I’ve been helping organise a 12 hour endurance race in the local area for a few weeks now. It’s in response to all the big endurance events gradually moving in a southerly direction. It’s a case of “if you’re not happy with it, do something about it”. So we are, and we’re going head to head with the big boys with the help of some decent sponsors. After loads of emails and discussions about, “yeh that’d be good” and “just think if we could do that..”, it actually looks like this is actually going to actually happen.

We’ve got the sponsorship, we’ve a nominated charity, the course is almost final – we’re waiting for the nod from a million or so people at the council/United Utils/Foresry Commission and we’ve got catering.

“Hit The North” will be a 12 hour enduro in July 2008. The course starts at Giant’s Seat, down through the woods and then towards 13 arches. A big loop then a climb and singletrack section in Philips Park. After a big dowhhill there’s a mental gravel weight-over-the-front-wheel-stay off the brakes racetrack section before returning to the camp site where there’s going to be a proper timing text with transponders, ‘puters, the lot.

Andy, Vince and me are aiming at the moment for 500-ish riders – 400 in teams of 4, some pairs and some solo places. Come the autumn, we should be pretty much ready to start the marketing and publicity and the payment/registration will be via the On One website.

He’ll have a stall on the day selling spares and bikes plus there could be a demo fleet for helping them wallets to come out.

The start of the course is an absolute humdinger and is probably the fastest, swoopiest section of woodland singletrack in the area. We might have an issue with hundreds of riders all aiming for the same 3 foot gap in the trees, but we’ll sort that.

Here’s what it looks like today – it’s a truly beautiful stretch of singletrack that can bite if you’re not concentrating…

We’ve arranged and costed full marshalling, showers, bogs and ambulances. The campsite folk (Giant’s Seat) are really enthusiastic. We had a meeting with the commitee last night.
We’ve even booked a DJ who’ll play acid house music for the full 12 hours.

Me and Michael went out earlier to ride the course and he’s giving it the thumbs up…why is it though that he’s got to launch off EVERYTHING? He’s saving me a packet on tyres though, he’ll never wear his out cos he spends most of the ride airborne!

 Apart from that, I’ve been taking it easy recently in prep for the Fred Whitton next weekend (gulp!). Oh, I broke a few square metres of concrete earlier to make way for a lawn, so that’s perhaps not taking it easy but it beats cleaning the oven.  Tomorrow Michael and I will be test flying the new power kite. Come on!

Training ride yesterday, Manchester – Anglesey. I’d not done this ride for a couple of years and last time I was on an MTB with slicks on it. I was looking forward to spending a long time in the saddle of the cross bike and hopefully improving on my last time.

I hardly slept the night before as I’ve been fighting an annoying cough. Not a great start. 5:30 am in the morning I was feeling pretty rough and considered more than once canning it. But I didn’t. The first couple of hours were horrible. I was riding slower than a pensioner and just couldn’t summon the energy to put the power down. I was struggling. Then I realised I couln’t shift into the smaller ring because the limit screw on the front mech was wound all the way in, and I didn’t have a screwdriver. I was frustrated but relieved too – maybe this was my excuse to call Deb for a pickup….

I managed to adjust it with the buckle on my watch strap so then I was on my way again, thoughts of quitting 30 miles into the ride banished from my mind. I stopped near Rhyl for 20 minutes. A sit down and some food should help. It did. I started to feel strong again, 4 or so hours after I set off. My headache vanished and I big-ringed it for the next 30 miles towards Conwy. I was flying now.

For 30 years I’ve been coming over here and in that time I’ve probably only seen Conwy castle through a car window, apart from maybe the odd tour around it when I was a kid. Riding a bike into Conwy (you’ve got to avoid the A55, obviously), up to and through the narrow sreets within the castle is an awesome experience, especially if you know the history. Thinking about it, this town has the lot. The sea, History with a big “H”, a proper military castle, a Telford suspension bridge and proper mountains. Perhaps we’ll live here one day.

More miles passed. I then joined the Sustrans cycle path along the coast parallel with the A55. When they built this path some joker must have tarmacced over a guinea pig because I was riding at a reasonable clip, one hand on the bars, other hand holding my water bottle and looking out to sea when BAM! I hit this weird mound of concrete, no more than 3 inches high and immediately smashed my knee and the bike into the ground. Ow ow ow!!!!! I’ve got blood pouring from my knee, I’ve taken a load of material off a pedal and my brake lever and i’ve bent my rear mech hanger. Ow!!! Me and the bike both eventually skidded to a halt, red and black stripes trailing behind us. I sat there for a couple of minutes cursing my bad luck and lack of concentration. The bent mech meant that from that point I couldn’t use any low gears – the mech would be driven into the wheel if I tried. Bah.

