Sunday ride

sunday ride.

today was to be a Sundayriders steady Sunday ride. But...

The Mighty Dinsdale - had to work.

Greg - contracted the man flu.

Paul - a garbled phone message about some complaint that only hurt if he touched it!.......a broken finger perhaps?

so it was just me and Juanita.

Weather: stunning blue skies and frost at 2'C

Terrain: hard and fast, soft where the sun had reached.

Distance: a steady 38 km in 2.32

Interesting things of the day:
1.lots of horse riders orienteering in fancy dress(juanita's favourite was batman on horse back)
2. a friendly llama who liked torq energy bars.

Mechanical of the day: ramon finally found the answer to the strange knocking sound coming from the fork/headset. It was the brake caliper, the bolts were loose and partly out!!

ramon: "a steady wind down to start training over xmas in Ibiza".

juanita: "a hard ride to get ready for training over xmas in Ibiza".

We go to Ibiza next Saturday for two weeks riding in the sun.

The Cardiff Santa 5km

lco, the Sunday Riders and Skidmarks pitbabe, ran her first race at the weekend. The santa run is a 5km road race around Cardiff dressed as Santa Claus!

Along with lco and juanita, a further 800 people turned up dressed accordingly.

The marathon de sable next, maybe?

Marin winter series round two

Sunday was the second round of the winter series at Thetford. Once again it was a sell out and 500 had signed up to race. However, the weather forecast although dry all week showed a torrential downpour at 9.00 am., an hour and half before the start. This led to a rush of....'anyone want my place? I've got a sore throat, I have to work.....etc' posts on the website :-)

I had rested well since the last round and felt stronger, pretty good in fact. So I decided to change that! The night before the race was Paul's birthday so Jane made cake,but Paul couldn't make it. So I ate cake, loads of it. So much that my stomach was like a balloon when I went to bed. It was still like that, and very sore, when I got up at six the next morning. I couldn't face breakfast and hoped to eat some torq bars on the way.

It was chucking it down when we arived at Thetford, I went for a quick warm up and got absolutely soaked fom the standing water and was shaking from the cold, so we sat in the car to keep warm. At the start the queues were already five deep. I queued on the left, because the tight left turn a 100m after the start had a huge puddle also on the left, but just out of sight. I figured that most would swing right on seeing the puddle and I would go straight through it.

The klaxon sounded and everyone sprinted into the first corner. I got ready for the veer to the right at the puddle, so I could take the left line through it. Instead the front runners stopped dead, so I flicked right and through the centre clipping a couple of bars in the process!

This track was 500m of big ring very wet fire road descending at 40kph into a wall of spray from the standing water into a 90deg off camber left. This caused a few problems and people were overshooting it. Then into the first singletrack, which though wet was very fast. a few fast bermy turns and back onto the fire road to the first bombhole: this was very deep but, quite straight in and out. I've raced this part of the course before and the next bit is great fun, the locals call it the beast! It's a singletrack descent through the woods made up of a series of rollercoaster whoops and berms. The most fun way to ride this is roadie style lined out tucked in, inches from each others wheel :-))) This spits you out across a fire road and straight up a singletrack climb. I can hear people behind me whooping as they came down the beast.
This section is always quite tough because coupled with the ascent is a claggyness in the surface. Here the heavier riders tend to suffer and it's easy to pass riders, particularly later in the race as people tire.

The rest of the lap followed in true Thetford style ie hard fire road sections(for some reason always into the wind!) and fast jiggly, rooty singletrack.

I had decided to eat at the end of the second lap, I tried to eat half a torq bar, even though I could barely swallow it. I had a couple of bottles of energy drink by the course at the start/finish area, so I grabbed them as I went through.

By the end of the third lap my legs were getting a bit wobbly, and I still couldn't eat.

The sixth lap is where I met my maker and everything went a bit Lewis Caroll. Suddenly gravity increased tenfold, my bike seemed three sizes too big and the world narrowed to a small fuzzy circle in front of me. The little man with the big hammer had arrived and.....bonk, he hit me hard!!! I had to walk a couple of the short sharp climbs and freewheel down the other side :-)

At about halfway through this lap Alan Parkinson's friend from the London Pheonix caught me; he was blowing fairly hard. I guess he must have seen me and put in an effort. We rode together while he got his breath back and I introduced myself as Alan's other friend. He then slowly pulled away. Paul came through sometime later and slowly but inexorably moved ahead. Meanwhile I died a little bit more:-)

Towards the end of the lap, I realised that I might beat the four hour cut-off and be 'allowed' to do another lap. Another lap was out of the question! Now I was faced with a quandary; do I deliberately ease even more, miss the cut and have the decision not to do another lap made for me or do I press on and deliberately 'pull out'. I passed through the start/finish and the guy shouted 'go on you'll get another lap' . I pressed the stop button on my gps and it read 03:59:58. Their official time was 03:59:25.

It was frustrating as I been going so well and no one in the latter part of the race passed me with any pace. Still, I'm pleased that my strength has returned and I managed to get tenth in the vets without eating :-)

Paul managed another lap and took 9th place vets.

Marin winter series round one

Me and Paul rode the first round of the winter series yesterday. This year the weather was good, 9'C and and dry, with no mud to speak of. 500 had signed up to start.






I warmed up by riding to the first bombhole to see the lines, as this is where there is usually a bottle neck of people peering over the edge. To help warming up I wore a gilet, I wouldn't need it to race. I lined up at the start on the second row and there was a minute's silence for poppy day. Just as I took off my gilet to put it in my pocket the klaxon went and I was stuck with my hands behind my back as everyone surged forward. doh! I managed to stuff it in my pocket and set off in pursuit. I caught Paul just before the bombhole, he'd passed me at the start and had been at least three rows behind me.

