Rich Rothwell

Been a funny few weeks…. some real ups and downs. Let’s get the downs out of the way first! I usually have a cast iron immune system so was gutted to get a heavy cold. Which turned into stomach problems. Which then morphed into a bad throat. And then back to a heavy cold again. The whole episode dragged out over nigh on three weeks meaning that little meaningful training could be done. And I drove Charlotte insane with my wingeing about loosing fitness. Heck, I bet I’m annoying! Well, better to get ill in the off-season. It’s finally petered out now and I’m ready to get stuck into the winter training (which, worryingly, I kind of look forward too).

Now the ‘local’ bit. I’m delighted to say that M Steels Cycles in Newcastle have offered me fantastic support for the coming year, on top off my existing sponsors. Steels is a high quality shop that has, over many years, built a respected profile in the north east. (The owner, Joe Waugh, was an Olympic cyclist). They have achieved their reputation by uncompromisingly catering for enthusiast and serious cyclists, offering loads of top drawer road and mountain bike stock. Chief spanner and all round good egg, Dave Buchan, will also be providing me with mechanical support at some of my target races. Oh, and they have provided me with a rather lovely full suspension bike that will compliment my existing hardtails…. I’ll be posting some pics soon but for now I’ll just say it’s flippin’ amazing and it’s Lance’s off-road steed of choice…. 

I’m very excited about the local partnership because it means we can work together closely. Steels are very keen on getting the name out there in the north east, and as I have found over the last couple of years, I really enjoy the promotional side of the sport and doing what I can to support quality cycle companies.

And this weekend just gone was the first major foray. We ran a Specialized demo weekend in Rothbury, Northumberland. It was primarily laid on for a large local mtb club, The Beamish Oddsox. For the very reasonable sum of £30 guests got to ride 2011  Spesh bikes in some ace Northumbrian singletrack and enjoy dinner bed and breakfast at newly opened Tomlinson’s bunkhouse. Thanks to Jackie for putting up with twenty or so muddy, wet cyclists and bikes for two days! It’s a beautiful bunkhouse and cafe which we did our collective best to ‘bed in’. It’s another local business that deserves to do well and I’m sure it will if this weekend is anything to go by. If you are looking for a walking or biking break in Northumberland it comes highly recommended.

The riding was great fun. It had rained heavily in the run up to the weekend, so the steep ground between the roots and the gritstone was gloopy and slippery…. brilliant fun, especially in the dark of Saturday night….

On the Saturday evening we sat in the pub whilst Dave gave a masterclass in wheelbuilding…. what he doesn’t know, you don’t need to…. 4mins 32 seconds to lace a wheel. A VERY useful man to have in the pits!

Anyway, I got past pint number two and had a choice; pints number 3/4/5… or another night ride home and another 40 miles in the bank by the time I would return for the Sunday ride. Fortunately the latter won out…. it was pouring down but that ‘it could be anytime’ sensation kicked in as I climbed out of Rothbury and I revelled in the ‘atmosphere’ of a wild winter night…

We all had a great weekend. The Beamish Oddsox were a fun sociable bunch and, even after only meeting them on the Saturday morning, there was a  great atmosphere and we felt part of their group too. (A very different experience to my solitary threshold and tempo sessions on dark and deserted roads…). And I always like that buzz you get from taking people round your local patch… it always reminds you just how good local can be.

It’s been a funny year. I haven’t quite got the results I wanted but looking back on them, ‘in a list’ they actually looked quite good! Plenty of 2nds but, heh could have been worse!

However I started the year with a win at the Winter Warmer Marathon at Kielder. Then got a 3rd in the Border Raid, the May leg of the series, (after flying down a hill in precisely the wrong direction!). Next installment of the series was the Hot Trod. Got there in a hurry with Glen, jumped out the van with ten minutes to the start… to find I’d left my helmet, shoes, clothes etc. on the kitchen floor… Doh! (We ended up having a good ride in Northumberland though).

I’d only needed to put in a reasonable finish that day to acrue enough points to make a half decent finish at the Oktoberfest more than enough for the series win. As it stood, on Saturday morning, I pretty much needed to win to top the points table…

So why did I drink three pints of Grolsch on Friday night after not having a drink all week…..?

I stood on the start line feeling decidedly queasy. My warm up sprints had left my legs feeling bruised and heavy. I was desperate to pee following the two pints of water I had knocked back for breakfast in a desperate and naive effort to rehydrate…

There were a couple of Wheelbase riders on the front line and Steve Young, a solid rider and a man I had to beat; he was second in the points table. He hasn’t beaten me before, (well, except when I took a wrong turning!) but he has been hot on my tail: in the Winter Warmer I finished just one minute up on him. I couldn’t, for example get a puncture, (or get lost!) and expect to get away with it.

