Brass Monkeys - Round 1
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterBY: Louise Robinson
Published: 25th November, 2013
Ahhh, sometimes I think it is a miracle that I actually manage to make it out the house, let alone finish a race. Some days it all goes according to plan and somedays it doesn't. Yesterday it didn't.
I spent Saturday running around like a mad thing, organising a 5 year old birthday party. Don't get me wrong, it was lovely. My little girl is growing up fast and seeing her enjoying herself with all her friends was absolutely lovely, if a little exhausting. We finished clearing up at about 8.30pm and set about the task of preparing for race day. Now, once again, preparing my stuff for the race is not that hard. Throw a bit of bike kit in a bag, add warm clothes to finish, warm up oil, chamois cream, a few gels and my heart rate monitor and I'm nearly done. Then I have to pack the kid's stuff for a day at Nanny's. I crawled into bed at 11pm, already dreading the 6am alarm. By 6, I had already been awake twice, first time at 1.30 from some heavy breather on the home phone and then at 3am by one of my cats being sick in the corner of the bedroom (I tell you, if it's not the kids it's the damn cats!).
Anyway, we managed to arrive at the venue for Round 1 Brass monkeys without further incident and the weather was a balmy 4 degrees and sunny (despite the weatherman's grim predictions of temperatures barely peeking over freezing). Queue rain (where's that blinking weatherman, no-one mentioned rain on the forecast yesterday). It was only drizzle however, just enough to dampen spirits rather than the race course. Unexpectedly, I bumped into team mate Rich Jones who had travelled down for an impromptu race, and we reviewed the entry lists which quite frankly looked more like a national line up than anything else. It must be something about the format which brings out the XC racers on winter training, the hardened MTB club riders and weekend warriors in equal number. In both the mens and ladies categories we were up against it.
I am not a natural endurance rider. I just don't have the time for a start. But in an attempt to give some focus to my training for 2014 I have already signed up for 12 hours at Bontrager 24:12. So this race was supposed to be the start of my road to 12 hours. A check out ride to see what my endurance was like and an opportunity to suffer a little. Oh boy, did I suffer!
4 hour Vet Winner Ant White
Lining up with European 24 hour champion Iwona Szmyd, Xterra World champs athlete Emily Iredale and national riders Jessica Roberts and Alexis Barnes was quite intimidating. My plan was to ride hard from the start, hang on to the other girls for as long as possible and see when my legs died. I got a good start near the front of the pack and jumped on Iwona's wheel, just behind Emily. Despite being near the front the first section of technical singletrack was absolute carnage. It was more like a cross race than a mountain bike race. The pile up at the first bomb hole forced everyone to dismount and run, and the same happened at the second bomb hole. I made the mistake here of following the wheel in front, while Emily took the chicken run and managed to put about 6 riders between us. it was a technical course to ride blind, as most of us did, with lots of off camber, rooty, loamy corners that grabbed a good few wheels during the duration of the race.
2 hour race winner Isaac Pucci finds time to play on the course
As the first lap wore on I was feeling great. The single track was fun and flowy and the course was surprisingly dry. I pulled ahead of Iwona and Emily and pushed on to the end of the lap. By the end of lap two Jessica was only 4 seconds behind and she quickly passed me. However, she stayed just within my sight line for an entire lap and a half before she started to tire and I passed her again. By the end of lap 4 my legs really were beginning to tire and my pace was slowing. During lap 5 Iwona passed me and I had no answer to her, but I was plodding on quite nicely and trying to think about how much good training I was getting. And then my forks bottomed out on a bomb hole. I weigh 54kg, I don't think I have ever had a fork bottom out on me in my life. Then it did it again. At first I thought I had a slow puncture, then I realised it was the fork but had no idea what had gone wrong or what to do about it. So I did the girl thing, tried to ignore it and just kept going. It meant I had to take it easy over every bump, rock, divert and pebble but I limped it round. What it did show me was how much harder it is to ride the single track at slow speed than at race pace. If you can't carry speed into a bomb hole, you can't carry it out the other side and you have to stomp on the pedals to make it out again. I entered cramp city. Even racing in high summer, I have never had cramp like it. My dodgy fork had me off on an innocuous downhill corner and I cramped up as I hit the ground. It took me a good minute or so of rolling around on the ground in searing agony to be able to stretch out the cramp and get back on the bike.
Friendly Course Atmosphere
With a broken bike, I started to do the mental calculations. I had to complete my final lap in over 45 minutes to avoid the follow on. Although I might have been up to an extra lap, I knew for sure my bike wasn't. I continued to limp the bike round for the final lap and bumped into Arran Taylor (Cotswold V ) who was equally trying to avoid an extra lap. I was overtaken within a mile of the finish by Alexis Barnes who just sneaked in the four hour cut off and went out for a 7th lap. I finished 6 laps in just shy of 4 hours and threw in the towel. Closer inspection of my Rock Shock Reba forks was not pretty. An o-ring in the air chamber had failed, dumping all the air pressure and forcing the oil seal out of the fork lowers.. Thank fully, after a quick phone call to Planet-X this morning, a very helpful chap arranged their return for a warranty inspection. Fingers crossed, a new or repaired set of Rebas will be winging their way back to me shortly.
So, third place on a broken bike was not a bad result given the company. Must try harder for the next one, and a bit of training in between probably wouldnt go a miss either.
Many thanks, as always, to the fabulous team at Gorrick and the handsome Sargent Panter who all worked tirelessly to produce an amazing event, on a top class race course, despite having part of their course destroyed at the start of the week by the forestry work which is on-going on the land.
See you all at the next one.
So, third place on a broken bike was not a bad result given the company. Must try harder for the next one, and a bit of training in between probably wouldnt go a miss either.
Many thanks, as always, to the fabulous team at Gorrick and the handsome Sargent Panter who all worked tirelessly to produce an amazing event, on a top class race course, despite having part of their course destroyed at the start of the week by the forestry work which is on-going on the land.
See you all at the next one.
Thanks to Mike at 1st Gear Cycles for the photos. Lots more photos and a couple of videos on his Facebook page :
More on the Merida Brass Monkeys Winter Enduro Rd 1:
Event Calendar ListingBlogger Info:
Louise Robinson
Mum, Pharmacist and XCracer Team Rider
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