Month: July 2017

Saturday 15^th July – Salzkammergut Trophy marathon XC race, Bad Goisern, Austria

Back at the end of last year I was sat in a hotel bar in Copenhagen when I received a call from a friend that lives in Austria. He invited me over to have a go at a marathon XC race local to him and after a quick check with the wife for permission I was signed up for the B race before I knew it. It was only the next day that I realised what I had signed up for as the B distance is a 119km off road race through the Austrian Salzkammergut mountains with just under 4000m of vertical climbing. The only consolation was that I hadn’t entered the 220km (over 7000m vertical) A distance event.

Just to put that 4000m into perspective, if you start on the gravel track at Hadleigh that runs down by the train tracks and climb up to the top of the hill past the top of the rock garden, you will have climbed a little over 50m. Now do that 80+ times.

The Salzkammergut Trophy was to be my main target for 2017 and my winter training started off well. I lost the weight I wanted to and started the season fitter than ever, but as the race loomed closer my endurance training ride goals slipped by and 2 weeks out I felt hopelessly under prepared. This was exaggerated even further when I sent my forks and dropper post off for a service at Sussed Out Suspension and Royal Mail managed to lose them for a week so I didn’t get the bike back together until the weekend before the race. Then when preparing the bike for travel I found one of the pedals to be seized onto the crank arm, but luckily Grips bike shop came to the rescue and managed to remove it without damaging the carbon crank.

I didn’t get the chance to give the bike a proper shakedown and test the suspension before packing my bike bag (rented from Traversbikes.com) so this would have to wait until I got to Austria and fingers crossed everything would work ok.

In order to get the approval from the boss to go to Austria I had to make one major concession, and that was to take her and the little one with me for a “holiday”. Luckily I have plenty of air miles from travelling with work, so I manage to book us some business class seats on BA.

We aren’t a family that tends to pack lightly as it is, and with a 13 month old and a bike we were at the limits of both our baggage allowance, and what can be fitted inside a Vauxhall Insignia estate hire car. At least if you take EVERYTHING on holiday with you then there is less chance of forgetting something!

We all arrived safely in a wet and rainy Austria a couple of days before the race. Luckily the weather improved the next day so we were able to see a bit of the amazing scenery in the surrounding villages and towns, as well as try out the amazing open air swimming pool in the village. The water was nice and warm but we had the pool to ourselves and I’ve never had such wonderful views while swimming.

The day of the race was soon upon us. We knew from the weather forecast that there was a strong chance of rain for most of the day, but I didn’t expect the amount of rain that fell during the 12 hours before the start. We arrived in the small village of Bad Goisern at about 7am to find it feeling deserted. The A race had started at 4am and all the spectators and teams had retreated back to the warmth and dry of their accommodation so the town had an eerie feeling about it. All of the B distance competitors seemed to be waiting until the last minute to show their faces and try to start the race as dry as possible. We went to sign on and collect our race numbers before finding a little café and grabbing a couple of coffees while we watched the rain fall. I must admit at this point I really didn’t fancy getting into my kit and starting a long ride. It can’t have been much more than 10°C and I wasn’t relishing the prospect of being wet and cold for most of the day.

After a bit of mutual encouragement we pulled our kit together and assembled ready for the 9am start. The rain seemed to be easing up a little so everyone’s sprits were lifted slightly and the anticipation grew.

At 9:05 we were off in the second wave. I am used to the start of a race being a hectic mass of bodies, all trying to squeeze through the smallest of gaps and vying for position. The start of this race in contrast was a relaxed affair with competitors casually chatting to one another and gently following the procession through the town, knowing that there would be a hard day in the saddle ahead of them so fighting for position now would be worthless. Then the climbing started…

I knew that with 4000m of climbing in the race there would be some brutal climbs ahead, but to hit 10%+ gradients within the first few minutes was a bit of a shock. The gradients then slackened off slightly, but the hills went on and on and we covered barely 7 miles in the first 2 hours of riding. The reward for all this climbing was some pretty decent descents, but when you are knackered from the climb and in temps around 3°C at the top, they were punishing on an XC bike. The first descent alone was over 20 minutes long and I suffered from arm pump and cold / numb fingers for most of the way down.