Off we went, straight into perhaps the best bit of the course! A short stretch of super fun rooty singletrack. I slipped in behind one of the Wheelbase riders. When we got spat out on to fireroad I eased past him and settled into a steady fast climbing pace. Down again through a fun natural grassy bobbly section that your front wheel wiggled through easily if you let it. I hit this section pretty fast as I had decided I had to make time up on anything technical… grinding fireroad is not my strength and I expected plenty of it!

I wasn’t disappointed… but even on the first substantial fireroad drag I was pulling away from the chasers and felt exceptionally good. The mild hangover, (yes, I know it was only three pints… stop giggling at the back) had passed and I fell straight into a hard but comfortable pace and kept pushing.

I passed over a cross road. No sign told me to do anything else…

I kept the pace high, having decided to stretch the gap early… Minutes passed. No signs or marshalls. Then a two way fork. Still no directions. I could see the gap had risen to around thirty seconds. Bugger! What to do? They say it’s better to do something rather than nothing and, not wanting to loose the advantage, I tossed a mental coin and chose left!

Lucky really because, after a few hundred meters of gradual climbing, the left ran to a dead end. (Apparently, if I had chosen right I wouldn’t have hit another junction for miles…)

So… about turn. It was now a gradual descent so I hammered it downwards whilst shouting to the chasers we had gone the wrong way as I passed them, (with gravity on my side, I still managed to retain some of my gap ; )    

Ian from the Bike Place was at the last junction and directed me back to the crossroads where the problem had started. Apparently, someone had removed a marker from the course at this point. Some suspect it’s a local who doesn’t like mountain bikers. I can see their point; there really isn’t much space in Kielder to just do your own thing and let others do the same! If by random chance, the perpetrator is reading this, read my lips; you are an idiot. There are various reasons for this, but here’s the main one;  if a rider had continued in the wrong direction, crashed, got lost, hurt themselves, got caught in bad weather etc. etc. etc. nobody would have known their whereabouts…. So not very clever really.

Anyway, back to the action. I was now royally at the back of the race, except the five riders who had followed me before the marshalls had got there; this still chasing group included Steve Young, luckily for me! I’ve been in this position before, and if I’m totally honest, I quite enjoy the adrenalin and excitement of charging through the pack, not quite knowing where the front is! I was pushing harder than before but still felt very very good. But the feeling that I wasn’t destined to win this series nagged at the back of my mind!

Into the first lap transition and I scanned the marshalls… I had given Robert a bottle to hand to me. He wasn’t there. Bugger! I had no drink left and an hour and a quarter riding to go. The nagging was back… No time to think, just keep riding….

Fortunately, I saw him about fifteen minutes later. Phew! And thank you Robert!

Any K100 riders remember the horrible zig zag climb up onto the wide high level board walk? Well, soon after this point on the second lap, I established that I had taken the lead. And I couldn’t see anyone chasing me (there was a good view back at this point). I relaxed mentally but decided from here on I was going to capitalise on my good form and go as hard as I could. Each time I launched into a climb my legs whirred away almost effortlessly. I was really enjoying this!

With the end in sight, I relaxed and span over the line with a comfortable gap. Then I felt all queasy and hungover again.

Only one thing for it. Down to the Anglers Arms for a pint of Black Sheep before everyone else got back.

Riders trickled in and Steve and his wife joined me. Bought me (another) Black Sheep for ‘getting’ him again! A very noble gesture that will only serve to encourage me next season. I’m sure he’ll get his revenge one day!

So I won the series which was a nice end to the year. It’s a laid back series but a worthy one which raises funds for the local Air Ambulance. (I hope the course saboteur remembers that if they ever get lost / injured on the fells…)

It’s frustrating ending the season on a high; I really want to race now! Sure I’ll find something, perhaps some cx races… But, despite the slight dread of the winter creeping up, already I’m remembering why I like this time of year. Atmospheric dark commutes, deserted fells, brooding skies… And the day dreams of the season to come… Funny how targets help the winter fly past and before I know it, I’ll be back on the start line again full of nervous energy.

But probably not as much strong lager.

Something worked though…..