Luckily, we reached the bombhole with the first wave of capable riders and everyone rode straight into it, as I came back around it there was already a huge queue of stationary riders. Into the first singletrack and my legs are really hurting, I don't feel particularly out of breath but there's no power in my legs. So, I sit and spin and hope they get better. Out of the singletrack onto fire road to the second bombhole, this one was great - A steep four metre drop-in to a right hand berm, then part way up the opposite banking into a left hand berm, around a tree and back down in the direction we'd entered to exit on a sharp kick a couple of metres along from the entry point......excellent!

A bit more fire into some singletrack and then a long straight descent completely covered in fallen leaves. This was quite exciting because I had no idea what was underneath the leaves, and it was a matter of ..."what you couldn't see wouldn't hurt you" :-) I was able to use the smallest sprocket for this, but still couldn't get completely on top of the gear. A ninety degree right turn then took us up to the finish/start line. Normally, I'm feeling a bit nauseous for the first couple of laps, but I just had sore legs. I carried on like this for five more laps feeling worse and worse, when coming out of the first bombhole for the seventh time I stood on the pedals and the bike surged forward! Suddenly I was ripping through the singletrack out of the saddle, overtaking loads of people wtf! I started to feel good at last.

I'm not sure what to put my bad form down to, I had done a fastish 40km the day before and had a not too hard massage the night before. The only thing that I hadn't done was to massage my legs with deep heat before the race.

I managed eight laps in 4:23:43 Paul came in about a minute and half later. I was 7th. and Paul 8th. Vets.

Iron Cross

The Mighty Dinsdale takes 18th ladies (no vets) and KB is 50th in the vets. Hopefully one of them has taken some pictures.


Some pics here: Tom Miller

Trailbreak

This weekend is the annual trailbreak ride from Evans at Gatwick. Trailbreak

Me and Jane will be doing the mtb event on Saturday, lots of the SWRC are doing the Sunday road bike sportif. I thought about doing the road event, but I think we are doing a hash event on Sunday.

The long route is normally about 50-60 kms. Me and Jane will ride to the event from Dorking, about 25 km each way, making a good training ride for Thetford.

The Sugarloaf from the east

Ramon, juanita and the lco hiked and ran to the top of the Sugarloaf mountain in Abergavenny from the east side today, keeping our pledge to take one weekend a month off the bike to hike and run.

At the top we met a begging sheep who bullied the lco into giving up her energy bar, the woolly bully then began to flirt with Ramon for the Mr. Toms peanut bar he had in his pocket.

A good strenuous day in the hills, the lco is now beginning to keep up on the downhills too!

some pics here: sugarloaf

The Iron Cross

Julie the mighty Dinsdale leaves for NYC on Wednesday to compete in the Iron Cross, a US version of the three peaks cross.

It's 100 km with 2000m of climbing.

From the website: Iron Cross

This isn't a dirt road race nor a mountain bike race - it is a course that favors a 'cross rider on a 'cross bike. The race will start and end with a lap with barriers at Camp Thompson and you might run into some barriers at spots along the course to remind you that it's a 'cross race. Bring your climbing legs. The course is mostly fire-roads with some trails interspersed. The trails may contain sections where you will want to get off your 'cross bike and run, but for the most part will be 'cross bikeable. There are three run-ups. "Run-up" is a term used loosely and very open to interpretation.

Blog: Alicia Parr that's her in the picture with the mahoosive iron cross, I want one!!

Good luck JD bring your Iron Cross to Dorking for us to see when you get back.

Grand Traverseé du Limousin

This looks nice, a three day race in Limousin (wiki ) at the beginning of May, for teams of four. I found it on this excellent blog - statobiker . He has moved to the area and it details his road and mtb exploits in and around Limousin. He sounds a bit quick! :-)

The Abha Trophy

Gunther sent me a link for this race in Saudi Arabia, which he and Tim are doing this year in October. They asked if I wanted to go with them, but I'd already booked a training week in ibiza.

http://www.abhatrophy.com

Maybe next year.

3 peaks X cancelled! :-(

Damn I'd just increased my running in Wales at the weekend.

Entries are being carried over to next year.



http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/cyx/News2007/20070917_3_peaks_off.asp

Cross training

lco, juanita and ramon took to the hills in Brecon for a bit of training for the three peaks cyclo X.

lco used an onboard hydration system for the first time and tried a gel which enabled her to power up the last big climb of the day!

juanita practised running for the Thames Meander.

ramon remembered how hard the three peaks cross was last year!

fotos here: flickr

the Thames Meander

Anyone fancy something bonkers in February?

site here: thames meander

Trans Schwarzwald - how it went for the Sundayriders

Stage 1: Pforzeim - Bad Wildbad

The race begins:

Having just returned from the very tough Ironbike two weeks previously, with Jane not sure of her form and insisting she was going to take it easy. I was prepared for a holiday of cycle touring through the Black Forest.

After a nice 8k of neutralised zone, we stopped and prepared for the race start proper. Go, and everyone got off and walked the first uphill. Once over the top,we with met some fire road where kb kicked off with jd on his wheel. Jane soon responded and I began to yo-yo off the back. At the next fire road climb, Jane took the front and I found my climbing legs to just about hang with her. She'll soon ease up. I thought, she hasn't got the km's in her legs. 4 hours 24 minutes later I'm still hanging on as we cross the line in 5th place of the mixed category. Still she won't be able to do that tomorrow.... We are 25 seconds behind the 4th placed Bad Wildbad team.

Stage 2: Bad Wildbad - Bad Schapbach.