Close to 40kms into the race I had a mechanical issue that almost ended my day. I had chain suck due to the amount of mud in the drivetrain, and the over tensioning of the chain had partially ripped off the small tab on the rear mech hanger that the mech limiting screw sits on. The mech was now contacting the cassette and wouldn’t last long. Luckily I was able to reset the mech position and the small bit of tab remaining on the mech hanger managed to hold on for the rest of the race.

The hardest part of the race was the climb up the mountain behind the village of Halstatt (one of the places where the sound of music was filmed). The trail followed an old miners track up the Salzberg mountain for 1000m. The first switchback section was hard enough, but the tarmac road at the top was so steep that no-one managed to ride it. I was slipping in my shoes on the hard surface when pushing the bike up the last super steep bit and I have to admit that I did have a bit of a sense of humour failure at that point. I thought I had died and gone to hell at one point as this chap was walking down the trail in front of me, but he only had words of encouragement (I think so anyway as he was talking in German)

Once past that bit the views were amazing and a pass over the mountain was cut into a sheer rock face with dizzying views to the left over the drop

The trail on the ledge narrowed to just slightly more than bar width and it was very much a bit of a squeaky bum moment (pic below is stolen from google to give you the riders eye view)

The only way I was going to make it to the finish of the race was by eating and drinking correctly. Luckily the race organisers had laid on some fantastic feed zones, and the smoked sausages and cheese went down particularly well. I managed to pace myself nicely through the day, spinning up all the climbs and taking on food and drink regularly so I didn’t bonk in the later stages of the race.

Eventually we crossed the line after a gruelling 10 ½ hours out on the bike (8 ½ hours moving time). I was expecting to be absolutely ruined, but all things considered I felt pretty good. My bike and body made it through the hardest ride I have ever attempted, and most importantly of all I managed to avoid the broom wagon! I enjoyed the experience of racing in Austria but I don’t think I will be back for another go in 2018.

Mud Sweat & Gears Round 6 and National Championships

It was Sunday 16^th July and the next round of Mud Sweat and Gears.  We arrived at the venue, Hintlesham in Suffolk around 11.30 it was a very warm day compared to last year which was very wet.  After signing on I got changed and prepared to go out on a practice lap.  The course was good and the lap was fast.  After my practice lap I warmed up on my rollers and headed to the start line and waited to be gridded.

After all the categories were gridded we were set off with the Elite/Expert category.  I got a good start and was in a group of 3 at the front with Jake Darragh and James Pickering.  We were together and worked together for 4 laps, on the 5^th lap Jake and I dropped James and stayed together until towards the end of the 6^th lap.  I know that Jake is strong on the flat because of his time trial prowess so I decided to attack on the uphill sections which I did at the end of the 6^th lap, I made a small gap to Jake and then made a further attack during the lap, Jake couldn’t catch up with me and I came home first with Jake 22 seconds behind me in second and James came in third.  It started raining on the last lap which made the fast sections a bit slippery.  I was really pleased with my result, my first win of the season and on a course that did not suit my riding style.  My training was geared to the Nationals the following weekend but this race gave me the opportunity to try something new with my fuelling which seemed to work for me.

The following weekend was the National Championships at Cannock Chase, wow what a difference in the weather from the weekend before at Hintlesham.  Although this is my 4^th season of racing it was the first time I had been able to compete in the National Championships, I missed the previous 2 years due to injury in 2015 and exams in 2016.  We made an early start on Sunday morning getting up at 3am so that I could have time to get in a practice lap early.

