No hubby and no girls to ride with, just me and myself. It was a prime day to ride with lush weather and a relaxed trail. There were no excuses; I was riding. From my home in Warmy, I headed to Center Parcs where I found myself among friendly walkers and ample wildlife. Not one deer but four were within 10mtres of me, sooo awesome!! An hour just blew by so I took a moment to take a picture of my day. Sorry but you have a picture of my face; my arm only has a 1 yard reach! Then I spotted two lady riders. “Oooo a possible recruitment moment.” We greeted and I bragged about Black Canon and our Ladies group. Sadly they were from up North vacationing at Center Parcs, it was worth a try!!
Ok, enough of the chitchat and photo ops, it was time for a little skill building and heart pumping riding, off to the allotment. I welcomed the tree roots and muddy descent down the side of the allotment raising my concentration from mellow to perky! However, my skill did not match that of the guys practicing their down hilling abilities. I stopped to watch for just a moment and then looped down and back up the allotment. On my ascent, I passed four other bikers; great to see so much action on the trails. After many months of practice, the allotment ascent never deters me from accomplishing its’ sumit, while panting my poor little heart out! But this time, I only made it to the first plateau before taking a breather and then on to the next climb. I stopped at the Longleat monument. Another stop! ok ok, but the great weather, awesome people, and gorgeous scenery had to be savoured. I wanted to go down into Shearwater; however, my butt begged for time-out on the saddle. Time off the saddle = sore butt!! So listening to the voice of my behind, I made my way home.
Girls, the ride was not the same without you. With some company, I would have looked a little less crazy talking to myself. Still jazzed from the ride, I decided to wash my bike!!!
This morning Geraint, Mark, Chris, Rob and I went on a muddy slog around Stourhead.
Geraint led the way with Rob keen to keep up the pace, Mark, Chris and I were more than happy pootling along behind, pretending to be nonchalant, while actually struggling like hell.
The weather was glorious and the route very scenic. It’s always great to be shown somewhere new.
After some 2:1 ratio mud (for every 2 wheel rotations, you only move 1 forwards) and puddle splashing antics (in your FACE mark!) we attempted to ride back to the cars with Geraint only able to use his drive side crank as the other one had fallen off! In sympathy I rode the last decent one footed too, but gave up pretty quick on the final climb. Embarrassingly though, Geraint was quicker on the final stretch with just one leg than I was with two.
This year we’re planing to go over to France and do the Megavalanche, there’s already 14 of us who’ve signed up (that’s a lie, we haven’t actually entered yet, but will be doing so really soon) and hopefully some others who’ll join in along the way.
Those who’ve done it before will know it as being epic; a race that puts you through almost every emotion and spits you out felling like you’ve been chased by (french) vikings down a mountain (starting somewhere nr the sun) over the course of some sort of weird 1hr period where the world has gone through all 4 seasons. Oddly, when you do get to the bottom you want to hug/high 5 everyone in sight (even those french people) because you’ve shared the same traumatising ordeal. That said, it’s amazing and will leave you smiling and talking about it for ages afterwards.
Here’s a pic from the 2008 (or is it 2007?) race, you can see Neil in the red circle (riding his old red V10 with white Boxxers), you’ll notice that just like at this years SPAM Winter Challenge, he’s about to take a wrong right turn.
Tuesday Night Riders!
We are planning to ride for the first time in 2010 as normal at 7pm from the Horse & Groom in East Woodlands. However, more heavy snow is predicted so I will post something here before 6pm in case we have to cancel, please do check back…
The first ever Tickertape Triple Crown event at the Allotment saw great success with the legendary BB King making a return to Wiltshire’s famous grounds to provide a performance that left many people in aw. There was no soothing blues to be heard, but the fluid sound of an orange Marin being ridden by one very chirpy chappy, my good friend Ben Batt (whom I now call BB King for becoming the King of the freelap TickerTape hill).
All hail the King, prostrate at his feet for where do thy conquered challengers compare to thy Tickertape King?
Well I’ll tell you, I used “maths” to work out peoples performances at the TickerTape triple Crown in terms of a percentage of the Kings speed over the 3 taped courses. Ben Batt’s time was 166.17 seconds, my time was 174.01 seconds. 166.17 / 174.01 gives a ratio of how fast I was against Ben Batt’s time, which is 0.9549, “multiplying” this by 100 gives a percentage of how fast I was against BB King (Ben Batt, we’ve covered that…); 95.5 %.
So, for all the people who completed all three legs of the Tickertape triple crown, these are you’re ratings in the order of the “alphabet”;
Bart – 98.8%
Ben Batt – 100%
Ben Irons – 95.5%
Ben Lovell – 82%
Burd – 90.7%
Burv – 90.8%
Charles – 64.8%
Charlie. E – 85.5%
Curtis – 79.6%
Denham – 95.4%
Keith – 83.3%
Nigel – 81.9%
[rob] – 99.9%
Robin – 89.5%
The Chedgy – 85.7%
Stacey – 45.9%
Take from it what you will, perhaps try to improve on your rating for the following TickerTape events, I know I will be…
I’ve just had an e-mail from Clare from Longhorn Western Riding, the horse riding school in Longhedge that use the neighbouring woodland.