A lesson taught, a lesson learnt:

We get a good start on a steep asphalt track, putting distance into everyone around us. After a bit of up and down with me hanging onto Jane's wheel, I notice her body language change and the pace quicken slightly. This can mean only one thing........another mixed team ahead! They turn out to be the very strong 3rd placed team who put 25 minutes into us yesterday. My idea is to hang on to their wheel as long as we can, Jane has other ideas. And, in the true belligerent style of a young Lance Armstrong attacking 'le Patron'. She launches an attack on the next rise, they immediately respond and after about 10 minutes flat out, we drop back with a bloodied nose ;) and they rocket off into the distance. We'd like to think that we gave them a scare, but in reality I think we amused them :-) This has pushed me into the red and we have to ease a while to recover. On the last climb, a hike section, I hear a female voice. I see one of the mixed teams and JD. Jane puts puts on a spurt and rides the ridiculously muddy technical downhill(that has lots of people over the bars, notably our own Jim :-)) into the arena to finish 4th mixed. 46 seconds in front of Bad Wildbad. We are 4th overall mixed by 21 seconds!

Stage 3: Bad Schapbach - Wolfach

'Apply pressure relentless pressure, no mistakes' - kb

The Bad Wildbad team came past us just after the fist climb today, with JD in tow. She gave us her wheel and pulled us back to them. We rode with them from now on, Markus puting in strong bursts whenever the trail was flat. Jane's descending improved a lot today and in some instances they were holding us up on the way down. At around five km to go Jane began to weaken a little, changes in pace don't suit her very well, and they began to creep away slightly. At two km to go they made their move. As they attacked all out on the last climb I saw Markus jump off his bike and pull at his chain. He'd jammed his chain around the bottom bracket. Pressure applied mistakes made; now we attacked. He saw us coming and picked up his bike and ran. As we passed him Petra was waiting at the top of the last technical descent, he shouted for her to go, go! Toooo late! Jane had spotted this and cut the corner into the downhill, getting in front now she couldn't hold us up. We came out of the descent onto a small road and a few hundred metres to the finish. Jane was gone in a flash and I had to chase hard, we looked at each other and wondered if we should wait for them and ride back together. We settled for offering commiserations once we'd crossed the line ;-)

Stage 4: Wolfach - Schonach

Hitch a lift on the pink train

Today's stage looked to be the stage for us, a nice hilly profile of six km climb to start and an 8km climb in the middle. We now had 90 seconds on our fifth place rivals Bad Wildbad. We decided to ride with them and let them work for it. Somehow we managed to get in front of them on the first climb and just before it became tight singletrack for the next three km, Jane pushed hard to get past a very slow team struggling as the climb steepened. Result!! No one would be able to pass them for 3 km's. We pushed hard now to get some distance on the other paired teams and then cruised the rest of the stage, staying out of the red and taking it easy, and at one point hanging on to the back of the Pink Ladies as they hammered past on a flat bit. In their haste to catch us our rivals took a wrong turn and lost time(suspiciously JD was with them:)

Stage 5: Schonach - Engen

Out on the wiley and windy moors we'd roll and fall in green....' kb

116 km a bad stage for us. Not the distance,but the profile. A pimple at either end with around 40 km of rolling stuff in the middle. This was a stage for the strong riders and flat landers. We expected to lose time on this stage and maybe even 4th place. We got over the first bump well with our rivals nowhere in sight. On the early part of the flat section some of the bigger boys and girls started to pass us. Then Bad Wildbad passed us going very strongly, slosely followed by the mixed swiss team of Max and Birgit. This was the oldest team in the race, and Max is bulit like a horse and sooo strong on the flat. We just had to watch them go. Some time later, Frank and Irina of the Vaude team eased up to our wheel. They waited a minute or two, must have decided that we were having a bad day and attacked. I was very impressed because it was sooooooo slick. Irina came through very fast on the opposite side of the track alone. When we didn't react Frank sprinted past and slotted straight in front of Irina, who hadn't changed pace at all. And they were gone... fabulous! We kept to our plan of damage limitation and rode steadily, begging for the hills to arrive soon.

Stage 6: Engen - Grafenburg

Team tactics - putting a man up the road.

This stage starts with a six km climb, good for us, but at the top of the climb the race is stopped. There is a wild bull on the trail! After ten minutes, the race slowly resumes and we pass the most beautiful fluffy long haired 'teddy cow 'corralled behind an electric fence. This effectively removes any advantage we had just gained on our rivals. We set off hard, knowing that bad Wildbad are close behind. We hold them off until the flat section around the midway point, when they come barrelling past on the otherside of the trail. Jane immediately jumps onto Petra's wheel and tucks in. I take a little while to bridge the gap, Markus is pulling us along at 40 kph! I wonder how long we can hold this,and how long Markus can too. We hit the bottom of the next steep climb at this speed and they slow up dramatically. This catapults us up the climb and we hit it hard. We meet Jim and Paul here and ride the rest of the climb with them. At the top they give us a tow and we start to put some time into Bad Wildbad. At the check point I sprint ahead grab a bottle of water and Jane rides straight through, Paul and Jim stop to eat. Ten minutes later they catch us again and report that they hadn't seen Bad Wildbad. They have though, pulled the Belgian mixed team up to us. We let Paul and Jim go, and ride for a while with the Belgians. We drop them on the last climb of the day and they come in behind us, but in front of Bad Wildbad.

