at around 11.5 miles per lap, but with roughly 400 riders on course at any time, it's going to be busy. The organisers believe it will be around 68 riders per mile - that's a lot of overtaking.

Our team is the same as in 2005, with Andrew and Roger Wesson and myself, plus Steve Chadwick who joined us for the 24hr Sleepless In The Saddle (www.konasits.co.uk/) this summer. With the experience we gained over 24 hours at SITS, plus the lights failures and mechanical issues we suffered, a mere 12 hours at Thetford should be relatively easy. The weather forecast is good for October, from around 8 degrees Celsius at night to 16 degrees during the day, and little chance of rain, so the mud tyres can stay at home and I'll be on my favourite Maxxis Flyweight 490s. Last time we raced here, both Andrew and I were on fully rigid bikes, and Roger was on a supermarket special so-called MTB, so some serious bike upgrades and front supension should help.

We won't be anywhere near the top 20 men's teams, but are aiming to finish higher in % terms than at SITS, and certainly higher than we did at D2D in 2005, which shouldn't be difficult! It's only Steve's second ever race, and Roger and Andrew's third ever, so we're still learning as a team.

The only concern at this point is that after having his bike stolen recently, Roger hasn't found time to buy a new one yet. He is going shopping today, but I'm not sure buying a new bike the day before a 12 hour race is ideal preparation! Oh well... I also broke my saddle last weekend, and am looking forwards to trying my new Selle Italia SLR XC (www.selleitalia.com/eng/index.html), but am not exactly used to it yet. On the plus side, Andrew has just invested in an Exposure Joystick helmet light (www.use1.com/exposure/products/exposure_joystick/index.php) which, combined with his 10W/15W Cateyes, should provide plenty of clarity in the dark.

We're team number 458 - keep an eye out for us if you are at the race.

2007 mountain bike Worlds - part 8

2007-10-04T12:56:00.001+01:00

DSC01588 Florian Vogel
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

The final XC race of the Worlds was the Elite Men's XC. Reigning champion Julien Absalon was the pre-race favourite, but the likes of Christoph Sauser, Roel Paulissen and Jose Antonio Hermida-Ramos would fancy their chances. Hermida must have known every metre of the circuit, after doing more laps of the course in practice than any other rider. Making a return to top-class competition after an illness-hit season was GB's Liam Killeen, but starting 112th on the grid due to his low ranking.

With the TV helicopter providing a noisy backdrop, the leaders were soon up the first climb, and Florian Vogel (pictured) was the first to make an early showing, and led at the end of lap 1, 25 seconds ahead of a group containing Manuel Fumic, Absalon, Sauser, Fredrik Kessiakoff (Swe), Ralph Näf (Swi) and others.

Hermida moved to the front up the main climb on lap 2, and led over the start/finish line with Vogel and Absalon in close support. Absalon broke away from those chasing him on lap 3 and pulled out a 19s lead over the chasing group including Hermida, Vogel, Kessikoff and Fumic. Sauser meanwhile had slipped back down the field after suffering a broken shoe binding and was chasing hard to make up lost time.

By the end of lap 4, Absalon's lead was up to nearly a minute after his fastest lap of the race, but those chasing him began to slowly close the gap. Hermida was losing time however, his chances of victory hit by a damaged fork. Ralph Näf had moved up to 2nd on his own, with the pair of Vogel and Fumic and group of Sauser, Kessiakoff and Paulissen following on.

Despite the best efforts of Ralph Näf, who closed the gap to Absalon by 32s over the final 2 laps, the Frenchman won another World Championship with a controlled ride, with Näf an impressive 2nd. Vogel just about hung on for the Bronze medal, 8s in front of a very fast finishing Kessiakoff, who produced the fastest lap of the entire race on his final circuit. Fumic rode well to 5th, in front of another fast finisher in Sauser.

Of the GB riders, Oli Beckingsale finished a disappointed 35th, with Ian Wilkinson an excellent 42nd. Liam Killeen got some serious overtaking practice in, rising from 112th on the grid to 44th, as did Paul Oldham, 55th from 108th at the start. British MTB legend Nick Craig, in his last ever MTB XC Worlds, finished 61st. Simon Richardson didn't have one of his best days and retired.