Because of the extreme weather they’re unable to use their normal routes, so have asked if they can pass through the allotment. I’ve said yes as Clare has been very helpful and accommodating in the past and it’s only fair that we return the favour. The allotment is relatively un-rideable (on bikes) right now anyhow so it’s unlikely to affect any of us but if you are there over the next few snowy days please say hi to the horse riders in the knowledge that they are there with our permission.
With a team pit that was bigger than even the Charge Team (and their media crew) the atmosphere was great, especially when Marjory started setting fire to stuff and the keg had settled.
That’s right, the Somerset Standard has awarded the Frome leg of the Tour of Britain Cycle Race the honour of being Event of the Year 2009!
WINNER
TOUR OF BRITAIN CYCLE RACE
Up to 25,000 cycling enthusiasts converged on Frome for one of the biggest events in its recent history. The town took full advantage of the moment by organising its own cycle event in Catherine Hill called the Cobble Wobble, brewed a new beer and organised a family ride.
As the organisers of the Cobble Wobble we’re very proud of this, and are looking forward to seeing if it will become an annual fixture for Frome and the BCC. Neil Cousins (reining King of the Cobbles) is especially keen to defend his title; he’s been conditioning his legs by riding up heaven’s gate on a single speed with a cow on his back. We’re hoping that he’ll lose the cow for the actual event.
To find out more about the Cobble Wobble look here
Yesterday saw the very first TickerTape Triple Crown; an epic rally style DH event with no time for ‘dilly dally’ and the incremental search for that perfect run a fond but distant memory. That’s right, one run was all you got and time wasn’t on your side either; with 5 Freelap watches, 20 riders and little more than an hour to practice and get a timed run in on each trail, lets just say the last 15 minutes of each stage was pretty frantic!
Icy trails, frosty leaves, chilling air and numb hands were welcomed by comparison to the wet weather we were all hoping to avoid. That said the conditions were like a double edged sword; the hard trails meant incredibly fast rolling speed, but icy conditions made cornering really tricky, especially on those glass roots!
The day kicked off with OneFourThree, our roller-coaster trail packed full of jumps, drops and berms. No-one had ever been timed down OneFourThree as riding it is almost always more about super tweaks, air time and style than balls out speed. With some tight course markings and teasing straight line options there was plenty who were gambling for the odd time advantage, some successfully and others, well, they just concentrated on their super tweaks.
Some late comers meant we extended the timing window for this first stage, but then some very last minute timing glitches meant that Neil Cousins didn’t get a time which was gutting as he was in with a shot of the fastest over all, there just wasn’t time to try again though – we had to move on…
Spoons next, and some big crashes too. Sulky, Robin and Stacey binned it on the same S-bend, but all managed to walk away smiling, sort of. This ‘Stace Plant’ shows just how hard and icy it was (sorry Stace), he took it like man though soldiering on to finish his run.
Many had near misses, while others looked like they were on rails; Rob lewis managed to hold the high line setting him up nicely for the tricky rock garden, something most struggle with in the dry. Ben Batt rode out one of the most impressive front wheeled crotch-to-stem grinds I’ve ever seen, all whilst cornering off camber on roots too; the man’s got beans (we just hope that they’re still intact)! Simon ‘Big Burd’ Truelove was doing what he does best when at TickerTape’s – trash talking his way into mini battles with other riders, in this case Robin Liquorice and Stacey, who had both already slammed pretty hard – Burd was on to a winner!
Now on to BBMS which saw some very tired riders, and some pretty silly crashes too, most had adopted the half practice run (down to the start of moron, the bottom section that all the trails shared) then went straight into their timed run to conserve energy and finish what had become an epic test of bike pushing fitness. Yet again Mr Batt was somehow riding like it was dry, but then overcooked it on his timed run. Charlie Evens had a similar misfortune but got straight up like a champ to finish his run in style.
Loads of spectators made it out, which was pretty awesome, adding to the atmosphere with shouts and squeals (I might hand out cowbells next time). A rouge lead-less dog caused a bit of commotion at one point but then having just seen three grown men dressed as Santa and his elves I’m not surprised. That’s right; Nige, Burv and Bart came dressed in the gear they used to record their debut dance video , seeing them come tearing down OneFourThree like some sort of freeride MTB Santa train was beautiful and troubling in equal measures.
With everyone done and all the times in, all that was left was to work out who was fastest and who’d won the Transition Revolution 32 Wheels. After some pretty embarrassing attempts at adding up all became clear: Ben Batt took the overall fastest time (by 0.14 seconds from Rob Lewis) despite his crash, winning the coveted tickerTape sticker along with the respect of everyone there. As for the wheels, well Curtis Saunders won them after it turned out that Sulky hadn’t done his required three runs due to his Tango-man hand (crash induced) leaving him incapable of holding the bars. That’s a double dose of bad luck!
Everyone had an awesome time, and despite some haggard faces and pathetic whimpers (mostly from me) we’re all looking forward to the next Triple Crown some time in the summer.
Finally a big THANK YOU to Transition bikes for hooking us up with some great prizes, and to all those who helped set up and pack away.