Stage 7: Grafenburg - Niederhof.

float like a butterly...... Mohammed Ali

Our rivals, Bad Wildbad are seen riding up and down the hill at the start. Warming up, for one last ditch attack? No point, Jane is absolutley flying today and I spend the whole stage just hanging on to her wheel! There are two small small glitches: when we take a sharp left hand bend and there's a small patch of gravel in the centre. I see Jane's front wheel slide and then the back. She recovers the slide but must have grabbed a handful of front brake and is almost stationary when the bike endos and pushes her to the ground. She's back up quickly, but has lost a bit of confidence on the next couple of bends. Then a couple of km away from the finish I see Jane wobbling around and looking at her leg. She's been stung by a wasp! We push on and cross the finishing line, where a glass of beer and a finishers tee shirt are thrust into our hands!



Epilogue: A great race in a beautiful part of Germany. Made all the more fantastic by having our own pit babe the lco, who for a plate of frits and a glass of beer looked after us all week. We met some great people, who helped make it a great trip: Team pink ladies and their pit babe, Rolf and Adrian, Markus and Petra, Frank and Irina, Nel and Michel, Rik, Kai, Sebastian....

Trans Schwarzwald

Sundayriders fourth place in the mixed category!

Skidmarks thirteenth in the masters category!

Julie finished the race alone, as KB had to return home at short notice. She would have finished around 6th or 7th, if her times were counted.

Race fotos here: TSW

A very enjoyable race.

After competing in most of the other 'biggest, longest, highest, bestest, baddest' multiday events, at first I thought I was going to be a little underwhelmed by this race ie: the late starts(10am), the short stages, no mountains to speak of, the fire roads and fir trees etc. I struggled during the race to understand why I was enjoying it, then I realised I was racing! In all of the other stage races, I've really only been riding to finish every ie trying to avoid the cut-off.

Here, I was eating well, sleeping well, recovering and getting up to race the next day. I was enjoying the intensity of the competition against other riders. Up there with the 'biggest baddest...etc for me was the raciest multiday race. :-))

foto lco

Trans Schwarzwald

Tomorrow(Thursday) me and the lco set off for Germany. We will drive to Reims, take the second star from the right and straight on 'til morning. At Pforzheim we will hopefully liaise with Jane, Paul and Jim who fly out on Saturday to Stuttgart. The Mighty D is also arriving on Saturday, but via Munich, I think. Kb will of course fly via some circuitous route involving half the globe:-)

I will be blogging via my flickr account And then move them over to this blog when we return. You will need a flickr account to comment on the fotos, but this is easy. Even Aunty Beryl can do it!!! :-) :-)

OWE

Ando and Daniel have put their story of the Ironbike up with some photos here: the madness has a name...

Stage 6 Pragelato to Chaberton

The Queen stage:

At breakfast it was announced that only the first 50 people reaching the last Check point would race on to Fort Chaberton, where they would spend the night in the ruins.

I was bitterly disappointed, my whole reason for the trip was to climb the mountain to Chaberton - the symbol of the whole race to me. I was lying around 65th at the time and felt like pulling out of the race there and then.

But, first we have to be taken to the start of the race, this means a 15 minute freezing cold chair lift to the top of the mountain. This time I accept their kind offer of a warm green quilted jacket. I wear it like a smoking jacket, but for some reason the danish men amongst us snatch this opportunity to wear it as a skirt! I don't know much about Denmark and so must accept this behaviour as normal :-) Here is where I pick up my first real injury of the race. As the chair swings under my legs, the chain ring stabs into my knee cap and draws blood....ouch!

The start of the stage was a fast, and in places, very steep wooded singletrack. I managed to get a good start not far behind the fast boys and was able to hold on through the technical descent. A fast wide trail then ran alongside the river where I could roll a big gear. The next section was an asphalt climb of about eight km's. I attacked this as hard as I could out of the saddle all the way up. Later I spotted Ludmilla and tried to stay with her. Another eight km's or so of off-road double track followed and then some ups and downs, where the air smelled strongly of coriander. I couldn't see any, but it was incredibly strong and and made me feel a little bit giddy with it's pungency......delicious. This led to a sharp peak with antennae on top. This was a hike-a-bike section extreme! I had fitted my ironbike carrying strap (...... patent pending:-)) and used it in anger for the first time.

At the CP at the top I saw Benoit, one of the Belgians who bears a striking resemblance to Paul's favourite tdf rider... Vinikourov, tucking into the food. I thought he must be having a bad day as I've never ridden in his company before. I passed through and left him there.

The next 14km was a mix of off-road, road and singletrack descent that dropped me into the CP and to my disbelief people are still setting off to Chaberton! I run around trying to find if I can still go and Lana and Andre grab my bike take it to the front and I run to get some food. They and Gianfranco push me over the line with a jam sandwich.

-Lana and Andre were a wonderful dutch couple we met in the food queue on the first night in Entraque. Andre was racing the Ironbike himself, but crashed out quite spectacularly on day two and spent the rest of the week wearing a neck brace and hobbling around on crutches -

My mind is still a blur, as I set off for Chaberton. I made it, then whoops! I nearly go off a loose bend. I get a bit paranoid in case I crash and don't make it. Then a flying thing gets under my helmet strap and stings or bites me, it's very painful and now I start to worry about anaphalaxis preventing me from finishing today :-) It's now very hot as I start the first part of the climb, some locals pass water to me and one woman runs alongside me and tips a full jug of ice cold water over my groin!!! I yell loudly in shock and everybody laughs - it must be how they amuse themselves in the mountains :-)

Mount Chaberton on Google earth here: You need google earth installed on your machine.