2007 mountain bike Worlds - part 7

2007-10-02T13:29:00.001+01:00

DSC01581 Lene Byberg
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

Saturday was the big one for XC - the Elite Women and Elite Men's races. The Women went off first, with the Men's race taking place later in the day.

Spectactor numbers had been rising gradually during the week, but Saturday was really busy with large groups walking round the course. Most fans were neutrally dressed, except for the occasional Swedish flag in support of Fredrik Kessiakoff (www.fredrikkessiakoff.com) and one large group clad head to toe in orange, cheering on the Dutch riders, in particular Rudi van Houts and Jelmer Pietersma.

Saturday also brought the TV helicopter for the first time, which did a great job of letting everyone know the location of the lead riders as it moved around the course. In addition to aerial coverage, the section of fire road above the 'Haggis Trap' cross-over had a quad bike camera crew riding next to the riders.

News had broken on Wednesday night that two riders had been excluded from the XC Worlds as a result of high hematocrit levels - Michael Weiss (Austria) and Margarita Fullana-Riera (Spain). Weiss had been training at altitude in Aspen, Colorado, shortly before the Worlds, and his exclusion caused some surprise amongst the riders.

With reigning World Champion Gunn-Rita Dahle (www.gunnrita.com/english/index.htm) absent through a season-long illness, Fullana-Riera sent home, and Chengyuan (world ranking #3) and Liu (#5) racing in the U23 Women, the Elite Women's field was looking a little depleted. Sabine Spitz (Germany) and Irina Kalentieva (Russia) were the favourites on the start line, along with Marie-Helene Premont (Canada). Also on the start line were 3 GB women, national champion Jenny Copnall, Ruth McGavigan and Elizabeth Scalia. After their initial non-selection caused somewhat of an uproar, a welcome U-turn from the British Cycling selectors saw them join the grid and give the spectators some local riders to cheer.

Since the U23 Women had completed 4 laps of the 8.6km course, the expectation was that the Elite Women would do 5 laps. Conditions were better for the Elite Women than the U23 Women but yet the Elite Women's race was cut to 4 laps, with very little explanation given.

Premont worked hard to build up a small gap on the first lap up the climb, but by the end of lap 1 a group of 12 had formed, including Kalentieva, Spitz, Jingjing Wang (China), the 2 Canadians Premont and Pendrel, Georgia Gould (USA) and Lene Byberg (Norway, pictured). After racing a few BMBS XC races in the UK earlier in 2007, Rosara Joseph (New Zealand) was putting her British riding experience to good use and was in also present. Petra Henzi meanwhile had a disastrous first lap by her standards, losing 2m 23s on the leaders after an early incident.

As the race progressed, it became clear that Kalentieva, Spitz and Wang were in a class of their own and that the winner would come from one of these riders. Maja Wloszczowska had to retire from a strong position after a crash, Elizabeth Scalia struggled up the main climb with an apparent moving saddle, to pull out shortly afterwards due to a broken seatpost, but the other two GB riders Copnall and McGavigan were receiving loud support all the way round the course.

Kalentieva slowly built a gap to win the Gold, producing the fastest lap of the entire race on her final lap, with Spitz in Silver 39s behind. Wang finished 3rd to win another medal for China. Rosara Joseph finished an excellent 5th, and Petra Henzi climbed from 39th at the end of lap 1 to 13th. Jenny Copnall moved up the field as the race progressed to end up 47th, with her GB team mate McGavigan 56th. Cheshire-based New Zealander Jenn O'Connor finished 52nd.

2007 mountain bike World Championships part 6

2007-10-01T12:52:00.001+01:00

DSC01573 Jakob Fuglsang
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

After again riding up to the Worlds venue via the great new cycle path from Fort William centre, Friday saw me acting as a marshal at the top of the 'Lazy K' climb for the second day running, so it was on with the mosquito net from the moment I jumped off the bike. I got some very strange looks again, especially from Bettina Schmidt and some of the other Swiss riders, but insect repellent just wasn't good enough when standing there all day!

The favourite for the U23 Men was reigning World Champion Nino Schurter (Switzerland) but rivals like Jaroslav Kulhavy and Jakob Fuglsang had been racing well at World Cup level too, so it could be anyone's race.

Schurter, riding a hardtail Scott Scale, started climbing strongly, and soon had pulled out a gap on Fuglsang and the group chasing him, led by Daniel McConnell of Australia, sporting an upside down #13 number plate. Schurter increased his lead on the climb all the way to 'Big Ben' at the top of the course, only for Fuglsang to reduce the Swiss rider's advantage on the downhill back to the start.