Thanks to Matt Jones for taking me up to Kielder following The Death of my Volvo : (   He rode the race and then got up today to run the Kielder Marathon…. Which he did in a very respectable 4.5 hrs on no running training! Good effort! Check out his next challenge and think of him when you scramble up that last K100 climb…. http://killerkielder.blogspot.com/

… your face full kebabs that is. Yes folks we’ve been on holiday! Char and I used to work in the north of Turkey and have not been back for some years, despite having some very fond memories of the country. A country which, I feel, suffers an image problem as a result of the package holiday trade. It’s a fascinating country and I have seen some of the most stunning natural and man made sights in my time there. The variety is incredible; we worked a little to the south of Istanbul and, on our doorstep, I had 3,000m high glacial mountains to play in. The best riding I have done anywhere in the world. There are also semi desert areas, rolling pine forests and dramatic coastlines. This time we headed to Dalyan, in the south west, as we knew it was a good base that had not been taken over by touts, booming discos and english breakfast bars.

Dalyan sits a few miles inland on a river delta. For a laid back day you can walk along the river, take a cruise on a fishing boat or, as we did, hire canoes and paddle along under the spectacular Lycean rock tombs.

The delta heads out to a spectacular beach that is a breeding ground for loggerhead turtles; conservationists scored a famous victory here by blocking beach development; a rare occurence in Turkey.  Here’s a view of the main beach from the top of my morning eye opener; a twisting eight mile climb to a spectacular look point over the coast.

And here’s the view inland to the north of the headland;

Stunning stuff! And, (enough of that tourist tosh) the start of the riding proper! From here there were a number of rocky beaches and coves to descend to….. and the downhills were rocky, dusty high speed fliers. Ace for speedway style slides…

And this was the finish line…

Returning from an afternoon ride we would stop at an incredible waterside bar that looked straight out onto the delta and eat fresh fish washed down with some cold Efes. I’ve seen some sunsets on my travels but this was almost supernatural….

Of course this was a holiday, but it was also an opportunity to put some different structure into my training ahead of Dusk till Dawn. I was generally doing hard day / easy day / hard day etc. Two hour tempo / threshold blocks that benefitted from 45 minute climbs in 40 deg heat…. Marvellous! So absolutely nothing like Thetford at all really.

Fat lot of good flogging myself in the heat did anyway! I sit here, at home, writing in total frustration after breaking down on the A1 last night on my way to Josh’s and D2D… This was my final big race of the year and there was no way of getting my gear down there in time…. gutted.

Maybe a few beers and a late night kebab might ease the pain…

I found myself wanting to start ‘It’s that time again’…. but then I remembered that this is just the second running of this fantastic event! SIP Events have really hit a nerve with this race and despite not particularly liking the terrain, (lots of fireroad!) I love the race, the atmosphere and the fantastic scenery, which I am lucky to call my ‘backyard’.

TallBoy Josh dropped by on Friday and we headed up to Kielder together. Once registered we seemed to be loosing about a pint of blood a minute to the midges and decided that a burger and a pint was the best course of action. Fortunately, self control limited the Black Sheep intake, and, full of that invincible ‘if I feel like this in the morning’ excitement I went to bed in my crap pop up tent.

This I regretted. (Not going to bed, the crap tent!). I have nice tents. Why did I choose the Christmas Cracker version? Being lazy always backfires and I woke up at about 3am soaked in condensation and bloody freezing. It was like having the blood sucked out. Again.

Light slumber ensued. To get to sleep I counted the calories I was burning trying to stay warm…

Then, horror upon horror, the alarm went. At 5am. I didn’t know it had a setting that low. Josh was irritatingly lively, (pesky kids!) whilst I fought through the toughest part of the race; eating breakfast without vomiting. It cheered me up to see Ant crawl out of his Mystery Machine, with five minutes to get to the start line, looking like he had developed acute myxamatosis during the night. Somebody felt rougher than me! Hurrah!

Whilst Ant got himself together, Josh and I got a good front row start spot and shared the usual friendly banter with those who’d been here last year and those who’d been attracted by the event’s huge success. The start line had some seriously fast people on it and it was obvious that a top ten would be a result…

Off we went, paced out to the north of Kielder Castle. I made a special effort to look back over my shoulder once we had got a mile or so down the pacing straight; what an amazing view! Hundreds of riders forming a brightly coloured river through the early morning mist. Peoples faces happy and enthusiastic, yet nervous energy filled the air and tyres buzzed as the faster guys jostled for position…

Then we were set loose up the first climb. It hurt. As expected a lead group shot off and a second group formed. I didn’t feel great and didn’t really try to chase anything… I was determined to not limp over the line like last year (turns out this is an inevitable aspect of the event!). More people went past me than I really wanted but I knew if I pushed it here I would suffer badly later and my legs just didn’t feel sharp.

