HALDON EVENING SERIES 2011 - ROUND 1 VIDEO REPORT

Ah Haldon, its my girl next door in the trail centre world. It's also a brilliant place to take those first baby steps into riding off road. There's enough there to keep your wheels dirty, through those early days. Now it is also somewhere you can take it to the next level and turn those baby steps into running strides. As Haldon plays host to an evening race series.

There may be a million places that are a million times better, and brilliant places to ride. But Haldon is my home turf, I ride it all year round, in all weathers, and TBH it's probably the reason the road bike has stayed on the turbo trainer. The trail is that kind of gravely trail mix stuff, and it drains well, so when everywhere else is waterlogged, Haldon is still rideable and you can still get your tyres muddy...and your bike, and up your back, face etc.

So after a winter of dark, cold, Haldon rides, spooking myself out as I splosh around in the pitch black. I was well up for it, when I found out that Mid Devon Cycling Club where going to pick up the Gauntlet from Fully Sussed and run an evening series.

Before the event I tried to work out what the lap would be like. All the trails are fire road or trail-mix and it rides fast. There is nothing too technical, no major climbs, pain in the arse ones, but nothing THAT nasty. It all flows, its nice and should be a brilliant event.

Trying to figure out the loop however wasn't that easy. Haldon is Forestry Commision land and they're not keen on going “off trail” and I doubt they'd let it happen on a race event. It is understandable, a LOT of people use it walk the dog, go for run, etc. Mountain-bikers hurtling at them, on a path is going to lead to a few complaints. If they choose to walk on a bike trail (which they do...a lot) then its their lookout. So I understand the keep it to trail rules.

Another thing is certain parts of the ridge trail would be hard to loop as it crosses roads in a couple of places. The bits that you could loop probably wouldn't make that good a lap. So my guess was that any good competitive loops would probably be based on sections of the blue run, and my brain kept telling me my fav downhill bit, would probably feature in it. If it did there was a chance I might be able to not come last.

I was in the open class race which started at 5.30pm along with the Grand Vets and Juniors. The senior classes kicking off an hour later and the turnout at 5.30 was really good, 5.30 is kicking out time from work, and there was loads of people lining up with us. I think there was probably some sickies being thrown :) So it was a very good turnout, especially for a middle of the week gig. There were also a few familiar faces, I recognised from COD Round 1at Hustyns.

As always I rocked up with a minute or two to book in and get ready. I can be good at time keeping but sometimes I'm just pants, and this was one of those times. I kitted up, belted down to the start line to book in, get a number, and sneak into the back of the line up like a kid late for class. A smile grew on my face as I saw that the start finish line swooped down onto MY blue run descent. YESSSSSSSSSS.

I smiled at Pete, who smiled back knowing that if I could get out the gate fast and onto the twisty section, I could make a good bit of time, and that would be a good buffer on the climb back out. Thats the problem with descents, what goes down has to come back up, and its the going back up bit that I really suck at.

Now what me and Pete had both assumed, and both assumed wrongly, was that the lap was going to be the complete middle loop. It swings you through the trees, gently climbing the way out, from the very bottom back to where the start finish line was, and as climbs go its a nice way to do it. But like I said we both assumed wrong.

You see, we weren't going to start from here, instead we all got sent along the fireroad down the hill to the start line... noooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I know this climb, I've walked out of it a lot of times and its a lung buster. It's a slog, its long and it's not steep, but its length makes it right on the edge of being steep, which sound odd, but I know what I mean and if you see it, you should understand. I'm going to call it a cerebrel climb.

In fact if you have a technical on the blue run descent, it is easier and quicker to do the rest of the trail then it is to walk out up this climb.

So here I was on the line looking up at it, and as I stared it down, it started beating me. There was no way I could walk it. Everyone was at the start finish line at the top, and you can't start a race by getting off and walking. I had to ride it and I had to ride it all.

I snicked the front mech into the inner cog, the back three in, pushed the right pedal to the 3 o'clock position, pushed it solid with my foot, and waited for the go.

We all took off from the line, and all notions of this being a gentle “little” race went out the window. It may not have been technically challenging, but this was going to be race pace all the way round. I made it up that first climb, my legs crying for mercy, and my lungs swearing at me for what I was asking them to do. It was stubborn bloody mindedness and the shouts and cheers as I approached the line that spurned me on, and got me to the top.

Thank god we only had to do that climb the once, but we were still going to have to do the bottom section of it twice round.

With what remaining effort I had, I spun the pedals to get the speed to carry me through the descent at full tilt. It was good to hear the hubs clicking as I freewheeled through but pumping through the trees, still took its toll on my legs, but my lungs loved me again as I latched onto the tail of the guys in front, and started pushing it.

This highlighted a flaw in my being competitive plan.

Its easy enough to get by slower riders on this section a normal day, but in a race there's no space. And speed wise, its a bit like getting caught behind someone thats doing 58mph when your doing 60. Its hard to get accelerate up enough to get past in the space.

Unfortunately for the guys in front, but luckily enough for me, it appeared they were pushing a bit too hard as they rode off the track, which let a couple of us past. That was it though, there were no more opportunities to steal more positions. The overtaking was possibly going to be done mostly on the fireroad climbs. Which is precisely where this the section delivered us, the bottom part of the lungbuster.

Again the legs immediately started complaining, and I'd probably pushed it too hard on the DH part. I wasn't going to get past so it might have been worth keeping a little in the tank. I hadn't and now the rest of the pack, went past me like I was standing still.

I'd love to say I was slow because I had camera gear on, but in truth, it was my lack of fitness power and I'd run out of bloodymindedness. Gritted determination was still there, but I think it was talking to my body in mandarin or something, as my body wasn't listening...it just complained.

Eventually we reached the top, or at least the top of this climb, in the real world the fireroad continued up the climb we did at the very start. But now we turned left onto a flat piece of fireroad and another reprieve. I tried to get some life back into my legs but I had a feeling I knew where we were going...straight up a steep straight climb to the last piece of singletrack. We hit the clearing at the end of the track, and over on the right...there it was....Damn.

Luckily there was enough people walking up it for me to not feel so rubbish for pushing up it as well. But as I hit the singletrack at the top, a group of riders had caught up and tagged on behind me. I couldn't shake them off, so when I cleared the trees, I pulled over to the right, let them pass and tagged onto them, to pace me back to the stripe. And from there we were off to do it all again on lap two. Thank god it was only two and not four like the proper classes had to do.

I think I finished in last place, but I did it, and in my book, it was no mean feat, and I had a great sense of achievement. I've been up there since and redone the laps and ridden all the climbs and I have to say in non race condition I made it with no problems at all. Its amazing what a bit of competitness can do. Those fireroad climbs are not something I've regulalry done, purely because its never dawned on any of us to incorporate them into our loop, instead we favoured the singletrack trails and the fun climbs out. But they will be part of our loops from now on though.

So to keep this short and sweet, the first round of the MDCC Haldon Evening Race Series, was a brilliant event, with an amazing turnout. The lap was inventive, and I was really impressed with the way they kept away from just being a bit of the blue run, especially given what you can and can't do at Haldon.

I'm really looking forward to the next event, although I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it as I start a new job before the next one, and I wont be finishing until 5.30. still I could enter into the proper classes that start a bit later. . .

HAHAHAHAHA as if :)

So next event is up at, yes you guessed it Haldon, on Wednesday the 18Th of May. More details on it can be found here www.mdcc.org.uk and online entry is here.

Keep your fingers crossed for me and I'll hopefully be at the next one.