Rich Rothwell

The Kielder 100 was kind of a big deal for me this year. The first two years were ridden almost as afterthoughts on the back of 24hr solo focused summers. This year I have only ridden one 24 solo and, as the season progressed, the thought of seriously targetting Kielder became more appealing. Not least because I had decided after UK24 to change my approach to training. Pretty drastically. Reduced volume and some super high intensity work. Over the last month I’ve had Northumbria University to thank for helping me achieve this; I’ve been involved in some research  work, most recently 20k time trials… half an hour on Planet Pain. Being on a lab bike and having your elastic stretched  (they know your limit cos they find these things out!) is a killer session that I haven’t managed to replicate anywhere else….

I was also well rested, confident in my kit, and very focused. I felt calm despite a stacked field. Friday night came and I hooked up with Ant and did the usual “I thought my bike was perfectly ready but it still needs an hour of faff” ritual. After a bit of social catch up we then headed to the Calvert Trust for the night along with, amongst others, Andy McClure from Steels who was also riding the next day. Matt Jones had very kindly fitted us in to his Killer Kielder challenge HQ and it was a great relief to have a warm bed before the Kielder 100 as opposed to the usual midge infested / blokes farting all night in the next door tent / cold damp experience that typified the first two years. (Matt is still collecting after completing his epic challenge – for more info go to http://www.justgiving.com/killerkielderchallenge The Calvert Trust is a very worthy cause and do some fantastic work at Kielder).

Anywho, after a good few hours kip, we were up at 4:30…. Grim death. Muesli was forced down protesting throats and super strength coffee created a weak pulse. This is always the hardest part of the Kielder 100…

On the start line the atmosphere was the usual gallows humour as the misty rain seeped to the skin and the midgies nibbled… I caught up with Andy Fellows (Ay-up lights) from Oz who I’d met at 24hr Worlds in Canada. He was probably wondering how he’d ended up in this awful predicament… Dan Treby (Singular) was his usual chipper self (little damps his enthusiasm) and the front rows were full of numerous strong riders including last year’s winner Andrew Cockburn and the pre-race favourite Ben Thomas… And of course competing with Ant (Cannondale / Mt Zoom) in the Vets was always going to be a big ask… This was going to be a tough race.

Off we went. After the long lead out a very big group formed. Mud and grit flew everywhere. In seconds my glasses were caked and I had to suddenly whip them off to avoid running into the next rider. Things calmed slightly and the group lined out.

A short while after we hit a climb. I sensed this was a key moment. One of the guys in front of me was struggling a bit with the pace. Suddenly the front riders ahead of him (including many of the favourites) sprung a substantial gap. Right, split second decision – I jumped out from behind the slowing rider and redlined it. This was the break and I had to make it. A minute or so later I’d bridged the gap and looked back to see only one other rider had come with me. My competition in the Vets class (Ant / Mark Spratt / Adrian Laurence) hadn’t jumped the gap. This was good.

We tanked along working well as a group – sometimes one line, sometimes two but all he while I could feel we were pulling along well. So it continued. Twinges of cramp meant I had to ease of a bit and yo-yoed of the back once or twice. Mechanicals and feed station stops disrupted the group somewhat but a core of eight or so remained.

This gradually broke up further. Andy F dropped off. Andrew C had mechanical problems. Greig Brown punctured. Mike Blewitt had a comedy moment down a grass slope when his brakes totally failed and he had to throw himself off his bike! He saw the funny side though!

Then suddenly I was on my own. Weird. Just can’t really remember what happened! I knew that 4 riders were ahead of me. And not by much. Heading into to Newcastleton I felt great.