I eventually settled with Paul Ashby and a pleasant Scottish chap, Greig Brown. We pushed each other along, chatted and worked well together, Greig offering me some of his drink when I had ran out, so thanks to him.

However… most people who rode Kielder encountered at least one problem. Mine was missing a feed station (or the feed station wasn’t there? I’m not sure?). So I went for about 50 miles on two water bottles. I was seriously dehydrated. Unlike the Human Enigma that is Ant White, I really suffer without liquid and, as the heat of the day built I started to panic as the miles passed with no sign of water (Ant had one Camelbak and one water bottle. For the full duration!).

When Newcastleton finally arrived, I downed a couple of cups of water through a mouth overflowing with Jelly Beans. I tried to speak to the ladies at the feed station though clearly with half a pound of sugar in my mouth only muffled grunts could result. Despite knowing this, I carried on garbling. They looked at me and other wretches with kind sympathy. At this point I caught Dave Powell who was tucking into a hearty lunch but knowing Ant’s ‘pitting’ strategy, (i.e. don’ do it) I said Hi, grabbed more Jelly Beans for my pocket and stumbled out the door in hot pursuit of Mr White as he disappeared towards the trail head and the cracking Newcastleton singletrack. No home advantage this time as many people here had done 50 zillion laps of the red route in May… 

Riding with Ant was good as he pushed me beyond my comfort zone… we were flying down the main descent when my water bottle flew out. I didn’t want to stop, but, after being so close to wiping out through lack of liquid earlier, I knew I had too. Of course I lost touch with Ant and for the next 20 miles or so he was always tantalisingly in sight but out of reach… along with Greig and Paul…

Then in the woods I went past Craig Bowles. He had some problem with his tyres so bad luck to him. I knew he would be back though so I pushed on as hard as I could, knowing that the last few miles would be tough and places could change. I think I am right in assuming that everyone, no matter how strong was hurting at this point. I also knew, from last year and local knowledge, that the final sections would be super tough…

As I predicted, the course headed up into valley that I knew had only one exit point… a hideous zig zag climb up trademark Kielder rubble. Horrible. The marshall at top said, ‘Downhill to the finish’. I knew this wasn’t the case and for a minute I wanted to scream, ‘I know that’s not true!’ but I would have come across as weak and pathetic. (I was feeling weak and pathetic but there was no need to advertise the fact). I found one last solitary crusty Jelly Bean in the bottom of my pocket and to it, I owe my life. I was seriously close to bonking…

A glance over my shoulder and I could see Craig, head down, and chasing me down… Nooooo! I wanted to limp over the line in my own time…. Down some fire road and then the hideous inevitable… a stepped, steep and protracted climb. (I didn’t mention long; it was long as well). It hurt. Whilst mostly downhill from there, it had some kicks and I thanked that little Jelly Bean each time I pushed over one. Craig hadn’t caught me and then I went past Greig, who also had tyre problems. I was personally very wary of this last descent because I know from bitter experience, it is trickier and more treacherous than it first appears… you can’t ride it like a normal trail centre trail as it is so broken up and there are lots of loose sharp stones everywhere that you need to pick through.

Careful to make no mistakes on the final hurdle, I finished in 8hrs 43. In 10th. (I’d like to call it a heady mix of luck and judgement….) Would have liked a higher place, (Who wouldn’t? Well except the winner Mr Cockburn. An amazing performance) but, given that I wasn’t super on it, and the competition was very stiff I can’t complain. Many good riders had problems that knocked them back or they couldn’t resolve. This is perhaps the beauty and the attraction of the Kielder 103; (yes, it was 103 miles!) if you have a problem, you have to deal with it. Like a proper big day in the hills. You just can’t capture that atmosphere on a lapped enduro course.

Another aspect to this event is the ‘we’re all in this together’ side of things. It is an extremely difficult challenge, whether you are racing or just aiming to complete the full course. Many people were out there for 11, 12, or 13 hours… that’s a heck of a long time to be on a bike, especially with draggy surfaces and killer climb after killer climb. Everybody who finished that ride did exceptionally well. I ride a lot and found the course extremely tough mentally and physically; many riders (I imagine) have never covered distance like that and the killer blow, unlike a lapped enduro, is you can’t hide in the trees and let the clock run down… A bit like my Coast to Coast ride last year. You just have to keep going to the end. I hope this encourages many more people to try a ten or twelve hour solo now that they have proven they can ride for that length of time. That includes you Glen ; )  ! Good effort!

