Mountain Mayhem

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BY: JAMES HAMPSHIRE

Published: 25th June, 2010

Not overly keen in getting the annual spanking from the Scott team in the expert mixed category (I'll leave it to the forum to discuss the merits of the current categories and rules...), it wasn't really surprising that half of the xcracer.com/29ers had booked holidays for the end of June to avoid a trip to the 13th edition of Mountain Mayhem.

I have a soft spot for the event though (but don't like battering myself into the ground in a 4 man team too many times every year) so instead cajoled 9 of my old Uni mates to join me in a 10 man slackers team. For many of us, it was our 9th time at Mountain Mayhem, and now older and wiser we have left the yearly attempts of trying to get a good result in the Sport category and dabbling with 24 Solo efforts long behind.

For me, the 'Sandwell years' when we first raced together are remembered for hot weather, obscene quantities of Red Bull, Natt Ross dominating the solo category on his 'Fisher 29er and the darkness seemingly lasting for all of 30 minutes. And all within walking distance of West Bromwich high street! The move to Eastnor Castle for a bigger venue and a tougher course heralded a change of fortunes with an annual trudge along a wet and windy Ledbury high street because Tesco's (with a car park full of fellow competitors) had sold out of banana's and bottled water, spending hours queuing at the bike wash, and it always being sunny on the Sunday to make you forget how horrific it was dragging your bike through the mud at 3am...

Which is probably why it was so remarkable this year to realise that Ledbury is actually a very pretty town, the views from the rop of the course out over the Malvern Hills thanks to the sunshine are really quite spectacular, and the variety of people who take part at Mountain Mayhem is wider and more diverse than any other UK event I know. With a claimed 2650 of them, the whole course could be flat double track and you'd still have bottle necks, so credit to the designers of this year's course for mixing things up a bit to create a 10 mile loop with a fair bit of up and some fun bits of down, although the 'Focus Pocus' singletrack was a load of hocus (I think Syncros and Adidas got a better deal with their named sections of trail!) and we'll always associate Kenda tyres with short grassy climbs from now on (interesting brand association guys!?).



As for the racing, being part of a ten man team is so slack you get to do all the things you miss when racing it properly (and what make racing for 24hrs a challenge) Buy me a 6" travel all mountain bike and an SUV 'cos I am getting lazy! Having time for a shower, a massage, a bike wash, some sleep, lots of banter, plus eat some real food and have time to digest it between laps is nothing short of cheating. Plus you have enough energy left over to be one of those annoying people jumping around at the side of the track for hours on end heckling riders and giving the soloists a push... Sorry about that :-)

With the old enemy Loughborough Uni fielding speedy riders including John Pybus and Phil Lenney against our, errr, 'anaerobically diverse' team, the big W was never likely, so 2nd place again and talk of a stricter selection policy for next years dream team... Although I was content with a fun weekend racing bikes and being fresh enough for a cheeky lap of Cwn Carn and the local chaingang 48 hrs later!