From here we head off-road, at first shaded by trees and then opens up to the grey rock of the mountain itself. Soon it's impossible to ride and I start to push, the track becomes narrower and much more rocky and I shoulder the bike using my carrying device. An hour later and I drink the last of my water and I have no food. It is still blisteringly hot. I assume that there will be water on the trail somewhere, but I can't see anything as I look up the mountain - only the track winding on for ever. For the next two hours I carry the bike, occasionally getting a chance to push it on the smoother sections. I'm beginning to feel quite thirsty and dizzy from hunger. Now the mountain rears up quite steeply and as I look up, I see a figure walking quite sprightly down the trail. I say hello and he says. " I am hiking to Cesana. I have told them to send water down, everyone has been asking for water. Do you have water?" I say I have no food or water. He replies " I have no water, but I have some biscuits." And before I can protest he hands me half a dozen. I thank him, put them into my pack and press on. Now is the real test. I'm a vegan, but are the biscuits? I'm feeling very hungry and quite dizzy from the low blood sugar. I decide that I can't be sure if the biscuits are safe for me to eat. I look to see if my friendly benefactor is nearby, he's not. I cast the biscuits down the mountain, so that they can't tempt me anymore. I rationalise this by telling myself that "I'm hungry, but not starving" In my addled state I start to think it was a test, the IB is testing me to see if I am strong enough. "Yes, that's it, it was a test" I say to myself......... "Get thee behind me Satan, begone!" ........ :-)

An hour later, I'm three hairpin bends from the finish and breathing is a little more difficult at over three thousand metres of altitude. I carry the bike for 30 steps and rest, 30 steps and rest....... until the top hoves into view and I see the finish line, I stagger across and they write down my number and that's it! No cheers, no fanfare just my rasping breath. I see a bottle of water on the table, take it and down it in one. All around people are lying around in the warm rays of the evening sun, all wearing red fleece jackets, black fleece leggings and white hats. Claudia grabs me and drags me into the ruined building and I am surprised to be walking in six inches of snow! And it's cold, freezing cold, I immediately begin to chill and shake. Claudia hands me a bundle of clothing and shows me to my bed in the snow. I rush outside to get some heat and get changed. Tim, one of the Belgian guys, takes this picture:

copyright: Tim Vandendaele.

I find my bag that had been sent up - we had to hand in a small bag at registration, containing riding kit for the day after Chaberton - in it I had stashed two energy bars and packet of noodles. Once I'd devoured these, I started to feel a bit better and thought I'd better get a few photographs. I sat on the peak and asked Heinrich to take my picture, an oldish distinguished looking guy moved up next to me and smiled to the camera.

I didn't know who this chap was but found this later on the IB website:

Turin Major Chiamparino climbed the Mountain by feet, in the morning,and was
there to plause the first to come. He was together with the majors ofClavière,
Cesana and Montgenèvre.

Politicians!..... never miss a photo opportunity:-)

I sit on the edge of the mountain and phone Jane in Ibiza, it sounds like she's a few feet away. Tentatively, she says. "Did you get up the mountain?" I say."yes". I hear Yaaaaaaaaaay! and then Yaaaaaaaaaay! in the background, it's LCO on the extension. After several euros worth of yaaaaaays(it's expensive to call Ibiza from Italy), Jane confesses that they'd been practising commiseration platitudes all day. Such as: Never mind I'm sure you tried your best, There's always next time.......etc. So I guess I must have caught them unprepared :-)

As the sun sets it begins to get very cold, someone lights a huge bonfire and warms up an equally huge vat of red wine. We tuck into some pasta..........siempre pasta!

The sky was so clear that you could see a billion stars.

Stage 5 Torre Pellice to Pragelato

La Scala Reale (The Royal Stair Case)


We roll out of Torre Pellice on cobbles to start the huge 20km first climb to the colle de Vaccera, then we have a nice technical downhill to follow.






Sometime later I find myself on a long steep busy road, when I hear shouting. I look across and on the other side of the river I see three IB riders, somehow I've missed a sign so turn back and find a bridge a km or so down the road. The trail now wanders along the river, occasionally crossing bridges for forays into small hamlets and then back to the river. I pass Jurgen the friendly Austrian fixing a flat and wailing in despair"It voz a nail" he says. "A nail, a nail on ze road, how can zis be?" and as I ride up the road I can still hear "A nail, a nail on ze road.....how?"


A little further on I meet Paul, he's in a bad way, so I decide to ride with him. we ride past huge beautiful lakes and gradually the huge fort of Fenestrelle comes into view. Rising up the side of the valley and perched on the top of a pinnacle is a fairy tale style castle. We cross the road, enter the walls and zig zag our way up a steep ramp to the gate. And shoulder the bikes for a wide set of stone steps to the court yard. This is the start of a special stage and has a CP stacked with food, Paul tells me to try the bread and tomato and...........

......today was the day I discovered bruschetta (pron.brooshkettah locally) At home we might call it tomato sandwiches. In Italy it is a devine feast! Ingredients: A hunk of bread, some chopped tomato, some basil, some sunshine, lots of laughing and loads of loud talking! Ridiculously tasty, it made me bend double in delight :-)

We decided to get moving and rolled down to the start of the special stage, as we got there Paul stopped to fiddle with his bike and I set off. Paul came through the start a minute or so later and called up to me. I stopped and waited for him and we hiked and carried the bikes the 4 km or so of steep spiral track that wound it's way around the peak to the top.

Now is the bit we've been waiting for, the Scala Reale 900 steps back down to where we started the climb. Initially the steps are rideable and then we move into the fort and so pitch blackness, now the height of the steps starts to vary and some are missing altogether. In the darkest parts volunteers are shining torches. I try to bail out on one of these sections and hit the wall with my shoulder, leaving a lovely manly graze on my right deltoid. Once outside again we ride bits and walk bits, quite disappointed at how much we have to walk. At the bottom Paul nips past to the stage finish.



