10 @ Kirroughtree

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BY: Niall Frost

Published: 15th July, 2011

After wimping out of 10 under the Ben due to a horrible virus earlier in the year I was ready to do business at Kirroughtree.  For those that haven't ridden there it is widely regarded as the best of the 7 stanes trail centres, not least because it hardly ever gets ridden.  It's only 1.5hrs drive from Carlisle too which makes that all the more surprising.


Getting ready for the start

Back to the racing; I was once again teamed up with Brechin's (it's in Scotland, a long way away) endurance mtb specialist Mark Smith who was representing Angus Bike Chain.   Apart from squabbling about who is doing the first lap (it should be Mark, it always ends up being me) we operate pretty well as a team and each can rely on the other to give 100%.  I still have to convince him to ride proper sized wheels, but that's another blog.

In organizer Frazer Coupland's inimitable way the rider briefing was essentially a one line, "take it seriously and we'll take the pi**".  Good enough for me, hope he can give as good as he gets!  Anyway, backed up by Clan Frost I set off with hundreds of other riders up the warm up climb to get the event underway.   The legs were feeling pretty good after some recent criterium racing so I stretched the field to see who else hadn't realised this was a 10hr endurance event.  Clearly I should have paid more attention to my mtb tyres than showing off at the front as a rear wheel puncture thwarted my early excursion up the trail.  Requiring a new tube and two co2 canisters (darn 29ers!) it took quite a while to get it all going again.  By this time I was nearly last, or at least mid pack.  I settled down to a procession through the singletrack and red mist on the fireroad, losing a total of about 8mins over the remaining 9miles.


The first lap melee

Handing over to Mark we were settling down into the top 5 pairs and were working our way back up to the leaders.  I was pleased to get the fastest lap on the course on my 2nd lap, although I took a few more risks than a rider used to tubeless tyres should probably take.  The course was riding amazingly well, a pleasant mixture of natural off camber roots and smooth trail centre kept everyone happy.  The trail designers even had time to throw in a steep road climb half way which just about caused me cramp by the top on each lap.  Fortunately nuun tablets and bananas had that under control during the rests.

Out front, the seasoned duo of Jason Hynd and Michael Coward (velo 29) were stabilising a winning lead on a course which both suited them, being good technical riders.  They're going to require a bit of competition at 10@ Llandegla to stop them taking a clean sweep of podiums in 2011 No Fuss events.


A natural section of the trail

After about 6hrs, Mark and I had climbed back to 2nd place and were pretty resigned to not catching the leading duo unless anything happened to go wrong, 4hrs is a long time to race after all.  Unfortunately the bad luck was to befall us when Mark hit a high speed section wrongly and catapulted down the trail.  A forgettable trip to Dumfries A&E was the result and team ABC Xcracer had done their racing for the day.  Thankfully bike and rider turned out to be ok.

After packing up, a few medicinal glasses of red wine were consumed at the campervan, purely to ward off the midges, not because I enjoyed it.   Combined with mustard chicken and rice salad it appears to work pretty well as a recovery aid.  The next day a blast round the black route at Kirroughtree confirmed no ill effects, much to my riding partner's displeasure. Mcmoab was again confirmed as a memorable trials section, quite different to most other riding in the UK.


I mastered the trials of Mcmoab, but Ben Savage was on another level with his trials shows.  130cm bunny hop, are you kidding me!?!?

To sum up, if you're going to Scotland, do two things:
1.    Ride a No Fuss event
2.    Ride Kirroughtree

Niall Frost
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