Anyways… it was good training for the Sunday ‘recovery’ ride with Ant and Josh. Ant was straight into race pace and I quickly realised my mistake…. Josh took some footage of some of the fun stuff at Thrunton Woods (including some pathetic crashes from yours truly). Should be entertaining and I’ll post a link when TallBoy finishes his Spielberg like editing job.

Curry and beer rounded off proceedings and the endurance diaspora melted back into civilised society, happy to once again have flirted with physical breakdown. Nice. Already looking forward to next year….

Yep, there’s always one. And there’s been one in the last three races I’ve done. One competitor I mean! Okay, two at Gisburn 12hr pairs…

But then there was Ten @ Kirroughtree. I was totally unprepared having only decided to enter about 48hrs before. Total mud fest but absolutely fantastic course. The organisers had been asked for more natural rooty sections to link the man made stuff…. I expected about 90% man made / 10% natural….. error! The hairy, steep, rooty, slippery shutes came thick and fast… And I had headed out on Crossmarks presuming hard surfaces! The charge into the first singletrack looked like a pack hitting cobbles on a Northern Classic in the rain… bikes and bodies flew everywhere as everybody was hit by their ‘inappropriate’ tyre choices at once! Great fun! The rain got heavier and it turned into ‘one of those races’…. I wasted a load of time faffing on with wheels and tyres whilst trying to contend the race. It was a close fight…. and I came in 2nd. By 2 minutes. Over ten hours. Grrrrr!

Anyway, it was great prep for Bontrager 24 solo. Again, I looked at the weather forecast through light enhancing Oakleys… It’ll be fine! Slight chance of some light showers. No problem! The two weeks leading up to the event were so busy at work that, even if I had had the inclination, I just didn’t have any more time to spend on preparation. My naivety and my busy schedule really didn’t help what turned out to be a kind of ‘Freddy Krueger Goes to the Races’ kind of experience…

It was grey and overcast on the Friday when Charlotte and I pitched up at the lovely Newnham Park. We were soon met by Pit Bitch Extraordinaire, Mr Ian Leitch. A quick lap of the course confirmed why I had decided to make the garguntuan trip from Northumberland to the tropical south… fantastic fun and technical singletrack and the perfect balance of climbing and descending. If the weather stays dry this would be ace…

Hardly slept on the Friday night due to the hammering rain…. it had stopped when we got up but the sky was heavy and foreboding…

The start was very fast. I’d forgotten what a team / mass participation start was like as my last two 24s were the Worlds and the UK24. No teams on the start line. No really ‘elbows out’ close combat, no ‘got to go just that bit too fast to hit the singletrack without getting stuck in a bottleneck’…. This start felt like an xc race! Had to keep the pace high for the first lap till things thinned out.

When they did I had Rob Dean on my shoulder…. surely he wasn’t trying to draft me?(!) Anyway, I ‘thunk thin’, breathed in, and pushed him up the Clif Climb… Each lap he kept coming back to me further up the course but I felt that each time he came back it was just one tree further up the course…. We were joined by Craig Bowles, A rider who I was very wary of from the start. I’ve seen him ride at Bontrager before and know what a strong and well paced rider he is.

I did a bike swap and Craig and Rob went hammering off… took a few minutes to get back to them. Light rain was falling and the course was getting a bit slippery,,,, my spare bike had racier tyres on… round a corner and I lost the front wheel in already skatey mud. I hit the ground hard and lost touch with front (Gerald Tudor was up ahead too). So I settled into a pace.

Caught Rob and went past him…. a bit too easily as I remember. I looked back and saw him slowing up. Later I was told that he had pulled out with broken mech hanger. Really bad luck as I know Rob was primed for Bontrager after some 24hr DNFs earlier in the year.

Anyway, Craig was up and ahead and the weather was getting worse. Proper rain now. I tried to block out memories of horror SITs and Mayhem rides…. surely not again???

The course was turning to porridge. The gap was slowly creeping up around ten minutes. Deja vous was crystalizing…. Into the night I was really struggling motivationally. I was very near to pulling out (something I pride myself in never doing). It wasn’t that I can’t do these bad conditions, far from it, in some respects I like them. The problem was my poor preparation was letting me (and my pit crew) down. I just wasn’t equipped to do a mud fest. No jet wash. Not enough spares. No bad weather strategy. It felt hopeless and I’m embarressed to admit it but I got really down. This was not fun and the win felt out of my reach. Early morning (still raining of course!) and I was having a mechanical issue a lap. I (perhaps irrationally) wanted to stay on my amazing steel Enigma Ego but at the cost of running long pit stops to keep it moving in the ever worsening conditions. Of course the conditions were the same for everyone but I was annoyed with myself for not having a game plan as I have been in this situation before (two weeks earlier in fact at Kirroughtree!) and should have known better.

