HtN 4

The guy on the cross bike who overtook me on the last fireroad section is about 10 meters ahead, I follow him over the fade jump seeming to hang in the air for ages. I see him slow, cut left and dismount to carry down to the stream crossing, I keep my speed up, go straight on then grab a fistful of brake at the entrance to the techy rock chute, nothing announces your arrival (at speed) like your tyres spitting gravel, cross guy sees me and lets me pass infront of him, I splash through the stream power up the steep bank on the other side and hear a few whoops of congratulations from the spectators as I sprint away. Now that's mountain biking. This racing lark is ace!

The morning of HtN dawned with a cough and a splutter and not much enthusiasm, my cold was taking hold and I was feeling tired. The plan was to drive down with the family but I wasn't feeling great and CBA getting the kids ready for a race I wasn't very excited about due to lack of prep and not fancying my chances of coping let alone doing well. Considered riding with gears but grabbed the SS as it was nearest and ready to ride, decided to just ride slowly to the race. Got there about 9:30 signed on, chatted to a few peeps (loads of familiar faces around) listened to the mayor open the trails then we set off. I'd perked up a bit so plonked myself into the middle of group 2. The start was ok breathing hard but comfortable, got chatting to Trio on the way up and soon got onto the new singletrack where Trio admonished me for not sounding excited enough at riding swoopy singletrack (even when my heart is singing weeeeeeee and wahoo I just can't vocalise it, not got the voice for it, sorry). Couple of line choices on this bit so I managed to take a few places then a few more round the start/finish field and the first go over the chin, after that I tried to settle into a steady pace. I was running my gravity dropper which meant I could downhill fast with confidence, on a climb before a down I'd cheekily grab a couple of places then use the downhill to create a gap which took the faster (usually cx) riders a while to make up. The stream crossing being my proudest moment, took the cross guy ages to reel me in again :-) TBF he was a mountain biker who had just started riding cross (we chatted while crossing the field of despair), I wouldn't fancy riding that stream crossing on my CX bike just yet either.

After the first few laps we started to lap people but everyone was pretty cool with being overtaken, even on some of the wider sections of singletrack, also took a few places on the climb to the motorway bridge on every lap, on lap 4 the marshall said I'd ridden it like it was my first lap, erm singlespeed....no choice, but I had pushed extra hard that time and almost blew up as a result but managed to hold it together. Nick craig lapped us on the top singletrack section, came flying passed a few of us, I tagged onto the back of him and managed to hold onto him all the way down, then he obviously rapidly disappeared when the trail turned upward. Faaaaaaast. I actually saw some good CX riders this time, (I've no doubt there are lots of very skillful CXers at the front but midpack where I usually am the cxers are quick but struggle a bit on the more technical bits) Followed a few down some tricky stuff and they were pinning it. The final crossing of the field of despair was horrible, proper losing the will to go on. A fast guy lapped me on the approach to the chin and then crashed, oh dear, had to track stand just above the rooty drop while he picked himself up, stream crossing was full of people so no more showboating :-) and I nearly lost it on the downhill after the motorway bridge but limped home in tact. Finished just ahead of a lady I'd been keeping pace with through much of the race, turned out to be Jenn from STW. Didn't beat Guy Martin despite Si having evidence of him struggling with a bit of mud ;-) He managed to get some more good crash shots too.

Just outside of the top 50, that'll do me, surprisingly did better than last year, dunno if that's down to me being fitter (seriously doubt it) there were less fast people this year (hmm) or, as someone on STW pointed out, mtbs having an advantage on this course compared to CX. Wonder if I can manage top 50 next year? Anyway it was a great mornings racing, was slightly disappointed that everyone beggared off before the prize giving, infact one womens category resulted in an empty podium, ho hum. Pedalled home for a refuel and soak in the bath and moved very little for the rest of the day. Guess I should really do some more of this racing stuff.

Snowdon swan song?

