Team Iron Horse Extreme

Another great weekend, followed by creaky knees and sore glutes on a Monday morning…

It’s only the third time I have ridden my road bike this year. Could have been a mistake!

Saturday night and I got invited out for a meal with the team from Jim Walker, the Title Sponsors of IronHorse-Extreme. We had a lovely bit of Italian grub, cooked for us by an avid cyclist who was also due to ride the next day’s Dragon Sportive.

It was a well chilled out night with like minded and friendly individuals. I didn’t want to go home.

A bit more strangley though, was the fact that I was sat opposite a guy that I did my apprenticeship with (20years ago!) Hiya, Neil Craig, the bike shop owner from Llantwit Major.

I used to rip the mick out of him for shaving his legs, but how things have turned around…

Ian, John, Jaco, et al had the nicest bikes I ever saw, and my jealousy shone through as pure lust. I had time to look at them closely because they managed to get me right to the front of the start with them and other VIP’s.

It felt good, but scary with 3000 riders behind us.

The hooter blew and off we set. At the first roundabout one of the marshall motorcyclists pulled off and turned left off of the roundabout. He did this at just the wrong time, and everyone followed him…

…in diametrically the opposite direction to that of the route.

One guy fell off, because he got a bit excited and pulled over onto gravel. Ouch.

So we turned around and got back on the course, laughing at the jolly jape that the marshall had caused. Of course we were all sheep and kept following him, and some other riders, off of the course. Idiots.

I had had a fantastic idea on the previous day. We knew that it was going to be warm, so I froze my camelbak.

It was still 1/2 full and frozen when I got home that night, and had sat high on my back like a rigid sail for the first 15miles.

Camelbaks don’t defrost that quickly– Note to self.

We got to the first climb and I caught up with one of the Jim Walker boys, but was quickly breathing out of my ears as he sort of cruised off. I would catch him up on the flats and the downs, but lose out on the climbs. This happened for 4hrs and I was starting to get a bit disheartened by it…

…Maybe my legs are still shot from the 12hr solo at Bristol last week? I feel rubbish, my legs feel empty. Why are these guys just riding off and leaving me on the hills?

I tried to stay in a group of 10 or so riders, but struggled to keep up as it was surging and stalling and not holding a steady speed at all. I lost them, and entered the above thought process again…

…What’s going on?

I waited for the next group to catch me up. Same again. They dropped me and my legs started to feel like they were turning inside out. Then something funny happened. A guy called Rob Lynne (I remembered his number and checked up on him) passed me after Fan Gyhyrych. He has these big scary, veiny, muscley legs and a little body. A switch flicked and I managed to follow him all the way to the climb that takes you to Glynneath which was probably a distance of 10-12 miles. The average speed went up to about 22mph, and my body seemed to wake up and decide it wanted to cycle–4hrs in.

Thanks, body. Next time, set the clock properly.

I said to him, “I’d love to take a stint in front, but I can’t, you’re killing me!” He laughed and said not to worry. Thank goodness for that!

When we got to the climb, he left me at a heck of a rate of knots.

I caught up my 2 peletons, and worked my way through them. I took my stint on the front for about 2 minutes and looked back to say I was peeling off…

…They were gone. I’d dropped them.

I’m feeling better now. Everything changed from that point and I could manage to stand up and run on my pedals, passing people that had passed me earlier, and their groups. I was on my own though, with no groups to follow or get assistance from.

Billy no-mates, me.

I think Jaco, from Jim Walker was 4th place finisher. Crikey! He wants to come out mountainbiking in my local area, so I need to think of some excuses to get out of it.  He’ll kill me!

I can’t wait to see the photos that Ian’s photographer got!

Obviously I have none. I was a bit busy.

Cheers All!

I really wasn’t sure about racing at Bristol, I’ve got to admit, as there seemed so little to gain and yet so many things I could potentially damage. Running the 7ds and managing the team and sponsorship takes a lot out of me. Staying even close to anything resembling “race shape” for any period of time is pretty much an impossibility. Instead I’ve focusedthe year on keeping a reasonable base of fitness and making myself stronger and more resistant. I don’t need to win a 7dsride; I just need to get it done and try not to break myself in the process. It’s a different approach which requires I suffer sometimes but as I’m prepared for it I know I can see it through. I’m carrying extra weight - partly muscle to take the hits, and partly fat simply down to the fact that I simply don’t have the time to get the damn stuff off me!

Racing when you know you are not in race shape is something I find tough to call on. I know what shape I could be in, I know how fast I could go, and I know that some people are watching me and hoping to see me fail. To put the whole thing into perspective my team mate nearly lapped me and was quite pleased about it. But while he is out training to race, I’m out chasing bikes and products for him to use or up before work to build him some wheels! We all have a certain amount of pride in our achievements and reputation and putting that on the line when you know you are not as you could be is really quite scary.

But at the end of the day I’m not quite ready to roll backwards, throw in the towel or rest on my laurels. I sent my entry in and started looking for something resembling form of seasons past. I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to it and a lot more distractions but in the end I did enough to give myself a fighting chance if I was prepared to suffer and grit-it-out.