Anyways, as I always do, I stuck it out. Craig was about forty minutes up I think and I just needed to tap it out for second. And then the flippin sun came out!!!! (Why does that always happen after horror muddy nightss??). It went ballistically hot. I put my toys back in my pram and actually cracked a smile!  People were washing their bikes in the river, carefully balancing on rocks with trousers rolled up. I saw my chance and executed the bike equivalent of ‘bombing’ nearly going over the bars I hit the water so fast! Well, it cheered me up and I cleared my own patch of river to splash about in.

So (again!) I was second. Of course I really wanted the win but Craig was very strong and he thoroughly deserved the win. If he continues to knock out rides like that, I think he will be a handful for any UK soloist in 2011. Good luck to one of the nicest endurance riders out there.

What next? Kielder 100 looms…. It’s going to be super competitive this year. A good few of the long haul riders are in there as well as the xc guys who can stretch the distance and the marathon specialists… I got 6th there last year. In retrospect a pretty good result. Following Bontrager I got laid up with a cold…. gave me time to finally prepare my Kielder Weapon of Choice – my Ti Ego…. It’s a thing of beauty and I’ll post some pics very soon.

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.

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!

It’s been kerrazy at Rothwell Towers recently…. My new job with Sustrans has been great fun so far but very busy and a big change. Cycling is now my work AND my hobby… lucky Charlotte eh?

The other big news is that I have a fantastic new sponsor; Enigma frame builders. Enigma have more of an established presence on the road scene and they specialise in high quality custom handmade ti and steel frames. However, they also produce a ti hardtail (the Ego) and a steel hardtail (the Ego st). I will be riding the steel frames. 

At a number of races in the last couple of years, I’ve stood on the start line thinking I would be better of on a hardtail… so few courses really require a full suspension bike and the simplicity, comfort, and ’snap’ of a high quality hardtail has become increasingly appealling. Enigma frames really are beautifully crafted and finished. Check out www.enigmabikes.com  However, when my bikes are built up there will be pics and a review here and I’ll tell you more about the ride characteristics. 

Love the idea of keeping it British too… we have some fantastic engineering companies in the UK (including Enigma + USE / Exposure) and, in the current economic climate, I for one am very happy to be promoting  and raising the profile of these high quality outfits.

As you may have read earlier Josh and I were beaten back by the snow in an attempt to reach Newcastleton… That was some time back now… and you wouldn’t expect snow to rear it’s head this late in the year. But guess what? Mr Leitch joined me for a Northern soiree and… 15 cms of snow fell on the borders the day before! Incredible! Anywho; always one to make the most of an excuse to go and muck about on bikes in the name of ‘training’, we hooked up with Glen and headed for Edmunbyers in the Pennines (the warmer South). A fun ride but incredibly wet (Ian’s choice of shorts was ‘optimistic’ (no, not the style, just the general decision over something cosier). We rode down several streams that were not on the map…

Next day was the traditional Thrunton trip and we were joined by Sustrans Area Manager James Adamson (who I will be working with very soon). James turned up on “the ideal Thrunton” bike – a rigid slack angled steel hardtail with big tyres and widest bars I have EVER seen! Stable! James’ claim proved true as he rumbled down the steep rocky stuff with unfaltered control. Goodbye to those two and return home to an email from…. Ant White.

“Fancy checking out Newcastleton Rich?” 

OK. Soooo… Char and I set off early with Ant following in his ‘Magnificent Mystery Machine’… : ) The rain got steadily heavier…. the roads turned to rivers… I was cruising. And Ant was following…. A little pressure on the accelerator. The Mystery Machine bounced happily through the flooded roads behind us… A little faster. He was right up there all the way. I was assured at Newcastleton that “It is a later model”. Ah. That explains it!

Ant set off in torrential rain to do 43 laps (or something). Char and I cruised round in the ‘atmospheric’ rain forest. It was wet…

Well, sitting typing this several hours later, Ant is still out there. With a bit of luck he’ll wear himself out…. We’re doing 6+ hours ’steady’ at Dalby tomorrow. Wish me luck!