This seemed set to be the pattern for the race, with Fuglsang's Cannondale Scalpel full suspension bike helping him to catch Schurter on the rough stuff, but after a while, Schurter's lead was going backwards. Whether his climbing wasn't as strong as earlier in the race, or whether Fuglsang had left something in reserve, the Danish rider was taking chunks out of the gap between himself and the lead, and caught and passed Schurter at the end of lap 4.

Kulhavy was still in the chase group at this point and it was hard to tell who would win Bronze. Fuglsang meanwhile accelerated away from Schurter, who was really struggling and lost over 1m 40s to the Dane on the final lap, and crossed the line to win the U23 World Championship in style. Schurter couldn't repeat his triumph of 2006 and had to settle for Silver, while a strong final lap from Kulhavy saw him win Bronze for the Czech Republic.

Burry Stander, after racing a few British Mountain Bike Series XC races this year, must have been used to the cold and finished an impressive 6th. With a few more years in U23 yet, the South African must be strongly fancied for a medal sometime soon. The first of the Brits was Ian Bibby in 23rd, who didn't have the best of races compared to some good results this season, with Ian Field in 30th. Ross Creber crashed heavily and had to retire to seek medical attention.

Riding round the circuit back to the start after the races had finished, the impact of the previous 4 events was clear. Lines which were once smooth and fast were now destroyed by braking bumps, and a number of corners had large ruts through the middle of them. It all remained rideable, but was certainly more difficult technically than on Wednesday.

Many riders had punctured while racing, and I soon joined them and had to change the tube by the side of the track while watching the like of Meirhaeghe ride by. On the plus side, I did manage to clear the complete course without stopping, including riding the drop-off which had defeated me last time.

2007 mountain bike Worlds part 5

2007-09-30T13:15:00.001+01:00

DSC01557 David Fletcher
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

Thursday's main event was the Junior Men's XC, and brought with it GB's best chance of a medal apart from in the DH and 4X events. David Fletcher had an impressive ride at the European Championships earlier in the summer but would face stiff competition from the winner that day, Thomas Litscher of Switzerland.

After the Team Relay and Junior and U23 Women's races, the course was cutting up in places, including the (pictured) muddy and rooty singletrack section after the drop-off en route to the Hole In The Wall. Lap 1 saw a succession of riders thrown over the handlebars from a combination of a deep wheel-size hole and a large root on the exit from it, which stopped the momentum of the bike but not the rider. One of those to crash was David Fletcher, causing much laughter from his watching GB team mates Annie Last and Annabel Simpson, who caught the spill on video and probably posted it on YouTube shortly afterwards.

Litscher and the Polish rider Brzozka were riding well, but Fletcher was not far off them in the early stages. Lessons learned from lap 1, almost every rider took the slower line avoiding the deep hole on lap 2 and subsequent laps, but the section still caused some problems and a number of racers chose to run it instead.

Litscher eventually escaped to victory with Brzozka an impressive second, but David Fletcher made the most of his last year in Juniors by finishing a fantastic third and earning GB's first medal in XC for a long time. Alex Paton ended up a creditable 17th, Hamish Creber was 55th, and Shaun Hurrell had the bad luck to puncture not once but twice but kept working away to finish 61st.

2007 mountain bike Worlds - part 4

2007-09-30T00:06:00.001+01:00

Elisabeth Osl
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

After the Junior Women's XC in the morning, it was the U23 Women in the afternoon. Results from the five UCI XC World Cup races before the Worlds made Chengyuan and Liu the favourites for the U23 event, but the Bronze medal could go to any one of a number of European racers such as Tereza Hurikova, Eva Lechner, Elisabeth Osl or Nina Homovec. Most of the racers chose to warm up under cover, but Osl was out in the open, on the turbo trainer, with an interesting tyre combination of the less grippy Continental Speed King on the front and a high volume Maxxis Crossmark on the back, presumably for puncture resistance.

More rain and low cloud ensured the course remained slippery, but the conditions didn't seem to slow the two Chinese riders Chengyuan and Liu at the front of the field, even if Liu had to run up the rocky section after the start once. As expected, it soon became clear that the winner would come from one of these two, but the race for the Bronze medal was far more open, with Elisabeth Osl being chased hard by Poland's Aleksandra Dawidowicz.

