Rich Rothwell

Yep; occasionally you see something that is so simple, yet such an obvious solution that you wonder why nobody had thought of it before… Last weekend I raced the Gisburn 12 hour as a pair with Ant White. In between lactic lap on / lap offs, I got to chat with a very personsable chap called Andy who was there showing his new product, the ingeniously named ‘Andy Stand’. Now, taking a full workstand to a race is great but a bit of a pain. His widget works as a superb mini stand yet takes up virtually no room in the car (or the house). Check it out:

 As you can see, a rod slots into the hollow crank spindle and will work for nearly all external BB cranksets. Simple yet very clever! The bike is incredibly stable and Andy told me he has used these confidently with full on downhill bikes. The low centre of gravity keeps things very stable. When at race / trail centre etc. the real killer bit is you can turn the cranks (the rear wheel is raised of the ground) and perform easy gear adjustments. You can also easily take the wheels out as the bike see saws around the pivot point.

And if, like me, you’ve got a tide mark of black scrapes in the kitchen / living room at about handlebar height, this may also keep you in favour with your better half ; )

Check out this Great British invention at www.andystand.co.uk  I get the feeling you’ll be seeing a lot more of these around over the next few months…

Anyways… Ant and I had a great fun and fast race. The Gisburn course had a bit of everything; fast flowing singletrack, techy nadgery sections and brutal fireroad climbs. Great fun, great weather, but we came second so maybe not that great then. Only joking! We fought hard with the Leisure Lakes pair and Dave Powell / Jason Miles (Ragley) who proceeded to eek out a winning five minute margin in the final laps. Well done to them and I was really impressed by their turns of speed as well as their friendly fighting spirit.

In other news… out of the blue, Enigma sent me a Ti Ego frame. Whoopeee! Nice end of the week surprise! Check these pics and I’ll be posting a full build soonish…

Also, check Bike Magic for the low done on my Ego St, and thanks to BM for publishing the article http://www.bikemagic.com/gear-news/rich-rothwells-enigma-ego-st/8100.html

If you read my UK24 race report, you will have seen that I was a bit, (though not completely) disappointed with my ride. However, I came away with many positives. I really enjoyed myself. I generally felt very strong. My pits were fast. Most importantly though, I got my nutrition dialled. In fact, my nutrition was way better than it has ever been before. This was completely down to my Infinit Nutrition custom mix.

Essentially, you tailor order your drink mix to your body type, physiology, and event requirements. My mix has 61 grams of carbohydrate, 3 grams of protein, electrolyte, a dribble of caffeine and couple of other bits and pieces. (I have a none caffeinated mix as well because 24hrs is too long for me to go on caffeine – I went 6hrs on / 6hrs off with no ill effect). The protein staves off a feeling of hunger whilst giving on going muscle repair, and the carb content is exactly right for my energy requirements.

I was skeptical about the idea of going fully liquid but it’s the best nutrition move I have made. There is no digestive strain on my stomach and no sickly feeling (the mix is quite ’sharp’ and not sickly sweet like some other energy drinks. You can tailor the flavouring aspect too). Essentially, all I need to do is drink one 600ml bottle per hour (depending on temperature) and that’s nutrition and hydration taken care of! It’s an absolute revelation! No faffing on with food, quick or no pit stops, and a steady consistent stream of energy. Yes, this was an experiment for me at a major race but it worked and I’ll never go back to solid food for a long distance event.

If you want to give it a go, visit www.infinitnutrition.com. If you decide to place an order, put the code “24ormore” in at checkout. You get £5 off your purchase and, (I’m totally honest about this) I get affiliate points towards my own supply. If I wasn’t so confident in this product, I wouldn’t endorse it. Simple as that. Even better, (especially if you are not so confident on your requirements – that included me!) give them a ring and have a chat. They will talk you through the ins and outs to make sure your mix is just right. Or, if you see me at an event come over and hi, and I’ll give you some free samples.