British Marathon Champtionships and BMBS XC Series

This weekend saw me take part in the penultimate weekend of racing for the year. I was heading over to Wales for both the final round of their National XC Series (BMBS) (UCI C2) and the final round of the Trek Marathon Series (100km) which was dual rolling as the British National Marathon Championships, so a lot of racing hours was going to be logged...

The race was being held in the Welsh MTB mecca that is, Coed Y Brenin. Getting their was easy, Richie Felle, our bikes and the Silver Bullet (my Peugeut 205) made our way to the Irish Ferries ferry from Dublin to Holyhead in Wales, once there, it was a relatively short rainy drive (about 1.5 hours) to our B&B that was about 10 miles to the race course. After checking in and having a quick nap we headed down for the preride. The course for the XC race and the marathon had been billed as being the most technical course of the year but upon finishing my first lap – it was anything but. The XC lap was 10.5km long and only about 1.5 to 2km of singletrack. Coed Y Brenin has TONS of amazing singletrack and yet it was almost completely on fireroad. I mean, it's one thing to do all the climbing on fireroad (a lot of the time that suits me) but a lot of the descending was on fireroad too! There were a couple of techy sections on the course and a really fun final 4 minutes but just way too much fireroad. It also didn't help that it rained the whole time and made everything very slushy. (One thing though, with the constant rain the course for both days held together well with it all being 100% ridable – the HUGE puddles and rivers we had to ride through meant that not too much got to clog up the drivetrain)

Race morning arrived but my legs didn't feel that up for it. They didn't feel bad, just not that good. After the warmup we were all ready to start. Not much really to add from the race... I didn't feel very quick, my legs feeling pretty dull but I did have a few good fights during the race. The last lap James Fraser Moodie and I had a great tussle (me losing out to him just before the line) exchanging positions throughout the final lap. I finished up coming in a respectable 17th. I wasn't overly happy with the ride but I had one more long day on the bike to look forward to the next day so I simply refocused on it. Results of the XC race can be found here and a report here.

On Sunday I got up to a very soggy, rainy morning – the type of morning that when I'm at home I would reschedule a spin to latter in the day... Not today as it was going to be 100km of a (mostly) unchanged XC course. The rain continued to pour down right up to and past the start of the race. It was actually my first off road race that I left arm warmers on for! The pace at the start wasn't too fast (probably because no one warmed up because of the weather) and I was able to stay with the leaders for most of the first lap. Three quarters of the way around, the people in the group I was with allowed a gap to open in the single track and unfortunately, I couldn't chase back once we hit the climbs again. The second lap started with me in a small 4 person chase group and something worrying started to happen. My front brake starting to lose power. Another few kilometres and I had no front brake. (I had checked the brake pads on the front the night before and they were fine – I replaced the rear ones) For the next 4 laps I only had my rear brake to stop me. Luckily the course was not too technical so good brakes was less critical then normal but I would say it still added a minute or two to each lap time. Mid way through my sixth lap, disaster struck – on a fast descent my rear brake lost all power. Now I'm flying down a hill with no brakes... Time for some old school foot on the front wheel braking... With the smell of burning rubber I was able to stop and check out the situation. Brake pads (and back plates) were completely gone on the front and rear brakes. A nice walk/run back over to the start meant that I lost a ton of time (it was about 4km...). Robin, who suffured double punctures in the race, was able put on a set of pads on my front brake but I was going to do my last two laps with only a front. (Well, I did 4.5 with only a rear, only a front should be faster...) Before I left, Robin mentioned that I was as high as 5th but had now dropped to 8th (I think). With this, I had my motivation set to go hard for the final 80 minutes or so. The last two laps were uneventful enough – I felt good throughout and was even able to push hard on my last lap. I finished up the race in 5 hours 30 minutes for a decent 7th place. Having looked at the details from my Garmin, I probably lost around 20-25 minutes due to my braking issues... I could have had a 4th or 5th... You live and learn. Results from the marathon can be found here, as well as a report here.

The race was a serious mudfest. Lots of photos here

Mud, mud, mud...

The huge puddles meant that the Epic stayed 'roughly' clean

In general, even with the disappointing course I had a great weekend of racing. Thanks to Richie, Geof and Paul for helping me out in the feed zone and Robin and the Pipedream crew for the brake pads!