The weather was not good, it had rained all Saturday night and was raining when we arrived.  We met up and spoke to Iain who had ridden a practice lap on Saturday and he gave me some good information on the how the course was riding.  Due to the conditions I decided to use Mitas Hyperion tyres as I thought I would need the extra grip so we changed my wheels.  I got changed, signed on and went out on a practice lap.  The course was good, muddy in places, the rock garden was slippery and the Hyperions worked well on the features that had claimed many riders in the past.  I was hoping that the weather would improve and dry out the course.  After my practice lap my Dad cleaned my bike and I got changed.  We spent some time whilst waiting for my race talking to friends and watching some of the other races cheering on my fellow team mate and the OMX Pro team riders.  The weather improved and the sun was shining, I could tell from the amount of mud decreasing on the riders in the race before mine that the conditions had improved although the BC commissaries felt the course was getting slower.

 

It was then time to get changed and warm up.  I teamed up with fellow Eastern region riders Kieran Jarvis and Travis Pell to warm up on our rollers.  I then went to the start to be gridded.  The field in my category was very strong and included Tom Pidcock, Cyclocross World Champion and National Circuit champion along with 2^nd and 3^rd in the World Cyclocross Championships and most of the top 20 in the current National rankings.  There were 3 categories in my race, Elites, Under 23’s and my category, Juniors.  Elites were set off first, then under 23’s and finally Juniors.  My start was good but not as good as I had hoped, not sure what went wrong but will analyse it for the next race.  The course had improved and had started to dry, then it started to rain.  It was a short heavy shower and didn’t make too much of a difference to the course but was happy with my tyre choice.  I finished 18^th and was very pleased with my result in such a strong field.

I really feel that my training is paying off and I am making big improvements, a big thanks to my coach, Loose Cannon’s conditioning.  I would also like to say thanks to all the club sponsors, Mitas, Hardnutz, Scimitar and Cyclewrap.

Rob Staines

 

MS&G Round 6 – Hintlesham – Race report – Mark Darley

Ok, so lets start by saying that after last year’s mud fest I wasn’t especially looking forward to this round.  Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Thanks to the team at msg, they pulled it out the bag.  A very fast running course, not technical at all, but a challenging one for the fitness levels.  There was a great turn out from the Hadleigh team at this event, which was really great to see.  We had racers covering most of the days groups.

I started the day being in pole position in the open category. (A position I definitely didn’t expect)  The race started uphill, a change, and one that opened the lungs from the off!!

As I said earlier, this was a fast running course, and I found that you couldn’t let up for one turn of the crank before another racer was breathing down your neck.  After the first lap, I found myself in 5^th position, within my own battle for 4^th.  The top three had made a gap so I dug down and got on with my race.  As usual there was great support from the crowd and especially from the club members who made the journey.

Kev was always on hand to let me know how my race was going and how far the leader was in front.  Unfortunately, I found I didn’t have the legs to get back a 4^th spot, but still really pleased with my 5^th position.  There was some great results from the Hadleigh Teams at this event, which they should all be proud of.

This leaves two more races until the end of the season, so its back to the training!!

Thanks to the club sponsors, hopefully some more great results to come

Thanks for reading

Mark

MS&G Round 6 – Hintlesham – Race report – Alfie Cunniffe

Today was the day of MS&G round 6 at Hintlesham. I arrived a bit late but as soon as I got there I was off on my practice lap. The course weren’t very technical but there was one A line that was rather fun as it involved a small drop on a steep downslope. At the end of the course there was a long and painful climb leading up to the finish. I knew the race was going to be tough so my aim was to get as close as I could to my last finish, which was 6^th.

15 minutes before the race we went off to the start to get gridded. I was gridded on the last row as I had only raced one MS&G but I was determined to get to the front. Then it was time for the start and as soon as the gun went we were off! We sprinted up the grass climb and I got boxed in by 3 riders for about 10 seconds but after that I got myself into a good position. As the first lap went on me and a fellow teammate, Joe Champness, paired together to go and chase the rest of the pack who were ahead.

