If there’s one thing that I really enjoy, it’s riding trails that hours earlier had been used for a race – the scars of hundreds of tyres are still there, making it obvious what happened but the lack of any noise seems eerily out of place. When the scars are from a race that you helped create and they’re on your “own” local trails that you’ve messed about on for years. it’s even better. Last night I had a ride around the HTN Winter Sprinter course from Saturday. It was pretty muddy last night and nothing at all like the conditions during the race. It was however very, very quiet which was another contrast to Saturday, when we had almost a hundred riders who all seemed to be properly racing hard.

Despite the recent snow, rain, hail and wind, we were due some luck with the weather after the washout/mudbath that was Hit the North 1.  We got our luck in the form of prolonged sunshine on the day of the race and the day before and some very cold temperatures that froze the course almost solid.

After the last couple of years of wet weather in the UK a frozen course is quite a novelty and no doubt encouraged almost everyone to put the hammer down. And hammer they did.

We were able to set up the course pretty quickly on the day before the race, only using the signs and tape we actually needed instead of the million or so signs and 300 miles of tape we used back in July. We were so frugal in fact that Paddy (the British Cycling Commissar) asked us to stick a few extra ones up at the far end of the course.

I did a quick lap of the course at 11pm that night to check that the signs hadn’t been nicked, then I was there again for a run around the course with Mark, our new “head of security” 😉

At 10am (ish) the race started – we used a brass band as a starting pistol, which we thought worked rather well. Off they went (actually, some of them were bloody flying), an lead pack emerged very quickly. The eventual leader of the first lap, Ady Lawrence, would go on to take the win after maintaining (and extending) his lead throughout.

It was obvious that the course was popular – a good mix of fast tarmac climbs, techy, steep downhills, slippery off-camber rooty woodland bits and a big zig-zag section across the lovely manicured park lawn (oops).

There’s not much else to say really – apart from the caterers selling all of their bacon butties, loads of people turning up to take photos (hi Chris!), nobody crashing their brains out (apart from one lad who tried to snap a tree with his chin), the marshals all turned up and more importantly, didn’t wander off, the band played some brass band stuff, brant marshalled at the fishing pond and told everyone “5 minutes to go” when it was actually 20 (causing grown men to cry when they realised they had to do another lap – great anti-lurking measure though!) – nothing really happened apart from what was planned. Admittedly, a 2 hour race is a lot easier to manage than a 12 hour wet race with camping and a flooded field, but honestly, nothing serious took place. If we’d had bombhole-level carnage from the start like we did last time and visits from the police (like we had last time – ahem) then I’d have loads to write – but it was all as smooth as butter.

Me and Andrew could easily have had time to race in fact (and next time we will). As it happened, I did my customary 2 “admin” laps. This time with a high-vis vest, walking boots, jeans and a beanie. I looked like your classic shift worker on his way home.

I’ve seen a number of separate blog entries and articles about the race, linked below. To get a real idea of what the race was like from the perspective of someone who was actually taking part, read them. There’s also a load of photo galleries that I’ve linked from the Hit the North website.

We’re already talking about the next race and the ones after that. We can do what we want with this, carve our own niche, but what we have learned this time is that the cyclocross/MTB crossover works, as do shorter races. We may do something “medium” sized next time. I’ve still got a few ideas for the course as there’s plenty of scope for adding in new bits and even opening up long-forgotten paths that will keep things fresh and add to the technical challenge.

I stopped for a while at the top of the steep drop (now known as Rooley’s Chin) during my ride last night and thought about how cool it would be to race for 2 (or maybe a few more) hours at night….maybe with a mariachi band in the woods…the possibilities are pretty much endless.

Links:

Tim

Trio

Alan Dorrington

Paul Errington

Rooley Moor

British Cycling report

I had a short recovery ride last night on account of the few inches of snow we had yesterday (it’s all gone now though). The Hit the North course is looking “interesting” in time for Saturday’s race – it’s not wrecked but it’ll definately be muddy unless we see a dramatic drop in temperature in the next day or so.

My short ride was made even shorter by first of all my rear brake stopping working (a crappy V-brake) – it got so bad that I had to stop to undo the cable retaining bolt on the arm, pull some cable through then nip it up again. It was less crappy then but still crap. The cable needs replacing too – it almost needs 2 hands to pull the lever. Admittedly, it’s been rubbish for ages but I’ve been seeing how long I can go without maintaining the winter singlespeed. 4 months, as it happens – not bad eh?

Then the freewheel had trouble engaging as I was setting off. It worked eventually but once that happens there’s always a nagging doubt in your mind that it’s going to go, just as you’re climbing out of the saddle and send you, genitals first, into the stem. So I backed off, which then meant that uphills were rubbish because of the flaky freewheel and downhills were rubbish because I had hardly any brakes. At least my lights didn’t konk out this time.

4 miles – perhaps the shortest ride I’ve ever done?

The Christmas Cracker Sportive was supposed to take place in December, but due to the amount of ice on the roads on the day it was postponed until yesterday. It’s “only” a 55 mile route so I parked strategically several miles away from the start behind Wheelbase in Staveley and rode to the start in Grasmere. I felt great when I arrived at the start as I’d had the benefit of a strong tail wind for most of the ride. A quick sign-in, bloke at the desk asks me when I want to set off. “Now would be good” I replied. And so it came to pass that I set off within a minute of getting my number in a small group of other riders. Soon they were miles behind (why do I always end up riding on my own in road events?) and I was catching up with the other groups that had set off earlier.

It was a really nice route – plenty of climbing but none of the rip-your-legs-off-and-stamp-on-your-neck type of climbs like in the Fred Whitton. Just long gradual stuff and a couple of 25% steep buggers that were thankfully quite short. Plenty of ice around on the descents kept things interesting, if you can call not braking, not steering and shouting “aaaarrrghh!” as you approach a hairpin bend at 35mph interesting.

As I was focused on getting a century more than a fast time in the sportive I stopped at the feed station…had a scone, had a coffee, had a wee and had a natter to a bloke who seemed to be on his last legs. 10 minutes and a phone call to Deb later I thought I’d better get my arse in gear and get a move on. Things got faster after the feed stop because I saw a bloke in full Hope Technology team strip who was climbing past several riders – I thought I’d hang on to his wheel for a bit. I did that for a few feet, had a quick chat then dropped him 😉 There must have been something in the jam scone.

Turns out I finished in 3:40, 27^th overall out of 140 (first place was 3:13). If only I’d kept to my usual plan of sailing straight past the feed stop, I’d have been in the top 10. Anyhooo, I still had 30 miles to ride so I checked back in, had a natter with Ian from Wheelbase then got on with it again – this time into the wind that made the first leg of the ride so much easier.

Once back at Staveley I still had 15 miles to go, so I carried on into the wind, up a road that turned into another big scary hill, down the other side, turned around and came back.

The GPS reckoned that it was just over 2000 metres of climb. Anquet maps and Motionbased (and my legs) reckon it’s more like 2600. There’s a discrepancy with the maximum speed too – Motionbased says 39.5, the unit says less. Dunno what’s going on there but it’s not the first time I’ve viewed my Garmin with suspicion. The mileage and average speed are accurate though – 101 miles, 16.1mph average. Total time 6:30.

Technically, I still need to ride a century in February as that was my one-day-late January effort 😉

I had planned to do nothing tonight by way of recovery. Unfortunately it’s snowing quite a lot, so the Law Of Novelty means that I am compelled to do a lap of the HTN course on the singlespeed. To aid recovery, of course.