Meanwhile at the front of the race sometime earlier:

from the IB site-

Many of them make all steps on the saddle (unbelivable) others, instead, come down with the bike on the shoulder. It’s exactly on one of those external starways that the brazilian rider does not succeed to brake properly. He falls down, careless of the safety protections. He raises immediately after, under the eyes of emergency personnel that was there to take care of him. He starts again and continues with a scratched arm, while the Cezck Sibl Radoslav and his fried Miroslav were behind him, fighting with the steps of the covered stairway.
The fall, gives the brasilian a new force, never seen. He assults the steps with increased determination and comes down until he reaches the square at the feet of the fortress. He detaches Sibl of 6 minutes by because of coefficient 2, minutes become 12. Therefor, in the general classement Hugo Prado Neto is always 2nd but with just 25 points of distance from Sibl.

Now it's just a steady 12 km to Pragelato. It's very hot and the steady ride turns out to be a roller coaster of short sharp climbs each higher than the next, followed by cruel sharp descents that steal any height gained. Paul is seriously flagging now and getting slower and slower, I ease back to wait several times. Eventually we reach the outskirts of the town and are joined by a group of Belgian guys, one them of does a bit of a jokey sprint as we approach the finish and because I'm feeling a bit fresh from riding slowly with Paul, I have a bit of a dig too. Great fun.

Tonight's camp is in a pine wood at the edge of town, and we pitch between the trees.

I go down to tea, and see Paul and he says I've checked the results and we're still in the race and under 50,000 points. We managed to get some potatoes which is unusual and delicious.






I decide to go back to get my gps that I've left charging in the massage room. While I'm there I have look at the results. It's true we are still in the race, but I notice that Paul is now above me in the standings. I assume that they've made a mistake and reversed our finishing times, but can't understand why Paul didn't mention it earlier when he checked the points. At this point Paul and Claus appear and I say 'I think they've mixed us up when we came in today. Paul then explains that it's not only where you come overall but also how fast you do the special stages and today's special stage was double points.


I feel that this is crazy , because it feels like I been penalised by the race for helping a mate when he wasn't going to well.
I could have ridden back by myself and saved time, in fact I could have pressed on at the fort when he held back at the beginning of the special stage and called up to me, when I waited. Or when I helped with his rotor and he jumped past at the end of the special stage.............er hold on a minute. And the day after the rotor incident when he suddenly jumped ahead over the special stage finish line, which I mentioned at the time and he said "It doesn't make any difference, you started after me". ............mmmm.

As I lay in my tent I started laughing to myself when I realised what could have been happening :-)


Did he know all along? As I write this I hear a loud and definite shout in reply from those who know Paul....." Of course he did! It's soooooo Paul" ................ But, I'm not sure.

Tomorrow is the day I'm looking forward to, we go to Mount Chaberton!


90km

I took 9.26 Paul 9.29

Stage 4 Barge to Torre Pellice

The lost hour.

Today was a later start after last night's celebrations, and consequently everyone felt relaxed and that it was all over bar the shouting. Even when Claudia announced that an hour was being taken off today's limit no one batted an eyelid.

At the 9.00 am start it was already very hot and we set off up a baking asphalt climb out of Barge. This first climb was effectively 26 km's and soon moved onto a steep tree covered off road climb that became very dark and humid. Here I found Paul crouched over his bike. I stopped to help, but he said he was ok and I rolled on. After passing colle de Rucas, a renowned ski resort, we topped out on the colleto Super Valanza. The descent was a wide white chalky powdered track into a quarry, with huge lorries full of stone coming in the opposite direction.

From the ironbike website:

.....From Rucas athletes go up and down the Col Valanza (1530 m) passing on rough streets full of stones falled down from the trucks that work in this area. Infact, in this valley, the famous “stone of Barge” is produced. It is used for pavements and roofs, all over the world.



I took a wrong turn here but was called back almost immediately by the riders Paul was with. I only lost about 500m but it took half an hour to get back up to Paul, he was strong today. After some rolling up and down stuff, we suddenly came to an almost vertical climb. Paul shows me how to shoulder the bike and we hike-a-bike to the top. An almost as steep descent follows where Paul goes over the bars on a muddy section. He's ok, so I roll on.






At the CP Paul rolls in just as I'm about to leave and says we'd better hurry, there's only four hours to get back.
There's a short descent which leads to the climb of the day ,15 km's the rifiugio Barant. The climb began with an impossibly steep asphalt section, I was in 32/34 and standing for the few km's. After five km's the road became a rough double track, now in the sun the temperature was 35'C plus. The road winds up and up, I glue myself to the backwheel of a friendly Italian rider. I ask the time at the top and realise that It's taken three hours and have an hour to cover almost 30 km's , luckily it's all downhill.....according to the map anyway. I need to be back before 6.30pm

I have to average 30kph! I set off down the loose gravel off-road hairpinned descent, as fast as I dare go, the bike sliding around all over the place. But, as is always the case in Ironbike the downs are full of ups too! And I now feel time slipping away from me, this starts doing things to me emotionally
At first I start to feel angry with ironbike for taking an hour off todays time limit and have a bit of a shout at them. Next I'm frustrated with myself for being weak and not training hard enough, so I have a bit of a shout at myself. Then I start to think about all of the people who've wished me well, and I'm consumed with an enormous and overwhelming sense of shame. Shame that I'm out of the race already, shame that I'm not trying hard enough, shame that I'm letting everybody down, shame that everyone's faith in me is being squandered.
I think about each person who has wished me well : Jane, LCO, Maam, tios Grim and Beryl, Greg, The mighty D, KB..... Then the weird stuff happens and I start crying, sobbing with tears running down my face. I start to draw a lot of strength from this, then I pray........Is this the road to Damascus?
15 km's of asphalt left and I'm flying, big ring and chain fully to the right. I like to think I'm gritting my teeth, but it somehow feels like a beatific grin :-). It's still very close and I cross the finish line and knowing that I'm within a few minutes either side of 6.30. I ask a guy watching the race what the time is and he says 5.27 and I think excellent three minutes inside the time.
As I walk away I realise that he said five not six, and I walk back and say six? "No, five" he says.