Everyone will have had a ‘bad bit’ / mechanical issue (I had given up on worrying about my brakeless / squidgy tyred bike by now) that lost them time. Mine happened in the Newcastleton trails…. Suddenly the world just started spinning. Noooo! I hadn’t eaten in a while and I seriously bonked. Like I just couldn’t push the pedals. At all. I stopped and downed 2 gels / 1 caffeine gel / half a pint of drink. Bugger! It was going to take a good 15 mins for this to kick in. I limped on and finally rejuvenated but I was conscious i’d made a mistake I could be punished for…

Normal service resumed. But then at Lewisburn Tom Stewart (Doncaster Wheelers) flew past me. I had no reply and decided to not  risk trying as I had no food left for the last testing climbs. I just wanted to make sure Ant didn’t catch me…. Surely he won’t?…

I’d seen a dark figure at the bottom of a long climb a bit earlier on and for some reason thought it was Andrew C…. On the final climbs I looked again. Shit! The distinctive, “I can smell your blood” head bobbing meant only one thing… it was Ant! 

I rode the last two climbs on pure adrenalin. The big descents were super sketchy with virtually no stopping power… Just Don’t Crash!!!! To my great suprise I didn’t! Hurrah! Ant rolled in 40 seconds later. Over 100 ‘eventful’ miles. What an epic race! Giles Drake came in 4 minutes ahead of me and apparently crossed the line and threw up! He went on to race xc the next day! Respect! And what a superbly controlled ride by Ben Thomas – he was in a different class.

I’d won the Vets and placed 5th overall. I’m not going to lie – this was a major result for me in a very strong field. A slight change in focus has paid off and I’m really keen to do more 6 to 8 hour events… Come on race organisers!!!

Ant was the first person to shake my hand. He is a true gent and has been a massive inspiration to me (and countless others no doubt) over the last few years. He has selflessly shared many of his ‘racer’s tricks’ and his sheer do or die approach means he never gives in. This is why, over the last few years, he’s racked up a results sheet that most of us can only dream of.

It’s a real shame one of us had to come in second. I’m just glad that this time, it wasn’t me ; )

Kielder holds a certain curse over me race wise. I took a wrong turn there at the Border Raid last year, and at the start of this year I got 5,000 punctures in as many metres (ok it was 3. Punctures). And had to pull out. 

But beyond this, I wasn’t sure of the logic in doing the Border Raid this year, the next weekend on from the UK24; my legs still felt shot (my UK24 race report is on the M Steels blog here:) http://blog.msteelcycles.co.uk/2011/05/10/exposure-uk-24-hour-solo-championships/

Anyways, I had the toss up between the Border Raid and the next round of the Nutcracker. I enjoyed the last Nutcracker but decided I didn’t want to drive to Yorkshire for one and half hours of racing. Besides, I like the Border Raid; a big loop taking in Bloody Bush Road, bits of Newcastleton, and back over to Kielder. Besides some protracted fire road sections on this version, it’s generally one of my favourite training rides.

So off we set; sharp starter in some rooty singletrack. Popped out with Ian Palmer from Wheelbase on my wheel. Climb. Descend. Climb. T-junction. No sign…. (well, I was later assured that there was but I didn’t see it). Tossed a mental coin and chose right. Next junction. No sign (well, there wouldn’t be!). Went left to take a route to the border crossing… After a while it became apparent I was wildly off track… I’d taken Ian and one or two others with me. Sorry guys! Back to the original junction and left this time. OK; saw a Marshal! Back on track!

Despite feeling hollowed out from last week, I get an adrenalin rush from being at the back of the pack… and I buried myself well and truly (sank a caffeine gel half an hour into a race!). It took a long time to even reach the backmarkers… Up and over Bloody Bush Road and down to Newcastleton. Ray Honour got on my wheel for a mile or so and I was impressed with his tenacity. We hit the Newcastleton singletrack… Nobody was going to get time on me here! I could (and quite literally did last week) ride it with my eyes closed! I pulled away but Ray later said he crashed. Next I caught up with Dominic and Dieter Booth from Breeze Bikes in Amble. I was really straining by now as it had been a continual hard effort to get back on the pace. They kindly offered to work together and we took turns for a couple of miles through some draggy fireroad. I pulled away again after being told there was one rider left about two minutes up. Hard effort required again…. I caught him only to be told that ‘the leader is up the track’. Balls! I was running out of track. One more dig….

