World Marathon Mountain Bike Championships 2012

It's been a dream of mine to race a World Championships since I started racing mountain bikes as a youth rider way back in 1995, when disc brakes were still a distant dream and for me front suspension was considered an unnecessary luxury. 17 years later I found myself on the start line of the Marathon World Championships in Ornans, in the Jura region of France.

Naturally, I wanted to make the most of this opportunity so I trained super hard and even gave up cake for over a month before the race. The weekend before I was the lightest I've ever been (ok, as an adult if we're being picky!) and my training had paid off as I was in the form of my life with even hard efforts feeling easy. Monday before the race though I woke with a massive headache and my nose wouldn't stop running. This was definitely not optimum timing but with a 2 year old generously bringing home a fresh bug on a weekly basis it seems to be pretty difficult to avoid! I topped up on vitamin C, crossed my fingers and headed off to France. 

I travelled to Ornans with fellow GB team rider Ben Thomas arriving in the picturesque French town on Wednesday evening. Thursday dawned wet and sadly I hadn't managed to shake my cold. I decided not to join the others on a course inspection hoping to give my body a bit more time to recover and opted instead for a spin on the road. My ride confirmed it was definitely lumpy round here and that I was finding it pretty tough going. The rain didn't stop for much of the day and Ben brought home tales of very slippy and technical trails. 

Ornans, in sunnier times!

The forecast for Friday was sunshine which brought smiles all round. There was no delaying any more. My cold hadn't really improved but I needed a reconnaissance ride so I suited up and headed off into the hills. It was soon clear that the race's reputation for being one of the most technical courses in France was well deserved. The course is based around a number of loops in the steep sided wooded valleys and a significant percentage seemed to be on very narrow, off-camber trails that seemed more suitable for two feet than two wheels. At least the climbs, though steep were mostly all rideable. A good sense of humour was required though for the downhill sections which were typically steep, singletrack trails traversing through dense woodland with mud, roots and rocks combining to make things rather tricky. You know you're in trouble when you see huge orange padding has been brought in from nearby ski stations to stop riders hurting the trees. There were some hilarious moments on one particular trail, marked "DANGER!" The track was exceedingly steep and naturally off camber and would have been very difficult in the dry. In the mud it was near impossible to stand up so I said goodbye to my dignity and slid down in a sort of cross between mud skiing and sledging - sadly I was the sledge! As the day went on the sun conspired against us to turn the wet mud into something altogether stickier. Frames and gears soon became clogged and frequent "stick" stops were required to free jammed wheels and gears. Such fun! 

A steep set of wooden steps led the course to its high point on a ridge with amazing views down into the valleys far below - there seems to be some sort of unhealthy fascination with including these hike-a-bike sections in Euro races! The descent off the top was fantastic though. A fast dry(ish) trail across the grass wound its way along the ridge. Not that there was time to admire the view, just 10 feet to the left was a sheer drop off the cliffs into the valley below. French health and safety had clearly taken the laissez faire approach with not even a fence to give some protection. The strong winds on the exposed ridge only added to the excitement!  After 3 hours of riding we called it a day. Not including the ride to the start of the course we'd done 12 miles in a little under 2 hours. The race was 52 miles long. Sunday was going to be a long day!

After another beautiful, warm sunny day on Saturday, Sunday dawned as forecasted. It had been raining torrentially all night and the clouds had now descended to hide the surrounding hill tops. At the team manager's meeting the night before there had been talk of removing one of the loops in the event of bad weather. I hoped the torrential rain would be considered bad enough!  Kitted out in waterproof trousers, coat and comedy woooly hat under my helmet I tried to keep warm until the start. As we were gridded I checked out my opposition. Being gridded 100th of the 147 entrants most were in front of me and were a diverse mix of the top cross-country and marathon racers in the world and mere mortals like myself. Although there was a strong European bias with especially large teams from Austria, Switzerland and Germany, it was great to see riders had travelled from around the globe - Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, Japan, Estonia, Turkey, Australia, South Africa and the US were all represented  - I wondered what "on your left" was in Japanese! It was pretty funny seeing the wet weather solutions other riders had come up with. My particular favourite was the Mexican rider who had a shopping bag wrapped over his helmet fastened with an elastic band! I also couldn't help but notice that the German riders were either supremely confident in their bike handling abilities of they'd forgotten to pack mud tyres!