I'm too weirded to work out what has happened, so I get my bag and tent.

On the way in I hear "Vegeteriano!" and see Chef waving to me. He's found me some Italiano veggie burgers and gives me a packet. It seems I've become his pet Vegetariano solo- their term for vegan :-) Just another example of how considerate and friendly the IB is.

Tonight we camp inside an ice rink and pitch the tents on the concrete base, the other end is set up for tea. I have a little lie down and and Paul comes over and says " Did you make the cut off?" I said. "Yes" And he tells me that he didn't. I then explain that we didn't need to be in until 6.30 and he smiles. We work out that somehow he'd heard we'd got nine hours to finish(which we had after deducting an hour from the original ten hours)and had taken the hour from the nine. So, he thought we'd only got eight hours for the day!

After tea I noticed Claudia had posted something on the wall. It was a print out of the messages that friends and family had put on the website. It was wonderful, everybody I been thinking about earlier had sent us both well wishes and luck. Now I had that stupid happy grin again.

Later, I wandered the short way into town. Torre Pellice (pron.torray pelleechay) had put on a little show for us in the main piazza. It was about 10pm and a gently warm evening, people were sitting eating gelato, walking arm in arm or just chatting in groups. In the piazza they were sitting in orderly rows, oldsters all in deck chairs watching the show.

The show was a middle aged songstress in tight jeans 'giving it large' to trashy europop, ie Born to be alive..etc - with a gaggle of local teen girls doing an enthusiastic synchronised dance routine in the background. Stupendous!!!!

distance 78km
I take 7.57 and Paul 8.26

Stage 3 La Condamine to Barge

The Bargesi throw a party.

At breakfast it throws it down! It's not looking good as we line up to start in the pouring rain at 7'C, and so 20 riders decide not to start today.

The stage started as a long 20 km grey climb that lasted for ever, I met Paul at the CP and where everything suddenly got better. A switch to narrow singletrack with a huge drop to the left and then some stupid steep rocky descents where I was able to overtake lots of people who were walking. Some hikers went past in the opposite direction and I said 'Good morning' and one said "are you English? We're walking to the Med."....bonkers!

At the next CP it was blisteringly hot and Paul sat in a van, before we attacked the Col de Longet. A lot of this was a very difficult carry, sometimes climbing and the dragging the bike up after or helping other riders to pull their bikes up. As the col opened out it revealed beautiful lakes and huge grassy prairees. Then up 15 km's to the Colle del Prete and back into Italy for 20 km's of very technical downhill, culminating in some woodsy singletrack to Barge. My feet are sore!!!!

Barge is a special town for the Ironbike and the Bargesi put on a special party in our honour. In the large sports hall of today's campo base (pron. bazzay), rows of tables had been laid with bread, wine and water. Center stage was the local crooner singing along to backing tracks. The songs were performed in Italian, but were almost recognisable British pop songs. A few notes would ring a bell and you'd think 'I know this one!' and then it would slip back into a soupy euro schmaltzy croon:-) ...absolutely fabulous!

I retired to bed early to catch up on some sleep. The Bargesi had other ideas. Half an hour later there was a loud bang, the ground shook and the sky lit up! The fireworks!! I'd forgotten about them and they were directly above. I lay, trying to ignore them for a while, but then got paranoid that sparks might set my tent alight.

Paul was outside enjoying the spectacle, as were the locals. Who'd lined up chairs in an orderly fashion to sit and watch the show. It looked like a night at the opera as everyone sat, clapped and applauded each individual battery of fireworks. Until the grand finale when everyone cheered to a standing ovation. This seemed to be how it was done. Each time there was a show the locals would sit in a quite restrained manner to be entertained, and then show their appreciation with rousing applause. L'Italia è bella :-)

distance 116 km

Today I took 11.00 and Paul 11.30

Stage 2 San Damiano to La Condamine (fr.)

Today we needed lights!!

Over the top of the first climb I start to descend some really rough stuff and a couple of hikers start to shout "Bolsa, bolsa and point at me. I stop and remember that bolsa means bag. My under saddle bag is swinging loose only held on by a few threads. As I move off the trail Paul passes, that's the last I'll see of him I think. It takes a couple of minutes to find some way to tie my bag on and I set off. This is a great slightly cambered singletrack and very fast and enjoyable. But, less than five minutes later I see Paul, this time he's in trouble by the trail... I stop.
His rear brake rotor has come loose and the bolts are lost. He has two in his hand, I reason that three should hold it and take one of mine from the rear.

The trail now enters a huge rockfield with big drops and slabs of slick rock. I overtake team mamiani here and make good time until I find a gap that the front wheel fits perfectly and I go over the bars. I hang back a to see if Paul's ok, he catches up and then sprints past for the finish of the special stage.

At the CP luckily there's a mechanic and he has spare rotor bolts for us both, and we set off together. On a long fast asphalt descent, I notice that it's getting quite cold. After crossing a few beautiful bridges and through small tunnels, we head to the next climb.

