I don’t think I’ve ridden at Lee quarry in daylight since last summer (when the place was a lot “smaller”). The brilliant weather and the fact that the rear hub on Michael’s bike appears to have fixed itself made our decision to get a ride in an easy one.I also wanted to see if I could ride the red route on a 34:16 singlespeed 😉

There’s one shortish but steep climb just after the “new” berms that had me riding so slowly that I kept stalling as the front wheel met a rock (leading to a dab and then a walk), but it would definitely be do-able with a 2:1 ratio. The rest of the climbs were fine so maybe I’ll persevere with the taller gear before the autumn race series.

The taller gear really helps on the flat and on the downs. I don’t think it felt “spinny” at all. I’m sure it would have if I was running 32:16 though..

Another Pennine Bridleway ride on Monday, this time with Phil who’s wanted to ride this route for a while. He was camping down near Buxton so I thought it would be a good idea to ride south down the A6 on the mountain bike (through the Levenshulme and Stockport badlands) to meet him at Peak Forest. There was a headwind all the way there and I was already starting to feel tired before I’d even reached the rendezvous point.

Even though I’d done some recovery rides in the preceding week I clearly wasn’t fully recovered from my efforts at CLIC just a week earlier. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll get easier once I’m riding with someone else.

We set off up the PBW and it was obvious that this wasn’t going to be a fast ride. I soldiered on but left Phil to carry on to the end of the bridleway alone – I bailed near Oldham (Diggle, actually) and headed west towards home. It was still a 75 mile ride though, so it’s not like I wimped out after an hour or owt 😉

I was expecting to feel even worse on last night’s 40 mile (and hilly) road ride, but I didn’t. I felt great. Strong as ever. How weird is that? After all that messing about recovering, all my body needed was a great big 8 hour ride to feel strong again!

Oh, and in case Dave’s out there wondering, South to North is definitely not as good as North to South.

Things we not looking good for this race (ok, it’s “not a race” according to the blurb because the course uses bridleways and stuff you’re not allowed to race on, but come on…it’s a race). I’d spent last week with a horrible cold (number 30 this year I think), I wasn’t getting much sleep due to the howling wind and rain and the party boys in the tent next door and then at 3am the gazebo was torn from the ground and slammed into the side of the tent. Cue me and Deb dashing outside into the darkness to overpower a violent garden party accessory. 25 quid that cost me  just 3 days earlier and now it’s all snapped and dead.

Despite all 5 of us cowering from the wind in the tent the morning after, we were quite organised and I was able to eat when I needed to, get myself registered and check bikes over. I wasn’t feeling too confident due to lack of sleep and the almost constant flow of brown sticky stuff emerging from my nose and mouth. The race soon started though and I started to feel better. Even after 4 years the course seemed very familiar and I found myself smiling quite soon in the same way I had done in 2005. It’s SUCH a great course – a mix of bluebell-lined singletrack, rocky bridleways and tough climbs and despite the wet weather it never really got badly damaged (not what I’d call badly damaged anyway – HTN bombhole anyone?).

I saw finally spoke to Simon in person who almost immediately saved me from certain death by shouting “car! car!! CARRRR!!!!!” as I approached a moving vehicle, head-on, distracted by a cow or something. This was on the road section towards the end of my 5th lap – I’ll be the first to admit that it was a very close call. Wake up you pillock.

I went back to the van just after midnight to swap my LED light for the HID after the LED failed near the start of a lap, forcing me to complete it with just the helmet lamp. There was a note inside the van from Deb that said “at 10.23 you were 2nd”. Holy shit. I’ve never been in 2nd place before, certainly never been in a position where I could chase a win…so I understandably got a move on and got the lights swapped over. A quick check at the timing tent and sure enough, I was still in 2nd place.

I saw Dave (riding in a team rider for a change) at the transition who asked if I was still in the lead…on reflection a couple of brake pad issues and the light failure had probably allowed the other guy to take the lead but it was probably a good thing that I had been ignoring the timing tent and was blissfully unaware of my early progress.

For the next 16 hours I was 1 lap behind the eventual winner. Each time I checked the list I was still one lap behind – until the early morning I also had 2 other guys 1 lap behind me so I just had to keep going, short stops to replace bottles and get more food and no slowing down. Not much slowing down anyway 😉 I saw Dave a couple of times on the course – at one point he was travelling unfeasibly quickly across a moor – I think he had a gas heater in his tent though so was well motivated for getting round quick. 

The sun eventually set and the weather appeared to calm down – the rain clouds cleared and the darkness was quite pleasant. At sunrise I seem to remember it was nice for about 30 mintutes before the sky exploded in a furious melee of hail, wind and freezing cold rain – brake pads immediately expired and I was soaked to the skin again. Back to the van, more pads, more clothes and more food and I’m off again – still one lap behind first place. The lads in 3rd and 4th look like they’ve jacked though.