I missed snowdon last year and Johnnie said it was just my thing, "can't ride up can't ride down" so despite my chest still being a mess I went anyway. I'm planning to retire my ageing heckler this year so figured this would be a perfect send off. Si chauffeured us up there we met up in the car park, drooled over Tony's new bling carbon nomad, deliberated about getting myself a saturday job in a bike shop to discount my habit and eventually we set off. I coughed and spluttered my way up the start of the rangers path, we turned off and pushed up Bwlch Maesgwm. Graham promised me today's ride would be steep, rocky, loose, dangerous and altogether disconcertingly sexually alluring to me (in his own inimitable style of prose). The first descent was 3' wide trail, fast, a few twists and lots of water bars to jump. They all seemed to have nice little kickers to help you over. Unfortunately Toss flatted so we waited halfway down while he fixed and on we went, next section was a bit trickier, stone pitch and not quite so helpful waterbars. Toss (and Matt I think) flatted again so we waited at the bottom.
Next we cut across to the Llanberis path, the long hard slog began. Started off tantalisingly rideable, I managed brief glimpses of inspiration, the strength and technique were there but I soon ran out of puff and regularly had to stop for a breather. We struggled on, mainly riding, to the halfway house and had a bit of a rest, Tony warned the rest would be mostly pushing. He was right, I started using his bike carrying technique and it is quite good, could do with some padding on my downtube tho. The slog went on and on, silence descended as we all trudged upwards in our own little worlds of pain. We'd been under or in low cloud all morning and on one particularly nasty stepped section just before Clogwyn station the blue sky and sun saw fit to shine through, "wahey blue sky" was soon appended with "what the ~@!% is that?!" as the full enormity of snowdon reared out of the cloud to our right. Oh dear. Quick breather at the tunnel and everyone was disappearing to check out the view at the other side, I finally went through to have a butchers and wow, full on inversion, the llanberis pass valley was full of cloud, the nearby peaks rising out of the mist and with the sun right behind us we got a rather fantastic Brocken Spectre (no I didn't know what one was either) One of the coolest views ever.
No trains running today so we used to train line to ease out the terrain and gradient, nice easy (ish) push and sometimes ride in the glorious sunshine. Eventually we climbed the last of the steps to the peak, 1085 metres up. Fantastic view up there, scenery wasn't bad either. Bit of a rest and everyone had a quick trip to the top then we kitted up for a 5mile 3100ft descent, elbow and knee pads seemed de rigueur so I was feeling a little under dressed but with fingers crossed we set off. Steps and fixed (big) rocks to start, walkers looking at us in good natured (i think) bemusement. Made it down to the train line with a grin wielded to my face. Brilliant. Some had chosen the more sedate train line route but that was the last of the easy options. Next was faster bit rocky bit loose, flew down picked up a big rock strike on my shin. Kept getting close to Tony's 2 mates despite leaving a decent gap between us when we set off. Another re-group the onto VERY loose rockageddon, Having riders infront of me was a bit new to me and I ended up just blatting into stuff less cautiously than usual (well they'd made it ok hadn't they? no need to look before leaping then) couple of times I was right on the ragged edge, realising mid corner/drop/buckaroo that stacking was a very near possibility then riding it out giggling like an excited toddler. What a blast! I headed out first on the next section, more of the same, I stopped at a switchback further down for a regroup but Nick blasted passed so I set off again, we both piled into the next one, Nick binned it but I managed to sneak passed around him, Tony had a proper OTB there, dunno how everyone else managed. I was beaming, I had cleaned everything so far but it wasn't to last I'm afraid, just above Llyn Ffynnon y gwas (The Welsh really don't like vowels much do they?) I mucked up a proper dodgy section, managed to stop upright thankfully. Tony's gang had a couple of goes and Keith (I think) cleaned it and the next bit but my bottle had gone, the adrenaline had peaked and was now in decline and I was getting my sensible head back on, so I passed. At the next regroup I noticed my rear disc was wrecked, must have it a rock somewhere and if not technically taco'ed then it certainly had an air of poppadom-ness about it. A few people had a go at bending it back but the alloy carrier was cracking and the wheel would just about go round so I just kept on. Trail was back to smoothish 3' wide hardpack winding it's way down the hillside, fast and flowy. Si flatted and we got a bit behind fixing that. We set off with an empty trail and a group to catch infront of us, woohoo. I nailed it, flying round corners and jumping waterbars, weeeeeeee. Coming down onesection there was a dip and I couldn't see where the trail went, presumably a left/right jink, I launched off the lip then noticed the switchback immediately ahead whoops so that's where the trail went. Slam on on landing, managed to not overshoot too far, back on trail and off we go again and nearly did the same at the next hairpin :-)
Got to the bottom buzzing, only the second "proper" ride and already a contender for ride of the year. Heckler was amazing as usual, climbs, corners, jumps, soaks up rocks, hits lightspeed, gets down/over/through the tech stuff, just feels ace all round, love it to bits. Can I really retire it?
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hmm

