10 Under The Ben – Dave reports– sore wrists, knees n back, big smile.
Sore fingers now too (from typing). Grab a brew and enjoy.
The journey
We (Dave G and I) left on Thursday night; stopped overnight on the way there in Carlisle centre. We went for a beer in the pub next to the hotel and some scaly bouncer on the door said, “Pound please lads”. Dave I just looked at each other. “So you have to pay to buy beer”? That’s nuts. So we went to a Weatherspoons over the road and had some really decent ale. Only two pints though, I could allow myself that at least, it was Thursday night after all.
Friday morning we drove up in to Scotland and proceeded to get thoroughly lost in Glasgow. They had kindly closed the motorway we were on and not provided any diversions. We ended up in the Gorbals. Really lovely spot, if you’re favourite tv program is Jeremy Kyle and having kids at 12 years old is your ambition. A few U-turns later and we were on the way out and back on the right track.
It started to rain just as we were getting to Loch Lomond. (It didn’t stop again until we got back in to England on the way home).
Got to Fort William about midday, went directly to the event centre where there was supposed to be a campsite; looked more like a carpark with next to zero facilities so we drove back in to Fort William and found a campsite with all the trimmings, which Dave rated quite highly and turned out to be perfectly adequate.
Piltch turned up with Mikey and Dan in Plitch’s Dreammachine about 5.30ish and managed to get their tents up in one of the only dry spells of the weekend. Then off to sign in and up in the gondolas to the restaurant for some tea and whiskey tasting. The weather was atrocious. Rain turned to hail the further up we went, and the wind was enough to blow you over. Oh joy of joys!
Friday night in the tent…oh ..my ..god!! Freezing cold, wind trying to rip the tent away, with us in it and chucking it down with rain. Not good. I felt tried, cold and seriously thought about chucking the whole thing. The thought of riding a 10 hour solo in those conditions just filled me with dread and despair.
Anyway, I manned up and got on with it. When we got to the event the rain had stopped and the wind had dropped a smidgen (it was still windy but not hurricane force anymore).
The Race
Got kitted up and on the start line for a la mans start the just started peddling. 10 hours later I stopped peddling and the race was over J. That’s the short version for those of you bored with this monologue already.
The more detailed version.
The course = epic; proper mountain bike stuff. About 10 miles with 350 ish meters climbing per lap (really pleased it wasn’t the 600 I had been led to believe it was). There was a bit of everything in it including some almost vertical drops coming out of some very steep stone steps, long dragging, fireroad climbs, very technical rocky forest decents and some open bog, rooty, river type wheel sucking gloop. The course layout got changed twice during the race as bits became unridable.
It was very single speed friendly in that next to zero flat stuff. There were a couple of fireroads which had a slight slope which geared riders could overtake me on, but other than that I was doing OK.
My strategy was to save energy. I just kept up about the same pace pretty much all race, my last lap was only 4 mins slower than my second (which was the first full lap) and the conditions were 5 times worse.
Lap 6 is where the fun started. I had a front wheel wash out on some rough stuff and smashed my knee a treat (it’s still like a balloon now Monday AM). I got up and dusted myself off. My bars were knocked off centre so I forced them back (without loosening the stem bolts – which was rather stupid; it’s a carbon steerer, but thankfully no visual harm done). The next bit was a super fast rocky decent of the no- brakes, death grip variety. This is where I found out, or at least at the bottom, where I had actually had NO BRAKES, nothing, not a bean. OK well a slight bit on the front but next to useless when it’s a sharp 90degree right turn at the bottom. Anyway, managed to control it and save more pain, but the rest of the lap was a mare. Negotiating all the technical stuff without being able to control speed was pretty scary.
When I got back to the changeover the guys were cheering that I was currently 7th. I shouted to Dave I need pads so have to stop. These were back at the car so I raced over and then found my cleat has lost a screw and was hanging off. The nightmare gets worse.
Dave set about changing pads (still in torrential rain without a coat – hero) Dan Luckily came to the rescue with the cleat so things were not lost, just delayed. Then what seemed like an absolute disaster occurred. The pads were changed but still no brake – it was the hose, loose and leaking fluid. Race over, I thought. I was gutted. (Note to self – lose the Jeff Jones bars – no protection for the brake hose or coupling)
Dave tightened the hose and ran over with my bike to the Nevis bike hire place and asked them if they had a Hope bleed kit – they didn’t but told us to try the event mechanics (which we previously didn’t know anything about). These guys fixed it FOC in a couple of minutes. By this time I was shivering so badly I could hardly speak but my Race was back on! I knew I’d lost a lot of time (about 25 mins) but I needed to stick to the plan, don’t try and catch up the time, and kill myself in the process.
The strategy started to pay off. Any fast descents and climbs I was hoovering the riders up. Never sure if any were in my category but solos were easy to spot; they were the dirty ones.
After lap 7 Dave shouted me that I had two laps to do and was back up to 7th place.(to stay within the cut off). So in to lap 8 I still felt quite strong. Piltch caught me up and we rode together for a short while, which was really great for morale.
lap 9 is where the plan of sticking to a rhythm really started to show the benefits. I saw a solo rider in the distance on the long drag which I was starting to catch. When I got level with him, I thought he looked like vet age. I asked him how many laps he’d done, “this is my 9th” he said. He looked knackered which gave me a mega boost. He tried to stick with me but by the time I got to the top of the climb he was long gone – I knew I must be up to 6th.
I caught another couple of riders in the technical wooded section, one of which looked vet solo. He managed to get past me again but when I got on the fast fireroad decent I flew past him (he lost his bottle – it was sketchy though). He was starting to gain on me again but we were now on the last section which was nearly all climb. I was not going to let anyone past on this stuff. I put the hammer down and after a few turns he was gone. Nobody in front or behind me now. I just poured everything I had left in to it. Crossed the line in 5th place (Vets solo). Really chuffed with that. Had I not had the mechanical issues which slowed lap6 and ruined lap 7 I’d have been in with a chance of 4th. Never mind still chuffed with that. 14th Overall out of 119 riders, best ever finish. Although I don’t like to make a big song and dance about it, I was the only solo singlespeeder and one of two solos riding full rigid. (I like to think that makes me even more of a hero J
Massive, huge enormous thank you to Dave who, without his help, it would have been game over after 6. He also kept me fed and watered and meant I only had to stop once (which was a forced anyway)
Also massive thanks to Dan, Piltch and Mikey who all really supported me and kept me going. Big well done to those guys too; good result considering Mikey had a race ending crash earlier in the day.
Post Race.
The weather continued to be absolutely terrible so we made for the campsite about 9ish and after a warm shower and some grub crawled in to my pit a shattered and battered but satisfied chap.
Sunday after a Morrissons breakfast in FortWilliam we set off for the epic drive home. We had one super scare driving through Glen Coe (i.e the middle of nowhere) the car just died; completely dead. We pulled over to the side and just looked at each other. Neither of us had any juice left in our phones so we could’nt call for help. We suspected Dave’s dodgy phone charger out of the cigar lighter and the car started again. Panic over. I was so relieved; you cannot believe it how much.
Got home in 7.40 mins including stops which was good going.Epic drive, epic ride, epic weather and epic write up.
Knackered now. Thanks for reading.
Full Results and times here
http://www.nofussevents.co.uk/userfiles/File/solo%20d2.xls
Daves 9 lap times = 42:18 – 1:04:10 – 1:05:39 – 1:06:31 – 1:09:08 – 1:11:46 – 1:34:52 – 1:09:13 – 1:08:44
Numplumz 