Made it! And then I promptly flew off a fireroad corner into a ditch. Doh! Back on and sprinting after him. Fortunately there was one susbstantial hill left and I passed the, (confused by my presence) lead rider.

I crossed the line a minute or so up to take the win. Thank goodness! I beat the curse! (Sort of). If I hadn’t got lost I would have posted a pretty good time. As it was, I really enjoyed the adrenalin of a chase from the back of the pack. Sort of fuels the inner hunter I suppose.

My form was quite encouraging; I felt floored from last weekend before the start of the Border Raid but could dig deep with a bit of nervous energy. Lost and found you could say.

Hurrah for Exposure!  If anyone asked me for a Desert Island Discs (kind of) of bike equipment, my Exposure lights would be right up there. Simple but brutally effective, they do exactly what you want them to do. This results in a ‘I’ve forgotten they’re there’ approach to riding through the night. (That’s really something when you think about it!) Quite a change from the technology of just a few years ago and some other modern lighting systems I’ve used.

…and they’ve got my name on them! Ace! Following the move of Rory Hitchens to Upgrade Bikes, John Cookson, all round good chap and fledgling 24 soloist, supplied me with these beauties, emblazoned with my name, as well as the Enigma and M Steels logos. Nice!

The Six Pack whacks out an incredible 1800 lumens and I intend to run it on mid setting right through the night at the UK24 in May. No changes. No hassles. The Diablo Mk II will run with a 3 cell piggyback; even the medium setting is badger tanning and provides a lovely wide even pool of white light. Brilliant. I’ve ridden with the Diablo alone recently and it’s been ample for slower speed twsity turny stuff. Mated with the Six Pack it is the perfect high power / light weight / long run time combo.

In other news…. had a great ride at the Whinlatter Challenge a few weeks back. Finished a respectable 5th with 3rd and 4th just out of reach (that’s XC!). Rob Jebb was a little further out of reach though… The full write up for the race is on the M Steels blog here.

More recently and very sadly, another visit to my mother in Spain was required. She has fought through an horrific cancer operation and continues to defy doctors by ‘just keeping on going’. With the prognosis amounting to a very bleak outlook, I took an emergency flight to spend five days with her in hospital. That was nearly two weeks ago and she is still hanging in there now. Incredible. I have seen characteristics in her that I simply never new existed. I am very proud of her and, despite this difficult time, I take great positivity from her.

Considering the circumstances, her incredible spirit lights up the darkness.

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

Ready to go.

Like every other serious 24hr solo racer in the UK, I had decided to make this race a serious target. I haven’t  known a 24hr race to generate such a buzz for months before the big day. It was always going to be a tough field and the start list reflected a who’s who of UK endurance racing.

Also it was on home ground – an hour and a half drive away at Newcastleton. A real pull for me as racing a 24 usually means plenty of time off work, a big drive, sorting accommodation and the logistics of shipping everything including the kitchen sink. Only as it turned out, I found it hard to push this advantage home…

Physically I was in great shape. My winter had gone very well despite the harsh conditions. I was feeling very strong. But the two weeks running up to the race were impossible! I recently started a great new job. I was away for work. I had back to back meetings. I was waiting for bike parts. Charlotte, my chief organiser was away in Miami for work (yes, really!). Sum result was total chaos! (Fortunately Dougie, my good friend and mechanic, came on Thursday to finish my bikes – I simply couldn’t have done it myself!) I have never been so disorganised for a big race! Friday night came and I just threw everything in the back of the ever accommodating Volvo (hoping what I needed was in there!) and Dougie, my dad and I rallyed it to Newcastleton, in a blind hurry to meet Ant, (who was pitting with us) and get to The Grapes for last food orders!

It as great to see everyone at the race site and, for such a big race, the atmosphere was super relaxed, probably helped by the incredible weather! Would have loved to have hung around but food and a bed called…

Saturday dawned even warmer and brighter than the day before! Nice, but the buidling heat was clearly going to have a great impact on the race. Well, it did on mine anyway…

The sign-on in the centre of Newcastleton was great fun (even if I was a bit embarrassed to be given the number 2 plate… A nice gesture from the organisers though – thanks! We were lead out by a local group – The Copshaw Riders; chopper forks and wellies… nice! We were paced up the hill and hit the course proper.