We managed to catch up with another teammate, Euan Alexander, and we passed him and rode on. After staying together for most of the race Joe went off at about a third of the way through the last lap and I was left on my own for the rest of the lap. After riding fast to finish the lap I was on to the long and last grass hill to finish the race. I was about halfway through the last bit of the grass climb and hear Paul Cavalla call to me “Watch out he’s catching you” so I look behind and see Euan sprinting towards me so I sped up to the finish and managed to finish 1 second in front of him. Thank you Paul for telling me or he would have beat me! Anyway well done to Euan for catching me up as he made about 40 seconds on the last lap, but also to Joe for the great race between me and him.

Thank you to the HMTBC for the support and also Kevin our team manager. I managed to finish 7^th so I am very happy with my result.

Thank you for reading,

 

Alfie Cunniffe

 

Race 1: Welsh Enduro Series:Round 3, Llandegla

Something in me decided this being my first year of competitive cycling, that I should get out and ride as much as I can. After doing the my first endure a couple of months ago in Wales, I decided it was best to return to the series and carry on, seeing as I enjoyed it so much.

After a slightly damp night camping at the nearby fisheries, it was up at a not so unreasonable hour to drive the short hop up the road to sign in for round 3 of the Welsh Enduro series. Get number board, choose a start time and collect a timing chip to be worn on the wrist and I can trot off and get the bike ready for a pedal around the lap to see what lays in wait. One lap, just shy of about 12miles with 4 timed stages to contend with. Fortunately the weather was on side and the sun had come out to play. A couple of hours spent on the practice spotting lines and seeing what was what then back to refuel for the race lap, swap over to my race jersey and get ready to go. I was set off in our batch of 10, this time riding with a group I had met at the previous round (Enduro is so social) meant there were laughs to be had, encouragement and the occasional haribo being passed around to make it feel less racey.

After a slog up three mile climb, stage 1 was ready to be tackled. Just over 3 minutes long, this was a trail centre type stage, some dusty windy bits through the trees cutting onto the main trail which was hard packed and littered with a good mix of rocks, jumps and braking bumps. Fast and flowy, only interrupted with a few hairpin berms that actually climbed before descending back down.

A decent transition to stage 2, which had most people talking back at race HQ, as this was fresh cut in for the event. Very loamy, some evil slippery roots and what can only be described as a mud chute into a rock step into a bridge before opening up into some more loam and roots then joining the trail centres berms and jumps. After some interesting moments on the practice lap I’d decided it would be faster to jump off and run that section before remounting. This worked out to be the toughest stage of the day, a shade over 5minutes and with a fair amount of pedalling involved.

Another long but enjoyable transition taking in some of the north shore sections of the trail and some beautiful views of the welsh countryside we were held at the start of stage 3 as medics cleared a downed rider. This stage started with a flat pedally sprint through ferns into some massive pumpable rollers before cutting across trails into a short descent before having to power up a short climb before sprinting into a fast downhill path that pulled right behind the trees and over the stage finish.

Last transition time, some steep climbs that burnt the legs and wearing a full face helmet also made my head feel like it was boiling in a pot meant the sight of stage four was a welcome one. Time to down the last of the water (vital weight saving) goggles on and pin the last stage, a little under 2minutes in length meant it was a sprint compared to the rest of the days stages. Typically welsh trail centre, so the hands were buzzing from the small rocks and bumps, the arms pumped up from hanging on over the fast doubles and the sight of the finish line signalling the end of a great days racing.

Thanks the Welsh enduro series for a great event and to Scimitar for the race Jersey.

(Misfits jersey was my practice attire)

Race 2: Pedalhounds Enduro series: Round 4, Bereleigh estate

After a night under the stars again, and a much reviving shower, it was time for the second enduro of the weekend. Pedalhounds is a little less hardcore than the welsh series, as far as the courses go owning to the fact that we’re not exactly blessed with steep mountains down in the south of England. Still, Paul Hunt manages to find some awesome venues and cuts some fun, challenging tracks that suit riders of all abilities, getting harder the faster you ride them.

After a quick walk down the courses after sign on, it was obvious they were going to be loose and technical, with the loam being dusty and most of the course being set off camber with a healthy dash of roots to spice it up.

