Pic courtesy Ed Rollason Photography

After a fairly steady ride up the first big climb in the Whinlatter Challenge (ok, a bit too fast as I didn’t realise how long this climb actually was) I was quite near the front of the pack but I started to have a bad day at the office as soon as I hit the first singletrack section. No mud or soft earth, no groomed, swoopy-ness – just spiky, jagged, unforgiving and extremely slippery wet rock. Traction and grip seemed to be something  that was completely in the hands of the gods as I did my best to remain the right way up on my fully-rigid bike whilst both tyres would slip and slide seemingly at random.

After every singletrack slip-fest I’d find myself back to the relative safety of a fireroad climb. Here I’d put some space in between me and the riders behind me that I felt had been holding up with all my out-of-control muppetry, only for my good work to be undone again as soon as more singletrack was encountered. Both wheels skittering around, no benefit of a suspension fork the front wheel would sometimes only offer a vague amount of steering control and eventually I lost the front wheel completely and tumbled down a hillside, leaving the bike and a few square centimetres of skin off my leg behind me.

From that point on, I was never too far away from a crash. One particular collector’s item of a stack involved me overshooting a berm completely on the thick gravel approach(!), I kind of fell off on purpose so as not to disappear down a hillside again, then watched as my bike was run over by another rider (an On-One sponsored rider, no less). He was very apologetic despite it not being his fault at all.

By now I was a bit beaten up and I’d tweaked my bad knee again. On the fun scale this was hardly registering…I was getting slower now, probably due to my self-preservation instincts kicking in.

And that was pretty much that. 2 laps of the Whinlatter trails, 32 miles, rather a lot of climbing and even more scary ‘this is going to hurt’ moments I finished 15^th in my category and 19^th overall, which in the scheme of things wasn’t that bad really.

At the end I chatted to a few friends about how full suspension is a good idea and even the tubeless debate cropped up again (yes, I really need to get my tubeless set up sorted so I can lose a few pounds of wind from my tyres). A cuppa, a butty, a change into roadie cycling clothes, Vitus road bike out of the car and Ragley mountain bike back in the car  and I was ready for the ride back to Manchester with Phil who had arrived after the start of the race.

After an hour or so of riding, a pretty major mechanical occurred near Windermere (Phil’s pedal fell off). We waited around for an hour or so while Phil’s wife drove back to meet us with a pedal and then we carried on.

Due to the delay and the by-now very thick fog, we adjusted our original plan of riding back via the hills around Settle, Gisburn, etc in the dark in favour of the more direct route down the A6. It would be nowhere near as interesting but at least we wouldn’t get lost 😉

100 miles of quick riding later we went our separate ways from Bolton and I got home just after 11pm for a well-earned cuppa and a few more sandwiches…

For the past couple of months I’ve not been riding much at night (well, not as much as I normally do) – it seems that every year when February arrives, following several winter months of cold, wind, sleet, snow, rain and dark, I just can’t bring myself to head out most evenings for several hours and starting and finishing the ride in darkness. Every winter it starts to wear thin. I’m not riding less, I just start to set my alarm clock differently and break up the routine with an equal number of evening and morning training rides.

After getting knocked off the bike just after New Year I didn’t ride much at all for weeks. Somewhat inevitably I’m definitely lagging behind where I normally am fitness-wise for this time of year but what is a surprise is that even after a break from the usual silliness I’ve been just as hacked off with the winter as I usually am.

So I’ve been riding early in the morning a bit more regularly. As you can probably imagine, it’s horrible getting out of bed at precisely 4:50 am to be out of the door at 5, it’s just as horrible heading out in the darkness as it is when I ride at night. But the big plus is that the sun comes up at some point during the ride and that’s happening earlier every day. And that makes it all worth it. Not only that, but in March, once the sun comes up, it starts to get noticeably warm.

‘Best time of the day’ is what my grandad used to say about early morning. He might have had a point (although I reckon it’s a tie with dinner time).

I had a big day out at the weekend on the new road bike. Allen of Polocini, an event-organising friend, had put together a 100 kilometre cyclosportive that just so happened to be on my mother-in-law’s doorstep so a plan was hatched to incorporate it into a bigger ride to make the day even longer and hairy-chested’er.

After a not-too early start I set off from home and decided that a brisk 15 miles spin, taking the direct route towards Macclesfield through the deserted Sunday morning streets of Manchester City Centre was the sensible option – I’d arrive nicely warmed up rather than hammering myself along the longer and much more hilly ‘usual’ route via Oldham and then the Peak District. Plus I’d have had to get out of bed over 2 hours earlier…

After signing in, a few hello’s and a bowl of Viking Porridge from Rachael and Paul (of Hit the North catering fame) I set off near the front of the mass start, after ‘dibbing’ my timing chip on the way out.