On Saturday I'll be taking part in the Irish Marathon Championships. It's going to be the final race (don't know about the cross season yet) of the season for me. I'll have nice, new, bedded in brake pads for that...

Preview Video of this weekends course

This weekend I'll be racing in the 5th Irish NPS race down in Ballycuggaran Woods. The course last year was steep climbing and steep super wet (it poured right before the start of the race) descent. Hopefully this year it will be a bit drier...

Racing, racing and more racing...

It has been a long time since my last proper post and I've been doing a lot of racing both in Ireland and abroad recently. I'll briefly go through the races and hopefully get back to normal posting soon.

Irish National Points Series – Round 2 – Balinastoe – May 6th

This was the second time that I was going to be racing in Balinastoe, last year we had a round of the NPS on roughly the same circuit. This time however, they cut out the parts that I didn't like (a fast gravel road descent!!!) and replaced it with a reasonable enough single track descent through a cut down forest. The course itself was actually quiet short (and dry!) and we only had to complete 7 laps. My lap times for the laps were around the 12:30 mark... (3.7km, 160m climb per lap). The race only saw Peter Bugle, James McCluskey and myself take part in the Elites. We all headed off with James putting on the early pressure. Me, my legs didn't really hack the pace and I ended up staying about 40 seconds back on him and Peter for the first two laps. On the second last lap I passed James on a single track section with his bike upside down. Unfortunately, he snapped his dérailleur hanger somewhere on the section. I didn't see Peter again until the finish line.

A view over the course

Mel at the start of her race

A tough climb at the start of the lap

Towards the end of the lap there was two lines, the slow line or the jump :)

Freerange Sports Optics British XC Series Round 2 UCI C1 – Sherwood Pines – May 12th

I travelled with a bunch of Irish riders over to my first race in the UK. The field looked impressively strong (about 50 Elites) with all their shiny team sponsored bikes and the race looked set to be a fast one. The course was almost completely flat (well, a few short 'climbs') but was 11.1km long! 5 laps meant that I'd be averaging about 22.5kph on twisty offroad single track :) That's almost as fast as my recovery rides on the road bike on the flat! My inexperience was apparent from the start when I went to the start area 10 minutes before the start to find that I'd be in the last row! All the Irish races with 12-16 Elites had me spoilt! The race went by pretty quickly with me never leaving the big ring. I had a few good tussles with the riders around me – it was one of the first times where I was constantly racing behind fast people. I guess with so many Elite starters the chances of having riders at an equal speed as me goes up dramatically. I ended up finishing 34th which I was reasonably happy with all things considered... After the race, I had another race, to the airport to get ready for my next days racing...

Sherwood Pines course

Irish National Points Series – Round 3 – Carlingford – May 13th

Arriving home on a Saturday night, tired, hungry and with a bike to be built up is not the best way to prepare for a Sunday morning race. The race in Carlingord was going to use much of the course from the one used in the K-Capital (the race I had all the punctures, blew up my cars engine and hurt my knee...) with some parts reversed and a new technical descent. Briefly, I felt squirely on the single track (it was pretty technical) for the first two laps and my legs only started to feel good on the 3rd (of 5) laps. Roger Aiken finished out winning the race (he went on to race in the Ras) a full eight minutes ahead of me - eeek.

Irish National Points Series – Round 4 – Larne – May 20th

This course was really unusual – it's basically an old quarry that will (hopefully) be turned into an outdoor sports adventure centre type place. Unfortunately, at the moment it resembles a quarry more then a sports centre. The race course was about 6km with 110 meters of climb per lap. The climbs were all made up of very short (some times very steep) climbs – not really the type of course that suits me. I'll leave the report of this one short – basically, Lewis Ferguson and I were having a nice wee tussle for first for the first couple of laps. For the 3rd to 5th lap I was about 30-40 seconds back on him then about two thirds of the way around the 5th lap my rear wheel burped and I lost most of the air. I hobbled to the tech zone, got some air in and as I left the tech zone I found out that I was about 1:40 behind Lewis. My body felt really good and my legs felt perfect (I had barely used the up to this point in the race as I couldn't get myself to go any faster then a cruising pace). I hammered off with my mind focused on catching him... Two minutes later, my front wheel hit a rock (not very hard!) and burped all the air out – my air canister failed and my race was pretty much over. To say I was a bit pissed about it is an understatement.

That's basically all my races up to last weekend. Last weekend I raced in the UK again but I'll write about that another time soon.