Lowey has pics.
Apologies for the verbosity, I was reliving it whilst writing and it really was very, very good.

One of them really nice ones

Sun shining through the trees and reflecting off the river, fast dry trails, sinuous singletrack, fresh legs, plenty of speed, leaves and twigs whipping the ends of my bars, brmc salvation on the ipod. One of those commute moments that makes me really happy to be a cyclist. Just think, some people have no idea about these little pleasures, sat in their tin boxes or packed sardine like onto the train, the usual morning monotony.

**** me, I'm a lucky sod.

Buff

noun 

1. A person who is enthusiastically interested in and very knowledgeable about a particular subject
verb buffed, past participle; buffed, past tense; buffing, present participle; buffs, 3rd person singular present
1. Polish (something)
2. Give (leather) a velvety finish by removing the surface of the grain

adjective

1. Being in good physical shape with fine muscle tone
2. Loweys secret singletrack
Tuesday nightride was shifted to monday this week due to weather forecast and it was lovely. I was runnnig late, Charlie was playing in the garden, I went to say bye and he ran towards me falling flat on his face. Whilst I maybe should have patted him on the back said "pain is just weakness leaving the body son, bye" and left, I didn't think it would go down well with anybody so stayed for a while. Up winter hill quicktime, managed to get from 2 lads to rivi school in a not too shabby 10mins, everything riding really well. Met up at rivi only to find Johnnie and Si both with the same riding top on as me, go team Aldi! How embarrassing. Straight up the hill, new rule, no stopping to chat in woods, got eaten alive last week at the gate near the top barn. Upto the pike, few people about, over to hole in the wall and up to the mast. From there we dropped down the singletrack passed the shooting hut, only ridden up this before, quite nice at the moment, don't fancy it in winter tho.

Over to the singletrack, awesome, really good, long twisty turny ribbon of trail. Some corners you couldn't see due to long grass just guess the line stay loose and hope. We got down to the second stile, I think we all rode everything upto that point. Next was the steep end section and that last corner, I rode upto it but didn't fancy my chances. There is a line above the corner coming in from the other side, I pushed up that and had a go, another refusal but managed it 2nd time, cool. Si had a crack whilst Johnnie commented "it's just a bit steep with some lumps" Si binned it but soft landing in the ferns. Johnnie had a go, just aiming to get further than Si, he fell of at the same spot, whoops. I pointed out if he'd gone OTB he'd have beaten Si but he wasn't having it. Quarries next which everyone rode first time despite Johnnie noticing how big the drop to the right was (someone was stood there first time he rode it) Back up horrocks fold and Smithills dean, here I split as it was getting late but which way?...ooh go on then I'll do Loweys ST again :-)

Light was fading but hit it just as fast, was feeling tired and had a near miss or two, coming up to the last corner I was in two minds but just went with it....and cleaned it! I was well impressed, never thought I'd ride it, I was well made up. Had to tell someone and I knew even if my Mrs was up when I got home (unlikely) she'd say "oh" which is exactly what she did on tuesday morning, so I text Johnnie, his reply was, predictably, "video or it didn't happen" grrr. So down through the quarry and long road downhill home racing the dark, big grin plastered across my face. Will have to try it again soon.