The race started with a le-mans style run, this never phases me as I know I can get to my bike before the majority of the handy riders and then ride through the handy runners with ease. 4th wheel into the first singletrack on a singlespeed with that much flat open track before hand simply shouldn’t happen in my mind. But it did and I was away clean with all the soloists behind me and the perfect opportunity to watch the race unfold.

The lead geared soloists caught me in the first singletrack and then went pass on the next open track before the first climb. Team riders came past, some rapid, some just marginally faster than me on my single gear, but that was it. The only singlespeeders I saw had team numbers and I started to wonder what the hell was going on. Was I going OK?

Shaggy and Mel and a few of the VC Moulin guys (do they have the classiest kit at the moment or what? me wants one of them jerseys) gave me a holler as I came through on lap one and all seemed great for a whole six seconds before turning into the first singletrack second time around and seeing the state of the track. Bugger!

The best description I can think of is to describe the course as “chewed”! and from that point on it got a bit tough for me for quite a while as I tried to learn how to ride a singlespeed for a solo. Let me tell you that is one of the steepest learning curves I’ve put myself through in a long time. I was riding like I do for a solo normally and it just doesn’t work. It was killing me that bike, the course, the mud, my whole body was hating it and I was only a couple of hours in.

I guess my experience is what saved me. I knew I wouldn’t finish if I continued to ride like I do on a geared bike in that scenario and piece by piece I got it together and worked out a survival tactic that got me through to the end. It was painful but very, very interesting and ultimately very, very addictive. 3 days on now and my mind is filled with all the permutations for training for the demands that sort of riding required. I’m so hooked!

So as the race went on things actually got easier. I’d reach each section of the course and implement my findings of the previous laps and gradually the picture revealed itself. Steve Webb overtook me fairly early on (he had a team coloured number for some reason?) and simply rode away. Having since read the Singular Cycles blog it’s pretty clear that he knows what he is doing on a singlespeed. He was way stronger than me and I’m stoked to have finished on the same lap as the guy.

The aftermath was that my legs and lungs felt much the same as they do after a 12. Perhaps they even felt a bit better; I’m getting stronger for sure, not faster or fitter but just stronger and able to take on the load. My upper body though was trashed, utterly beat up. I felt like I’d been thrashing the weight pile down the gym for the entire day!

Second step of the box on a first attempt is OK in my book and so that dear reader was Bristol 12 hour on a singlespeed: Daunting, scary, exciting, interesting, insightful and ultimately addictive. Spot on…

My favourite photo of the year. Thanks Jo!

Three of us did the 12hr solo at Bristol Bike Fest.

It’s always nice to have a foreboding weather forecast and everyone was expecting a mud bath. They got it!

Rob, Josh and I lined up for the fisty cuffs “Le Mans” start in the wet grassy field. There were hundreds of us aiming to get away and pick up our bikes on a doubletrack 300metres away.

The hooter went, and the friends that I had been standing next to dissapeared as I got engulfed in blood lusting, baying animals.

I didn’t see them again and I got to our bike monitor (Josh’ Dad) to see that mine was the only one left, so I took it and got going.

This was going to be a proper muddy race. Some bits did dry out and some dry lines developed, but other parts stayed just as, if not more, slippy. It was chaos on the first few singletrack sections as normally happens at these events, but the mud compounded things.

People were falling off, usually due to the mud, all the way through the race. It was full of comedy value, but you knew fine and well that some of these guys were hurting themselves. Someone would slip on an off-camber sections as you rode around them on the outside (on a few really wide sections) and you could hear the air rushing out of their lungs as they got the smackdown treatment.

“You ok?” Well, you have to ask.

gasp, wheeze, splutter…

“Yes, keep going.”

So I did, about 150 times.

I’m so glad that I can handle a bit of mud and slime, because the bike hardly went straight for the whole of the race. Well, to be clear, it hardly went straight for the bottom 3rd of the course because it stayed wet and “exciting.”

Marvellous!

I was drinking too much for the temperature of the day and was stopping to pee every lap, so I revised my plan and drank a bit less. Perfect.

Hour 5 and my right foot felt all floppy. I stopped to have a look and was surprised to find that my cleat was loose. Really loose. I was close to losing it. 5 or so minutes later and I had fixed it back in place, rounded one of the allen bolts off and muttered a small and silent prayer that it would stay in place.

I’ve finally found my pace. Having talked to my Coach last week he had suggested a pace that I should aim for. But it made me ride ragged, and my legs hurt. So I dropped my pace by a bit and settled in. It was my 24hr pace, it felt good, and I got stronger throughout the race. At 8hrs my long distance gaze started- I was in the mode!

At 11hrs 30min (the race was started late due to traffic issues) I was just about ready to keep going for another 12hrs. Well I would have been if my upper body hadn’t been battered to pieces by the course.

Josh was 2nd solo, Rob was 2nd singlespeed solo, and I was 4th in the solo.

I think that I did 17 or 18 laps last year in the dry and superfast conditions that prevailed then. I did 17 this year, and that “could” have been 18 if I could have fished about 10mins back during the day, but hey!

Well chuffed.

Dragon road race next week. I’m not too great on a road bike, but it’s good training.

After that, a few weeks solitary training and then 24/12!

I think I’ll be ready, just don’t tell anyone else.