The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

Rubbish! I hate the cold and anyone who knows me will tell you how many layers of clothes I wear, even in the autumn. But yesterdays race was proper winter racing and all I had going round in my head was the flipping theme tune from Frozen. Like all parents of six year old girls, I know the words off by heart and the irony struck me quite hard - or was that the ground when I fell off for the umpteenth time!


Not the most inspiring day for a mountain bike race

The turn out for the first round of the Brass Monkeys Enduro was amazing given the biblical weather. It is a pre-entry only event and it shows what parting with a little cash does to people’s commitment levels. At 9am the car park was packed, although the usual steady steam of riders warming up was conspicuous by its absence. "Warm up" yesterday involved putting on a bobble hat and staying in the heated main tent until the last possible moment. The non-enthusiasm in the pits was palpable. Even Ant White, hardened veteran of endurance racing very nearly gave it a miss and went back to bed. I had multiple dilemmas on what to wear. It was forecast to reach a balmy 8 degrees but in the torrential rain that would feel closer to freezing. I opted for bib tights, short sleeve compression top, XCracer race shirt and a waterproof. I had also treated myself to a pair of neoprene gloves and of course had my trusty neoprene overshoes on top of my usual race shoes. For the first 5 minutes I thought the waterproof was a mistake. The start was fast, around a longer than usual fire road start loop and I was sweating as we came through the pit lane to join the main racecourse. However, as the race thinned out, I settled into my own pace, and the rain soaked through everything I was wearing I reached a comfortable operating temperature.


Nigel Brown (Westbury Wheelers) winner of the Grand Vets 3 hr race

The Brass Monkeys series is well known to be an enduro race run over an XC course and riders travel miles to enter for that very reason. However, with the horrific weather conditions, even riding around the car park would have been a slippery mudfest. Yes the course fell apart, yes the car-park became reminiscent of Glastonbury but it wasn’t actually anywhere near as bad as it could have been! Remember “that year” at Mountain Mayhem….enough said.


Ali Hardy finishes the ladies 4 hr vets race in 2nd place

For the first lap and two thirds it was all going well. I wear contact lenses so always wear clear spec's to keep the mud out of my eyes. By the end of the first lap I gave up and took them off because I really couldn't see anything out of them. I was unsure if this was indeed a wise move but my cyclocross-cap did a marvelous job of keeping the worst of the filth out of my eyes and as a bargain buy at £3.99 was worth every penny. My neoprene gloves also turned out to be an excellent buy. Although my hands were wet through they were not cold at all and the spongy neoprene provided all the cushioning that was needed. My Ground Control tyres did an excellent job on the slippery mud and I was in first place by about 3 minutes by the end of lap 1.

Richard Penning (Pivot Boompods) finishing the Men’s 4 hours race in 2nd place

The course that had been muddy and slippery on the first lap became an absolute quagmire on the second as by now every race had started. My brake pads seemed to give up the will to live and I was congratulating myself at the wise choice of entering the 2-hour race, not the 4. As I caught club mate Gaz Hurst (riding for KTM), two thirds of the way round lap 2, l heard the heart sinking sound of my rear tyre deflating. A quick close inspection showed a large slice in the sidewall cause by an exposed piece of metal sticking out of the ground. As I declared to Gaz I would be walking back he promptly offered me his bike, as he was too cold and wet to do a third lap anyway. Fabulous I thought. We switched the number boards, Garmin’s and water bottles (trickier than you would think with gloved hands and adrenaline shakes), adjusted the saddle and I was good to go. But I didn’t go anywhere. Gaz’s 140mm travel trail bike must have weighed more than I do, and combined with its 1x10 set up (with the two top rings out of action because of the filth) I could barely turn the cranks. It turned out to be a long lap and bit to the finish.

Not a lot left on those pads – time to order some more from the XCracer.com shop

With a good 4 minutes lost of sorting out the bikes, and riding like a complete muppet on a bike I had never even sat on before, it was fairly inevitable that Laura Sampson would catch me. She crossed the line at the end of the second lap just ahead of me and I settled into some serious “training” lugging 30lb of trail bike through the Somme like trails.

Organisier John Lucas photo-bombs the finisher’s pictures – With Jason Robinson riding for Four 4th Lights

By the third lap the organisers were out re-routing the course and removing sections that had become downright dangerous. Gaz’s monster bike was fabulous on the downhill sections but whenever there was mud (which was most of the course) it was an absolute beast. I got cramp absolutely everywhere. It was the girly equivalent to riding a single speed fat bike I’m sure. My arms cramped up, my legs cramped up and I lost count of the number of times I just randomly fell into the bushes. I nearly took out Kevin Sheldrake (the photographer) at one point as I cramped up on a section of sponge bob and nearly hit the tree he was standing in front of.

For anyone blaming their early retirement on the fact they did NOT have 29” wheels – Ben Copella completed an epic lap on 24’s

I limped home a demoralized 7 and a half minutes behind Laura but glad with my perseverance and miraculously in second place. Racing yesterday became a war of attrition with many early retirements due to mechanicals, injuries and the cold. Thanks to Gaz Hurst and KTM for the loan of the bike, to Four4th for a fabulous little trophy, to Merida for some great prizes (giving away umbrellas at wet races is a stroke of genius) and obviously to Gorrick and Si & Tom Panter for organizing an event in such awful conditions. The continual course adjustment made the best of the bad conditions and it can only get better for next round!

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