In the end I ended in 2nd place on 20 laps – the winner, Chris Cooksley, ended on 21. 3rd place got 15, so it really was just the 2 of us in the end. I think a lap is about 10 miles so I’m quite pleased to have ridden an offroad double century too…

Looking forward to Mountain Mayhem, I’m in a pretty good frame of mind for it now. I’ve a list of things that I’ll change and/or improve before then (some food stuff and a couple of changes to the bike setup). I’ve also converted to the way of the rigid 29er. Only built a week before CLIC, the On One Scandal 29er was utterly brilliant. A bit of a boneshaker compared to the titanium softail at times but much, much more capable than I was expecting it to be.

Most importantly, a HUGE thanks to my “support crew” – Deb and Michael. Being sat in a damp tent that the wind is trying to destroy whilst making sure I’ve got enough energy drink to keep me going in a  bike race can’t be fun but I heard not one negative comment or moan during the whole weekend, despite my frequent moaning and complaining. Just ACE.

I’m going to spend this week getting stuff out of the cellar ready for CLIC, taking delivery of a new gazebo that’ll probably blow away in a hurricane (although it won’t be waterproof so it’ll weigh a million tonnes because it looks like it’s going to whazz down) and having one or two “little” rides to check the bikes haven’t developed any problems.

The forecast for this week and next weekend down there is sometimes rain and sometimes no rain. Some wind. Some sun (but not much). God knows. I went for a run yesterday and I had large hailstones pinging off my head, so really, anything can happen nowadays.

The “second” bike is ready for a deluge – I’ve fitted mud tyres to it already – as soon as it starts raining the Global will be in the van and I’ll be “sending it” on the Scandal. Or is that “bringing it”? Whatever. It’s a strategy that will no doubt change several times between now and next weekend.

If you’ve not yet sponsored me, don’t be shy!

Driving over to Walsden early on Sunday morning under grey skies and rain didn’t bode well for the ride we had planned – 100 miles plus, about 90-odd percent of it offroad. Walsden was chosen as a starting point as it was as close as possible to where the Mary Townley Loop and the Pennine Bridleway meet – the route we had planned started with one “lap” of the MTL followed by the Bridleway heading south as far as Buxton. What we really didn’t need was for this wind and rain to persist all day.

Happily the rain eased but it was still very windy whilst we rode around the MTL. The waves on Gorple Reservoir were crashing against the dam it was so windy. Dave and I got a good “gate-opening rhythm” going, necessary for the farm gate-infested section of the MTL that adds so much time to the loop especially if tackled alone. That was until my front brake pads wore out – the wet and muddy conditions were taking their toll on my organic pads – luckily I had some sintered spares with me!

In under 6 hours we arrived back at the cars to get more water, food and chain lube. Butties, cake and other stuff were eaten, homemade cake and energy bars were shared and compared and bikes were made ready for the journey south.

The journey south immediately went a bit wrong – the signage isn’t anywhere near as comprehensive as the MTL and there are sections of this trail that I’ve not ridden for a couple of years (if at all) so we had a short hike-a-bike over some big rocks, through a large hole and (rather fortuitously) back onto the bridleway at one point and a surprise trip to the banks of Holligworth Lake at another point.

Probably due to some absent-mindedness on my part (and the fact that I’d lost the little wire retaining pin a few days previously), the pin holding my rear brake pads fell out, followed by one of the pads. I had a spare pad with me but alas no pin – in a stroke of genius Dave produced a spare spoke from his rucksack and I used that to hold the pads in place with the help of a pair of pliers. It looks shonky but I got a good 40 miles out of it, despite the brake then making a noise like a whistling kettle.

The direction signs around Glossop and Tintwistle are really poor – we bailed out for a short section after following the quite intricate meanderings of the Trans-Pennine Trail for a few miles, opting instead to climb the road out of Glossop (in horizontal rain) to rejoin the PBW near Lantern Pike. Once we got to the bridleway the rocky nature and steepness of the ride went up a gear – the trails that led us around the eastern flanks of Manchester and Oldham were getting progressively more viscious but down here the proper stuff kicked in.

For the first time in the ride we both dropped into our granny gears and proceeded to winch our way to the top of South Head, pausing briefly to take in the almost Alpine view from the top. Then the trail became very rocky and in parts quite technical – large loose rocks, steep steps and huge slabs had to be negotiated before descending for seemed like miles and miles of steep switchbacked trail to the welcome smooth tarmac of the road. A short, fast section of tarmac followed, then more climbing on rocky bridleway.

A quick call to Deb who was waiting with the van in Macclesfield and our journey is almost done. Just 10 or so more miles now to the rendezvous point at Buxton where we were collected, bikes in the back of the van and off to the nearest chippy for a portion of the most delicious chips I’ve ever tasted. As well as picking us up and driving us back to the cars in Walsden, Deb also went into the chippy for us. Cheers Deb 😉

13 hours ish, including lunch and brake pad fettling stops

103.56 miles

5452 metres / 17887 feet climb.  

6 litres of energy drink, 8 gels, a truckload of cake consumed.

Dave’s account of the ride here