Summer Monkey

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BY: Louise Robinson

Published: 15th June, 2015

I was asleep by 9.30pm last night. I’m not sure it was the racing, the half bottle of red wine that slipped down with dinner, or a combination of the two but I was shattered. The six-hour pair at the Summer Monkey was supposed to be the easy option. Hmmm, I’m not so sure it worked out that way.

 Frith Hill saw a last minute return of the Summer Monkey due to forestry work and military maneuvers at Caesars Camp. This suited me down to the ground as Frith Hill is a favorite venue of mine, and living within spitting distance it is nice to have the trails cleared and the single track bedded in once in a while.

 Despite a bit of rain (read torrential downpour) on Friday, the trails remained hard and dry. A few of the more dusty sections in fact improved significantly and I was feeling confident on Saturday night that my new Schwable Thunder Burt’s were just the type for the job.

 I entered the six-hour pairs with Jo Munden from Pedal Heaven. As this was an open category, we were always going to be giving away masses of time to the men’s and mixed pairs but we entered just for the fun of it and to see how many men’s pairs we could beat.

 

Andy Smallman in the 6 hour Vets 

As Jo was hard at work signing on racers at 8.45am, I was elected to take the first lap. The start was a bit muddled. With 2 and 6 hour racers scheduled to start at 9am everyone lined up appropriately, only to be told the 2 hour race would start first, followed by the 6 hour, a few minutes later. This caused much shuffling, maneuvering and confusion as the 2 hour racers moved forward and the 6 hour racers moved backwards – but without wanting to surrender the hard fort grid position afforded to anyone prepared to queue up early.  Only one chap seemed to get caught off guard and was seen tearing down the start straight about 2 minutes after the rest of the 2 hour field had left.

 The start of the 3 hour Supervets and Fab Bike Race

Riding as a pair, but in the 6 hour start, meant the pace at the beginning was ideal for me.  I was able to sit in with a couple of the Banjo Cycles boys; safe in the knowledge I was only doing one lap before I got a rest. It nearly all went horribly wrong however when I thought I would nip past on a bit of a climb, called right, went left and clipped bars with the unfortunate soul who was in front of me.  In my defense I am dyslexic and my long suffering husband will attest to the fact it is not at all unusual for me to get this wrong!! “Not that right Dear, the other right”. This put me (quite rightfully) at the back of our little pack of four and I spent the next quarter of the lap playing catch up.  When we reached Neat’s Nemesis (that awkward bomb hole with the rooty exit) I rode the A line while the other boys took the much slower B line and I popped back out in middle of bunch again.  The final nail in the coffin was a sharp left hander at the bottom of a steep descent where a few of the riders in front of me carried on straight ahead and came off the course, putting me back in front again. Pre-riding the course pays dividends if you can manage it!!

 This all looks very serene but I was actually flying along.....honest

Jo and I had a fairy uneventful race, with pretty consistent lap times. With lap times around 37 minutes, it was an all out sprint, followed by just enough time to get really quite cold, before having to do it all again. I don't know why I always kid myself pairs will be an easy option, I've done this enough times, I really should know better. Whilst the weather was ideal for endurance racing it was verging on the cold side for pairs racing and my biggest problem was keeping warm between laps. This prompted a fairly major cock up on my part when I managed to forget my helmet at handover (because I had taken it off to sit in the car and warm up) and had to take Jo’s (why pass a baton when a helmet will do!).  I was also paranoid that heavy rain would leave the exposed roots slippery and my tyres a liability but luckily the drizzle disappeared and we even got a little bit of sun.

 

Del Coppola (3rd placed Super Vet) 

Amongst the other pairs racers, mixed team Andy and Laura Sampson (Sussed Out Suspension) got off to a flying start but a puncture on lap 5 lost them a significant amount of time. The real battle was between Fruit for London and IMbikemag, with IMbikemag pulling away a little more with every lap to finally finish 12 minutes clear of second place.

So we finished 4^th placed overall, beaten by 2 sets of men’s pairs and 1 mixed pair and well up on the 3 sets of men’s pairs behind us.

 The course was excellent, and an amazing result given the very last minute change of venue. My Thunder Burt tyres were idea in the conditions as it turned out , any sketchy bits being due to my lack of skill rather than their lack of grip. I was also really impressed with my new 1x10 set up which never skipped a beat and provided all the ratio’s a girl could need.

 In the other races; the six hour events were dominated by Tim Dunsford and Rick Evans in the men’s and vets categories respectively. The fat bike category was won by local boy Roki Read, who was churning out lap times that all the 4 and 6 hour racers would have been proud of. Emily Iredale was back to racing after her maternity leave and took first place in the ladies 2-hour race. Little Flora even made it onto the podium. Richard Penning and Chris Noble went down to the wire in the 4-hour race with just 18 seconds separating them at the end of 4 hours.

 

Event organiser Si Panter relaxes in the shower with a poof!

A big thanks to all the organizers, supporters and sponsors for another great event! Many thanks to everyone who provided photos, especially to Kevin Sheldrake for the cover photo. More of Kevin's photos can be found here

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More on the Merida Summer Monkey 2015:

Event Calendar Listing