Soon the pack split into smaller groups and I made sure I was in the leading one – the 20 or so riders in the group were all doing a fairly good job of sharing the work but eventually I looked around and counted 5 other riders…

The route was fairly undulating for the first half, then a special timed climb of ‘Swiss Hill’ – a cobbled and slippery steep slope in Wilmslow near the halfway point then some decent challenging hills for the latter half – I found myself more and more often at the front of the group, every time I moved to the side and slowed a little to let someone else take the helm the whole group slowed…oh well. I was training after all. I got on with the hard graft and carried on stomping up every climb for a laugh to keep the pace high and the faces grimacing >:-)

At times everyone was fairly chatty until 3 miles to go when the pace started to increase further and nobody was talking any more. Would this ‘non-competitive’ event really end with a sprint?

Yes it would. Ouch.

Despite crossing the line second (or was that third?), somehow my elapsed time put me in equal 5^th place. Maybe I’ll start a couple of minutes later and work my way to the front in the first couple of miles next time…that or just ride a bit faster 😉

The whole thing was great fun. Well organised, loads of free stuff (all the food, gels and recovery drinks were included in the price) and the route was lovely. Allen’s organising a series of cyclosportives this year – enter them!

Deb arrived afterwards, we had a coffee and I ate some more ace food and then said my goodbyes again and rode back via the proper full-fat hilly route.

120 fast miles on a properly lightweight bike in the sunshine, just what I needed.

Once again the Christmas Cracker Sportive was postponed from its original date in December (surprise) due to bad weather and took place yesterday instead. It’s the second time in 3 years that this has happened, I’m sure someone somewhere is thinking that maybe a cyclosportive in the depths of winter in the Lake District isn’t a great idea….but anyway.

I picked Phil up at dark o’clock and we soon arrived at Staveley, the plan was to ride the 15 miles or so from there to the start of the event at Grasmere so we’d be nicely warmed up. It also meant that I’d be able to fit in an extended ride after the sportive…

At the start we met up with Nick, Paul and Steve and immediately set off and hit the first and steepest climb (25%) of the day. Our warm up paid dividends as we grovelled up the hill, but grovelled a bit less painfully than those around us who’d only just got on their bikes.  We then proceeded to tear off towards the first feed station about 35 miles away as quickly as possible. Me and Phil don’t do ‘sociable rides’ for some reason. We just try to tear each other’s legs off instead 😉

After a good 25 minutes of over-indulgence and a natter to Dave and Angela (who I reckon had been there for several hours drinking coffee and eating cakes) at the feed station in Cartmel we set off back onto the road via the river of mud outside the scout hut. We were taking it a bit easier now – scones, cheese and ham barm cakes, cups of tea and flapjacks caused me to feel a little bit sick after a couple of miles. Phil on the other hand was getting hungry again, blaming ‘fast metabolism’ or something.

I was glad I’d taken the newly-built Ragley Cragg Vale as the roads up there at this time of year seem to be liberally coated with mud and farm poo. The sensible mudguards were doing their job at keeping the sludge off me and mostly off the rest of the bike while everyone else I saw on mudguard-less bikes were completely covered in slop.

After returning back to Grasmere we finally had a bowl of Christmas pudding and custard, another cup of tea and I left Phil to continue my planned ride. I rode up The Struggle to the Kirkstone Inn, took a photo, admired the view for a bit then enjoyed the descent back down towards Windermere and then back to Staveley and the warmth of the car.

er..Merry Christmas.

Chain Reaction have sent me a new road bike. I’ve got a fair few sportives planned and I’ll turn up to the local chaingang at long last this year so I’ll have plenty of chance to put it through its paces and show it off.

It’s a Vitus Venon – a full carbon frame and fork with a 105 groupset. The frame is beautiful – there’s something about exposed carbon weave that still gets me excited and this is covered in smart little details. Everything about it shouts ‘FAST!’ right in your face.

I took it for a ride yesterday on my usual ridiculously-early 50 miler and my first impressions are that it’s very, very stiff. I’m not sure if this is the wider seatpost, the wheels or just the beefiness of the frame but compared to my old Lapierre it’s a much firmer ride. It’s not uncomfortable, nor is it skittish, it just feels kind of ‘connected’ and more direct.

The stiffness of the frame is a good thing – climbing in a big gear, out of the saddle produced no flex at all that I could detect. I’m normally able to hear the brakes fluttering a bit on my old bike but not a peep from this one.

Climbing on the Venon is almost cheating. Short undulations are despatched with a few strokes without dropping into easier gears and I don’t think I’ve climbed the long drag up Cragg Vale as quick as I did yesterday.

I’ll do a full review and some ‘seatpost cam’ footage (I thought of that just then) after some proper hilly action in North Wales next week – expect some epic photos of a bike dwarfed by mountains too.