Eventually I’m over the Menai bridge and onto the island. The thing is, once you cross the bridge there’s just 8 miles to go, but the road to Benllech undulates and presents you with 14 sharp climbs. It’s a killer end to a ride.

116 miles and 8 hours after I set off (including 3 stops, 1 crash and a dose of manflu) and I arrive at the caravan where Deb’s waiting. So we went  to the beach and flew a kite.

Michael and I went over to Llandegla on Saturday morning. The place was packed! Mike hadn’t ridden for a bit so he was chomping at the bit…er..a bit. So I was surprised to see that he didn’t really struggle with the climbs at all, and his extra height and weight (he’s grown a bit recently) really shows now on the technical and fast downhill stuff.

When he asked to go in front, I’d expected to be riding behind him on the brakes all the time. But I had to use actual technique and everything just to keep up! He was flying in fact. He can jump too, cheeky beggar. He’s just able to use his weight to plant the bike just where he wants it to go instead of just hanging on. Soon he’ll be tall enough to fit my bikes. That’ll be interesting.  We really must make it a regular thing though. At half term I’ll take him on his first night ride, but it might be a bit early for the hip flask. So it’s started. He’s starting to show signs of the inevitable…he’s going to be more skilful, faster, stronger and just a better cyclist than me one day. And that’s brilliant in my book!

He did have a pedal/shin interface incident (blood and everything), then sat down on some hawthorns. Chuckle!

 On Sunday I’d planned to ride with Budge. He had a 25-30 miler planned so I was going to ride from the door, giving me a good 5 hour 50 miler. Unfortunately Rachael had other ideas and kept me and Deb awake all night. So I texted Budge at 6am and jibbed. I hate that, but I was shagged. I got out for a 2 hour ride late in the afternoon, just before the rain came down.

I’ve just done half a session on the turbo. It was going well until the HR monitor’s battery ran out. Bastard thing rips through lithium quicker than a mental patient. Anyway, this week’s a tough one with one eye on the Fred Whitton…only a couple of weeks to go after that. Plenty of running, riding and a century on Sunday. Grrrr!!!!

It’s been a few days since my last entry and quite a lot has happened. More road riding, a few days being completely and utterly ill in bed and a few fun rides in the woods and in the hills.

I’ve been helping out with some course design for a possible 12 hour endurance race in the woods near my house. Andy, the guy who lives on my street and is really driving this on knows Brant (who IS On One) and he’s already got the sponsorship in principle. The landowner discussions appear to be ticking along and the logistics (bogs and stuff) are all lined up and costed.

If it happens it’ll be next year but judging by the guys that are involved in this there’s going to be a lot of publicity and reasonably high-profile coverage.

I’ve made my mark on the route anyway, and I’ve set an unofficial course record of 40 minutes 😉

Last night I’d planned to ride from the house, meet up with Phil in Rammy then ride from there to Darwen where we’d meet up with Simon and John, thus giving me a 50 mile ride. Well, an issue at work meant that I was a bit late and only got as far as Ramsbottom. It was a good ride though. I made it up the Rake and Robin Hood’s Well on the singlespeed – just. My upper body got as much a brutal workout as my legs did whilst winching up the steep hills (Simon – they’re steep, before you say they’re not!).

Lovely evening too. Just look at that sunset!

The rest of this week I’ll be mostly running and turbo’ing…I’m taking Michael to Llandegla on Saturday and the plan is to ride with Budge on Sunday morning, early. That’ll be a long one if I have my way. Again I’m planning to ride from the front door and get an extra “free” 20 miles.

I’ve started this week with a 10K-ish run offroad. I didn’t do anything at all yesterday as I’d earned the rest I reckon. I’ve started to enjoy running a bit more now that I’m able to do it in daylight and it isn’t as painful as it was a few weeks ago. Wait till the weather warms up though. That’ll sort me out.

My training plan for this week (week 1 of 4) has me losing my sanity and undercarriage blood supply on the turbo a couple of times and hopefully riding over to Darwen on Wednesday night. I’ll be running a fair bit too this week. Thank God for Ipods and barely-legal MP3 download sites.

At the end of the week (bank holiday!) I’ll be doing the Rivvy fell race with any luck and riding over to
Anglesey too. That’s a good 120-ish miles in the bank on top of the rest of the planned stuff and the “I’m just nipping out for a quick ride, Love” miles that one can do during a bank hol.

I’ll see how I get on anyway. The trouble with Easter is that I’m not very good at resisting chocolate.

The Easter Bunny hates you