As I’d expected, the pace was pretty pedestrian. Everyone was watching each other and a bunch of the usual suspects formed, including Matt Page, Ian Leitch, Ant White, James Lister, Craig Bowles and others. Josh on the other hand, had found the pace a little too pedestrian and wound up those big wheels with those long legs and cruised away to a gap. Nobody was concerned and just let him go….

The group gradually fragmented. Ian Leitch was not feeling his best and sadly pulled out after three laps. James Lister punctured, fought back, yo-yoed, and the effort to get back on the group knocked him out of the race fairly early on. Ant White pulled away. This left me in the good company of Matt Page. We rode together for about three laps at a stiff but sociable pace. Then, at about 8pm we spotted Ant, Matt put his foot down, and we tore into each other!

It was fast and furious but I was fine with the pace. I was recovering well from the efforts. We hit a short but steep climb and I was just about to crest the hill when… cramp! Bugger! I had to stand up and let Matt past me. He jumped onto Ant’s wheel and the pair pulled away. It was sooo frustrating… I very rarely suffer cramp and annoyingly a few more minutes of hot sun remained. It was terrible timing and was a defining point for my race campaign.

Heading into the dark and with nobody to pace myself off, I found it very hard to gauge my effort. I was feeling strong, but a glance at the post race lap times showed an untenable yo-yoing. I’m thinking about getting a moto-pacer – they are used in motorcross/downhill to give continual lap time feedback. They can easily be used to give splits throughout a lap so you can see if you are speeding up or slowing down. This also takes some pressure of pit support.  It is often the case that towards the front of an endurance race field you end up on your own – in this case it was my undoing.

The night wore on and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was still and warm. The moon was pretty big and early on in the evening a bright orange. It’s these times that make endurance racing so good. I felt good throughout the night but it was clear that Ant and Matt were pulling away. And, to many people’s surprise they had not caught Josh and Josh was not fading….

The sun came up spectacularly. I relented from asking a fellow rider what time it was… but eventually I couldn’t resist… ‘Quarter to five’ came the cheery reply…. Doh! I thought it was about 8 o’clock! Obviously my head wasn’t as clear as I had presumed!

It was apparent that a podium would come from the wheels falling off ahead of me. Matt and Josh lapped me but I quickly unlapped my self from Josh and, with plenty in the tank, set to work on the final laps. I rode with James Leavesley for a couple of laps which was good – we had a good chat and he had plenty in his legs to push us up the climbs. I pulled away and hammered out my last two laps. I was confused by my positioning and knew that by now Josh was fading and had fallen into third place. This gave me hope and my tired brain had convinced me that third was possible…. of course it wasn’t and I finished fourth, a place I HATE to end up! Still, 250 miles and 11,000m of vertical climbing is a good day’s work!

Despite my disappointment, it was a fantastic race. The weather was unbelievable! The course was tough but fun. And the atmosphere, even amongst the fiercest competitors was fantastic. I have utmost respect for Matt, Ant, and Josh for their podium efforts and everyone there who pushed through a challenge that is touch and go even for the seasoned racer.

My Enigma rode superbly, even though I did not spend as much time on it as I would have liked because I had little time to set it up properly before the race. Running a helmet mounted Exposure Diablo on a triple piggy back with a MaXx D on the bars was the perfect set up and one I will use for future races. My Infinit nutrition liquid food was superb – all the energy I needed without the faff and discomfort of eating. I’ll tell you more about this stuff soon but for now all you need to know is it works brilliantly – www.infinitnutrition.com

Big thanks to Dougie and my dad for staying up through the night to be barked at for 20 seconds every hour…. I hope they enjoyed the weather and atmosphere as much as I did!

Bontrager24 solo next…. an opportunity to redeem myself. The field was not the strongest until about two weeks ago…. but now Americans Kelly Magelky (US number 2) and Travis Brown have signed up…. Suddenly that podium is looking like a serious  challenge again…. but that’s the way I like it!