Liu eventually rode away from Chengyuan for the victory, which she hopefully was pleased with, even if she didn't show it. Liu's time for 4 laps would have seen her finish 3rd in the Elite Women's race which took place 3 days later. Meanwhile just after the Finish line, Maria Osl, Elisabeth's older sister and Austria team mate, was a bundle of nerves before every race position update, almost biting her nails and staring anxiously into the distance. The commentary team didn't help her nerves by missing Osl ride past and mistakenly placing Dawidowicz in third going up the final climb, but Osl it was who came into view first and crossed the line for the Bronze.

Her smiling celebration, arms aloft, made up for the lack of joy shown by the Chinese girls, and she looked about to burst into tears as she was mobbed by her sister and Austrian team mates. It was great to see someone happy with a medal at last!

After riding from Fort William up to the Nevis Range before the Junior and U23 Women's races, once they had finished it was time to try the XC course out for myself. Despite my initial worries about a lack of grip and my own technical abilities, it was great fun. It took me a couple of attempts to clear the first rocky climb after the start without stopping, but the rest of the course was perfectly rideable if a bit slippery on places, and the downhill put a huge smile on my face. The only bit which defeated me was the drop-off before the fire-road crossing (see Flickr for a picture) - the drop-off itself was fine, but it was getting a clean run up to it through the mud beforehand which was the issue. Even some of the Elite Women were crashing here in practice, and to avoid joining them I resolved to have another go at it next time.

2007 mountain bike Worlds - part 3

2007-09-29T23:34:00.001+01:00

DSC01502 Valentina Abril
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

Wednesday's XC racing from Fort William covered both the Junior Women and the U23 Women, covered in the next blog entry.

While conditions had been generally dry for Tuesday, Wednesday brought cloud and rain, which made the many rocky sections of the course very slippery, for example the short steep climb soon after the Start/Finish straight, pictured. Most of the Junior Women did not have the raw power to muscle up here, and had to rely on a combination of entry speed, finesse and low tyre pressures for traction. Despite this, many ran out of grip and had to run it instead.

Alla Boyko (Ukraine) was the eventual winner, crossing the line muddy and not particularly happy. GB Juniors Annie Last and Annabel Simpson both had tough races but have another year left in the Junior category, I think.

2007 mountain bike World Championships - part 2

2007-09-29T22:46:00.001+01:00

DSC01489 Jenny Copnall
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

Monday's sunshine was, however, the last nice weather for the entire week. Tuesday dawned cold and damp, and it didn't get better once at the Nevis Range centre on Aonach Mor, height 1221m (4006ft). I was working as a XC marshal all week, and Tuesday's Team Relay event brought the first chance to have a look at the new course, altered especially for the Worlds. The views from the top of the XC course were impressive, and meant it was possible to watch riders racing up the climb from the 'Haggis Trap' cross-over tunnel to the start of the main downhill, and then see them pass me at close range.

The order of the Team Relay wasn't fixed, but each team of 4 had to consist of an Elite Man, Elite Woman, U23 man and one Junior. Most teams sent out one of the men first, except for the USA, which made working out who was actually leading a bit tricky. The GB team started well, and led at one point, but despite the best efforts of Jenny Copnall (pictured) on the final leg, faded to finish 9th. The USA meanwhile sent out Adam Craig (www.adamcraig.net) last, and he stormed through the field to win the Bronze medal. The victory went to the Swiss, who also won Gold at the 2006 Worlds.

2007 mountain bike World Championships in Fort William - part 1

2007-09-29T22:42:00.001+01:00

DSC01471
Originally uploaded by Eldrik

After working at the MTB World Cup races of 2005 and 2006 in Fort William, 2007 was the big one: the 2007 mountain bike and trials World Championships. Nearly one week of racing, rather than the usual weekend only, with riders and media from all over the world, and live TV coverage of the Downhill finals on BBC Sport.

The train journey from Glasgow up to Fort William is fantastic, and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone - the views are amazing on a clear, sunny day.

Welcome to my blog

2007-09-29T21:19:00.000+01:00

I wouldn't expect too much though - it's probably going to be a random series of postings regarding bikes, the occasional photo and video link, and not a great deal else, to be honest.

Hopefully there will be more people than just me reading this......