After starting the climb of the Col de Vars, with a group, I find myself with just a Catalunyan guy at the top. We work together on the descent which takes us to Les Claux. Here, I'm a little bit confused as we pull into a cable car station. Senor Catalan explains that we take a car up the mountain!......bonkers, I must have missed this in the briefing. We share, then spend a nice ten minutes talking about why Catalunya is not in Spain:-) We disembark and ride part way back down the mountain to get on a chairlift over the next part of the mountain. Here the nice French operator bloke takes my bike, stands me on the platform, gives me the bike to hold at chest height and points over my shoulder. At that moment a chair swings in behind me and sweeps my legs from underneath me and I'm away up the mountain trying desperately to hold my bike and grip the swinging seat with my buttocks. Once the seat stops rocking about I find I can pass one arm through the frame work of the armrest and relax a bit. At this point Paul passes underneath on his way to the station.

At the top the next descent is footpath designated and the race is only allowed to use it if we respect this and don't ride.

From the check point at the bottom we climb the 10km col de Parpaillon on wide off-road double track. Then we discover why we need lights, at the summit is the Tunnel de Parpaillon.

Taken from the Internet Landrover Club website:

The road was built by the french army's corps of engineers in the late
1800's. What makes it special is the high altitude of 2656m and the 800m long
tunnel on top. After the invention of tarmac the neighbouring Col de Vars was
granted a hard surface as it offered access to the same regions at 500m lower
altitude


We were stopped at the mouth of the Tunnel by French soldiers and given rather fetching and warm looking green quilted jackets. I declined the offer and set off into the dark.....it was freeeeeezing!!!. It was full of huge puddles of crank deep icy water, I was shaking with cold when I eventually got to the other side of the tunnel.


Now only an 18km off-road descent of loose gravel hairpins to finish..hurrah! Five km's later I have to stop to rest my hands and feet! And then again...etc


The last few km's are fabulous rocky singletrack switchbacks which drop us into camp.


distance - 118km

I came in at 11hrs 15mins and Paul 11.34

From the IB site:

As a note: applause to the French tandem team that after the stage was obliged
to abandon the race, for a technical problem. They trained so hard! And were
defeated by the brakes (two sets has been changed since the beginning of the
IB!).

Stage 1 Entracque to San Damiano

At 80km this was to be a nice introduction to Ironbike.

We started on a nice long asphalt descent for 6 km. Then a steep off-road climb which immediately had me in the 22/34 which I didn't change for the whole 8km!!

I caught Paul on the first off-road descent, which was unusual. When we hit a descent I normally don't see him again! He said he was having trouble getting used to riding a hardtail. The terrain ensured that over the next few days he relearned the ways of the hardtail:-)

On an exposed singletrack section at the top with Paul riding behind me, the helicopter suddenly appeared from behind the mountain in front of us, I think the pilot was enjoying himself in the Apocalypse Now style. He then swooped towards quite closely and as he passed the force from the rotors blew me off the bike.

Cue....Bernard Manning style jokes from Paul about me "getting blown off" as he rode past.


On the last asphalt climb to the finish I saw a group working together in front so eased up to them and we worked together for the last few km's. The approach to the town lit up by the low sun was stunning, and the church front glowed golden in it's rays.

Campo base here was in a beautiful sunny field and tea was held in the small piazza in town


Altogether a nice steady ride to introduce the Ironbike.

Ride time for me was about 6hrs.24m. Paul was 6.38

San Damiano is named after the run down church in Assisi, where St Francis(one of my favourite saints)heard the word of God from the painted cross, telling him to restore God's house. After repairing St Damiano, Francis later realised that God meant him to restore the Church as a whole:-) aww bless... Wiki

Ironbike prologue

The big storm closed Gatwick airport at lunch time for a short while, just long enough to stop our flight to Turin. We were given a flight from Heathrow to Paris, and then Paris to Turin the next day(with overnight accomodation thrown in.)Four hours later we arrived at Heathrow, our flight was delayed three hours. So,in Paris after midnight we only had three hours to check in. We slept on the floor.
At check in we were charged for excess luggage,Paul disagreed and asked for our luggage to be taken off the plane. So we missed that flight. Five hours later we arrived in Turin and were met by Gianfranco and after a bonkers two hour drive with Gianfranco at times with his specs over his sunglasses to see signs, we arrived at Entracque(pron.Entrakway) the village depart.

Gianfranco became a good friend, and was the man to know. He and the chef helped us out a lot.

The prologue itself consisted of ski run into the village. The course was about 1.5 km., with two 30%+ descents on grass!

A couple of km's climbing on asphalt to reach the start showed that three hours of sleep is not a good way to start an eight day race :-)

The Big Storm

Bah!!!!!! Stuck in Gatwick!!!!!

Three Peaks cyclo X

We're in! Me, Kb and the Mighty Dinsdale. They must have turned Facer down for some reason, he doesn't appear on the list.


http://www.3peakscyclocross.org.uk/entry_list_2007.htm

Ironbike Italy

Me and Facer are going to Italy today!!!

I'm a little frightened. They are talking about wolves.


The website has been updated and well wishers can send a message on a neat little gadget.Ironbike Italy

2nd Place for the Mighty Dinsdale!

Uber Dee takes second at the twentyfour12 in her 12 hour solo category.

The weather wasn't too bad and was apparently a race of two halves.



foto:j murray http://www.muzphoto.com/

Results are up on www.xcracer.com

Lots of nice pics on Joolze's site

The Three peaks is full!

A record number of entries here:Three peaks forum

I don't know if any of us are in yet, John has to get back from le grand depart to sort it out:-)

Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross 2007

The entry forms are up early.


Here: 3peaks

Last year the Mighty D nd KB both won prizes, I want one this year.

(I bought my second set of running shoes today:-))