Losing weight and licences

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

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

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?

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

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

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?

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.