Drumtochty challenge

Off to the drumtochty challenge , Having struggled last year with no gears and no map board . Ive opted to create a map board and take gears this year. Hoping to better on my third in male solo. The map board is just a piece of hardboard that used to adorn the walls of the bike shop with three pairs of holes bored into it and zip tied to the bars and stem ! sturdy bit of kit !

10 under the ben

well i should be at 10 under the ben today but i couldnt get the time off work !!!

so here i am stuck in the angus bike chain selling bikes 8- and counting !

Looking for the online live results that they had last year and there not up :(

SXC fyrish

Well it went a bit wrong didnt it ....

From

(me in chasing Dave Henderson comfortably)

To

Lying next to a tree in pain and cramp

Hit last place once i cramped up on a descent , hit a tree and landed on another stump. That stopped progress. Second climb in the race was EVIL just a relentless ascent that wasnt to be sneered at for a third time on 29:32

Pulled out. Need to adjust my training a bit and my bike. Granny ring is needed and i need to learn to spin , up till now ive just pushed the 42 round Laggan and Dalbeattie and its been fine.

singlespeed will be back on the road ASAP and lots of miles will be done for Mayhem

Wear ......

opted to change my chain and cassette after pushing my luck with the current ones on the bike.

Found out the chainring is beyond switching point (the supposedly ace middleburn hardcoat) ...

so i rotated the ring round 180 degrees and cut off the tab to stop the chain dropping down the back of the crank arm !

voila a bike that works for the SXC at fyrish tomorrow ....it worked on the way up the road , if it fails to propel me round the first practice lap perfectly tomorrow ill be racing jaynes scott contessa 40 size S and lovely pastel pink :D

sunday

did a 90k ride on the road on sunday to clatterin brig , before getting pissed on by the rain and a cold wind. We turned back after being thoughrally soaked and took in some hills. Ride time just over three hours and 1700meters climbing

since then ive had a heavy chest so have been resting up for the weekend, Sauna on monday and some long lie tomorrow since i have a day off from the bike shop

Fyrish SXC on sunday , Drumtochty trailquest the week after

saved by the loosercruiser

riding the 20 or so km to monikie country park to go for a practice run with Jayne for a duathlon in a month , riding my fixie. turned past the cornkist and my rear wheel just randomly explodes (on a fixie thats terror inducing)

stops , realise i dont have a 15mm spanner for the bolted rear end (suggestions for a compact 15mm for storing on the bike from now on .....)

think ill patch it up , take tube out the tire to find it in three bits. Im a good mechanic but not even i can patch that

Jayne heads back to get the car. I start running in the road pushing my bike . and Along comes Sinky in the bus and offers me a ride into town. So i end up beating Jayne.

drove out and did the run anyway

ABC midweek league round 2

Second round of the midweek league was a 22mile APR

Few more starters this time

Got handicapped with about 10mins over the first group and stuck with Euan whos just a wee bit (alot) quicker than me.

Again shouldnt have been riding because of exams but you need to relax dont you

first group went , 6 mins later second group went 2mins later next group went , 2 mins after that the next group went , then me and Euan went

Got up to the first climb ....bye bye Euan , just couldnt stay on his wheel. Legs felt a bit numb as well like there was no power , i usually excell on the climbing its where i usually do the dropping !
did the rest of the race on my own , caught about 4 people from the first 2 groups. No one in the groups was powerful enough to work with to regain places , all the fast boys were working together up front.

So i just settled down in the end and took 7th

Name Points
1 Mike Webster 30
2 Paul Cooper 28
3 Euan Ritchie 26
4 Neil Raitt 24
5 Dave Millard 22
6 Colin Nicol 20
7 Terry Davidson 18
8 Stef Delaney 16
9 Steve Smith 14
10 Nick Tryon Guest
11 John Dougherty 12

next round is a 5 lap MTB race in glamis station woods , hopefully i can hold my winter form in there ! ....notthings certain though. I appear to have damaged my bicep in this race , its really painful to load. Ill give it some rest and ice and see what happens with it , hopefully its just a minor strain , fyrish next weekend !

ABC Midweek league round 1

so the annual midweek league started tonight

7pm at Carmillie hall for a 9 mile time trial (odd number but dont ask me)

low on numbers with a large proportion of the Forfar lads not making it for one reason or another

starters were

my self , Euan , Hamish , Mike W , John , Dave , Colin M & Neil

was a bit apprehensive having raced on sunday to the point where i was cramping badly. Once underway the race went well caught John early on , then caught Mike W who was cursing hell outa not having tri bars on his bike in the headwind along the back straight.

coming back in the long downhill into a headwind at about 52kph on the GPS with a tractor along side attempting to pass and failing ! , hit the final hill , tasted blood ,rode through it and finished in 22 mins and 19 seconds for second place to Euan with a time of 21 mins 17 and third to Neil Rait

Round 1: Carmyllie 9mile TT
Date: 6 May 2008

Name Time Points
1 Euan Ritchie 0:21:17 30
2 Terry Davidson 0:22:19 28
3 Neil Raitt 0:23:08 26
4 Colin Murray 0:23:11 24
5 Dave Millard 0:23:14 22
6 Mike Webster 0:24:13 20
7 John Dougherty 0:28:39 18
8 Hamish Lean DNF

Next week , same start for 1 lap of long course in an APR format

SXC Dalbeattie

First of all i think thanks are in order to the SXC organisers , after the absolute lottery of results at Laggan (and Neil having to spend alot of time sorting them out) the event today ran fairly smoothly

course was excellent , a true picture of how an XC course should be , fast open fire road , lots of natural technical rooty climbs and descents, some man made single track and some unridable stuff. GREAT !

Race its self was different , i was gridded at the front on the back of laggans 5th

this allowed me to get into the lead pack at the start, from here we progressed to over take a large percentage of the masters on the first climb.

first technical decent and an aborted overtake manuver on a guy in a skeleton top resulted in me going over the bars. Quickly got back up , realised that we had made quite the break in just that short period and that perhaps i was going too fast.

Slowed down a little to pace my self realising that i couldnt keep Niall Frost and Dave Hendersons pace up for the duration of the race. Floated in my own no mans land for a lap and came across Chris Bell in his own no mans land.

The two of us litterally destroyed each other, each time i made an advance to pass for the next two laps hed close me off with some speed , put in an effort try to open a gap and id close him off.

4th lap first climb i made a break , past Chris , opened a little gap and Chris pulled out all the stops closed the gap , passed me and took off onto the singletrack descent , over cooked a corner ended up in a ditch having ridden front wheel first into a log hard and blown out his tire.

Not how i woulda liked to have taken third from him to be honest. but coulda quite easily been me who did the same thing i guess

he`ll get me next time im sure !

next installment - me not knowing how to work the podium and getting it all wrong !

all images from http://www.colinrobinsonimaging.com/