The rain had temporarily subsided and the French MC was doing his best to get the crowd going as we waited for the off. "Everyone, clap for ze riders!" A few brave souls gave the advertising boards a gentle beating but it was a big ask given it was 8.45am, barely light and generally pretty miserable. So not a lot of clapping, but moments later the gun sounded the start off the World Champs, we were off! The pack tore down a fireroad at a ridiculous pace. Actually, fireroad isn't really appropriate as it implies warmth and a solid surface- it was more like a dirty brown stream, less than 5kms in and the spray from the riders in front meant I was completely soaked and freezing cold. Thankfully, we turned right onto the first climb of the day which was a blessing as I was no longer squinting to see where I was going and the effort of climbing helped to warm me up a bit. I really suffered up the climb, my legs were screaming as the pace was still super quick and I couldn't stop coughing, not an ideal start but I managed to cling on the back of a large group. By the top I started to feel better and along the slippery flat section my choice of full mud tyres was paying dividends and I started to pick off riders. This continued down the first descent and my confidence grew as I felt comfortable in the conditions whilst others were clearly struggling.

This pattern continued for the next couple of hours. Weeze my way up a steep climb then cling on for dear life on the way back down. I continued to pass riders and though I wasn't feeling super strong I pushed as hard as I could. About 2 hours in I caught Ben on one of the climbs who'd had a big crash on one of the descents and landed badly. I urged him on to my wheel but unfortunately it wasn't to be. I was gutted for him as he'd riding super strongly inside the top 50. The next decent was the infamous bum on floor mud slide I'd ridden on Friday. I was hoping it would have been cut, sadly not! I gingerly slid down when I heard what sounded like a large animal ripping through the undergrowth from behind. Startled, I leapt out of the way just in time as a Japanese rider careered past completely out of control. Wow, impressive skills, or not as it turned out as he smashed straight into a tree. I helped him up and made sure he was ok but then incredibly he tried to get back on. After several failed attempts to even get on the bike he made it a couple of meters before thumping into the padding. At least the tree wasn't hurt - you just can't help some people! An enterprising French rider then decided that rather than follow the course across the hill to the right hand turn at the bottom it would be much better to run straight down the hillside. His short cut however came to a sticky end as he tripped over a fallen tree before landing gracefully face first, cheats never prosper eh?!

The distance markers were now counting down so I gave it everything up the last climb. I could feel I was right on the verge of running out of gas but the end was near. There was one final fast rutted descent back into town. In the rut were big slippery rocks. Outside of the rut was super slippery mud. Choices, choices. I chose the rut and clung on overtaking 3 more riders on the way down. I flew back into town and what I thought I was the finish. Odd, I thought that there would be feedzone when we've finished. Sadly, it turned out I had a final 15km loop still to do! My heart sank but I grabbed two gels and gobbled both straight away. Up the tarmac climb out of town I felt ok but then I had a pretty serious sense of humour failure as I had to climb a steep a grassy bank on my hands and knees before pushing across a freshly ploughed field. All the carbon wizardry is pretty pointless when the bike has picked up 15 pounds of mud and the wheels won't turn! Another steep, muddy descent through the trees followed, the track had been totally churned up and I was now in a pretty bad state. I had pretty much no control over the bike down here but somehow I managed to cling on and make it down unscathed. I badly wanted to maintain my position but I was running on empty. It took a massive effort to get up the final steep climb before what really was the final descent into town. 

The 84 kms took me 5 hours 21 minutes, good enough for 61st place of the 147 entered. I was pretty pleased with that. I wished I hadn't got ill but on the day I certainly gave it everything and had absolutely nothing left at the end. I'd like to thank British Cycling for giving me the opportunity, my team mates for all their support during the week and an extra big thanks to Chris and John from Mountain Trax who came out to support us and were on hand at all 7 feed zones in the torrential rain, respect! Finally, thanks to the good folk at Cannondale for all their help this year and of course my uber-wife Jules for continuing to put up with me. If you've made if this far, thanks for reading! 

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