Three stages with a linked transistion stage and three laps to contend with this time and another nice appearance from the sun meant it was going to be a hard slog throughout the day.

Starting out on stage 2 and riding with the family Repman (fellow MSG racers) I decided to just ride all out. Bad idea for the first run as the ground was ridiculously loose which meant a small collision with a tree as the front washed out on a nice off camber run. No crash but still not the fastest way to negotiate the course.

Stage 3 was taken on in a slightly more restrained manner and trying to apply all the coaching from Kevin Darragh to get round the course was helping but I was still struggling with the lack of grip available.

Stage 1 had possibly the most fun section of the day included. A steep chute taken on the brakes into a right hand turn onto flat then on the pedals hard into the trees again. Doesn’t sound much but nailing this right was so satisfying!!!! The joy with the short stage format and getting three laps meant you could really dial in the lines over the course of the day, something that shows up in the times with around 12 seconds being shaved off from the first run to the last. However, with the time being accumulative it rewards those who can ride fast and blind.

Whatever the case, it was a fun and enjoyable event again, highlights for me being able to speedway slide into off camber turns, probably not the fastest but my god was I having fun getting loose!!!

A long weekend of racing, but so much fun and riding with some good people makes it even more enjoyable.

Thanks again to Paul Hunt (pedalhounds) for organising a great event and to club sponsor Scimitar for the killer race jersey.

 

MS&G – Round 6 – Hintlesham Race Report (Open Male)

Blimey, is it that time already? Yep, another MSG rolled around scarily quick on Sunday and before I knew it we were hurtling up the A12 towards Hintlesham. As seems to be tradition I was pretty much the last to arrive for the morning race, meaning that I could basically get straight on with my practice lap! That is after Kev helped me sand down the newish scratches in my fork stanchions… A quick fix for an issue that I feel is gonna cost me in the long run!

The venue was beautiful and the weather pretty perfect for my practice lap. The course started on a brutal uphill start/finish straight, before a nice long flat section and then the big downhill stretch, possibly my favourite part of the course! Nothing quite like hitting 30mph on bumpy grassland. Then after a little more peddling we hit the woods, mostly made up of flowey quick fire roads with a little single-track here and there, great for overtaking! After crossing a very impressive temporary bridge and tackling a small section of techy climb I found the course’s only A-line, a steep mud decent with a bump on the right to get some air off if you fancied it! Then back onto the fireroads with lots of fast descents and punchy climbs to get the lungs working, all broken up by a lovely bit of twisty single-track in the middle. You were chucked out of all of this into a sharp right hander to start the long slow climb back up the field to the start/finish. I was very happy with my practice lap and enjoyed the course despite it’s non technical nature.

Around 20 minuets later we began gridding and I got placed on the second row of my category, surrounded by some seriously quick looking guys! With my start gear selected all that was left to do was wait for the gun.

My start… could have been better. The gear I’d selected was slightly too hard to push up the hill so I had a little wobble getting going. After I did get going I promptly got crashed into and then myself crashed into the guy in front, not my proudest moment. Things got better though, that gear eventually powered my up the hill into about 8^th position by the top. Things stayed like that for a while, with some minor position jostling while moving up through the other category’s riders, something I always feel a little bad doing. On the second lap I did get a particularly epic overtake down the dirt drop, with the line to the right proving more than a little faster then the safer left line. On my third lap I moved up to 6^th and battled hard up the climbs to stay there. On my last lap however I found that the two guys behind me had left a little more in the tank, and both took me on a grassy flat over at the back of the course. I pushed to keep on their rear but just couldn’t keep the pace on the climbs and ended up crossing the line in 8^th, around 30 seconds behind 7^th.

This matched my best result so far this season so is a result I’m very happy with, and it’s the first time gaining a top 10% place in my category! It was a race that I enjoyed a lot in a fantastic venue and I can’t wait to come back next year. Many thanks to everyone supporting the teams, the guys and girls on the drinks station and all the Hadleigh riders out on course for their words of encouragement. Bring on Radical Bikes!

Michael Millham