Welcome
to our Ride Diary - Site under Reconstruction
Here's the bulk of Saturday's ride...
Mick continued his Captain's role closer to the proposed start time when he wandered up to Race Control to make sure all was OK for the start. It had been advertised as being 10:30am, but he returned to the Crappy Hampers tented village to announce that the Senior race didn't in fact start until 1:30pm! That meant we could conceivably have travelled up this morning instead of last night and still have had plenty of time to prepare for the 'off'. Good job the previous night's entertainment had been up to scratch.
Anyway, all the gear was packed away into the vehicles and we headed for the Control at about 1:00 pm to collect our race numbers. There was much amusement in the pits as various mounting positions were experimented with, and Mick's in particular raising eyebrows as he'd attached it to the top of his forks. Didn't look feasible until Golly tried the Mark Two version and sure enough it worked nicely as a mud deflector. Around 1:15 the announcer instructed us all to assemble down at the start line in the open field below. This provided the opportunity for the massed start to become split up enough for the bottleneck of the initial climb. A few minutes before kick-off, the customary Piper began squeezing his bags and let rip with one of Bonny Prince Charlie's favourites - Paul McCartney's "Mulligan's Tyre". Well, that had the start line rockin' and here we see Ian F, the Man With No Brakes, being consumed by the excitement of the moment and ready to hit the front at the gun.
However, it was Stevie B who shot away from the start, hitting the road up to the Control in 3rd or 4th place. That's when he decided to ease off a bit and do the right thing by pacing himself. By the time the first riders had hit the top of the first fireroad drag, the Gollum was stone last, and while he stopped to take this photo, he was shoulder-charged by some out of control back marker and tipped off his bike!
At least that gave him the chance to get to know some fellow strugglers as they tried to follow the pack up that nasty climb. The contours of the race are pretty straightforward to summarise. It went straight up the side of a small mountain, levelled off for about a hundred metres then went straight back down again. Fortunately for the Mountain Bikers amongst us, the "down" was sensational. The track was narrow everywhere except the field crossings half way down, so passing was at a premium. Luckily for some of us, there were a lot of slippages and tip-offs which did open up opportunities to overtake, almost always on the gnarliest bits of the descents, but it sure kept your concentration levels up!
Jason was the only real casualty of the day after tipping himself over the top and damaging his arm, elbow, wrist and shoulder at the first very difficult stream crossing. I think he was the only one of us that attempted it, all but the bravest front-runners preferring to carry across it. That caused him more trouble later tryng to get some sleep than it did while soldiering on throughout the race. At one point on Lap Two, Chris D, Chris K, Ian F and Golly all got together in the sunshine with another couple of competitors for a nice little chat and a rest for about ten minutes just before the summit! Then, honestly, the "race" was back on. It was near the end of this lap that Gollum managed to catch and pass an obviously ailing Jason, but he couldn't make it stick over the open field crossing. Then he managed to hang around long enough to grab a few shots of the lads in action, see below:
Towards the end of lap two you couuld plainly see tiredness creeping in, with the field well strung-out over the whole of the 5km lap. It was just beyond where the pictures above were taken that we managed to capture this little gem on the warmup lap in the morning:
Do hope that wasn't too embarrassing for anyone!
Anyway, the race continued without further major incident to any of the MidAirCrisis crew, but I'm afraid I was in no state to grab any more pictures! I did, however, thoroughly enjoy my descent at the end of lap 2 as by then I knew I just couldn't face that hill for a fourth climb (yes, I'm counting our breakfast-time survey lap which many of us later regretted). It was great being able to ignore the friendly warning shouts from fallen competitors and spectators on the second last stream chute, with it's nasty little kick upwards followed by a flight over the boardwalk and dry stone wall. This was the fastest bit of the trail, even quicker than the jump on the field crossing, but it was a pretty narrow sliver of earth to keep your wheels inside which gave an extra adrenalin boost. And I must praise the very brave camera waver down at the end of the woods, who was actually under my wheels as I took the little ramp just before the last stream took us onto the farm track.
I got back to the finish and immediately told the Marshalls to cross me off, job done but one lap short of my quota. And you know what? I felt no guilt at all! I jumped in the queue for the bike wash then positioned myself where I could see the others as they approached the finish line. First to arrive was Mick, who just had time to tell me both legs were cramping up, then he was off up that rancid climb again! Next along was Steve, and he came straight into the pits as I had, suffering just as much from the climbing and calling it a day one lap early. Then it was Jason's turn to make an appearance. He also had just enough time to tell me he had cramp before grinning at my suggestion he should finish now and easing his way around the first corner onto the climb.
Gazing down into the distance, I could just about make out a pair of riders having a good old natter as they came into view. This had to be the Young Uns, Chris D and Ian. When they got close enough to see me aiming my Canon at them, they glanced at each other and switched into Race Mode for the dash to the line. When they arrived they were of the same opinion as Steve and I - enough is enough! So there was only one member left out there and here he came up the road and under the banner. Would he quit aswell? No, he would not. Good old Chris K was doouble-determined to compensate for his slight loss of distance at the Grizedale Challenge and although he, too, was cramping up, he carried on bravely to complete his full distance. Very impressive.
If the picture above doesn't get me Sports Photographer of the Year I'm a Gollum.
It surely sums up the meaning of "Fun Ride" which this was suposed to be.
Those of us who were just lying about the place recovering trickled back down to the van for a rest and a snack after washing the bikes. We hung around until we saw Mick emerge from the last drop through the trees, then sprinted across the field back up to the fFinish to cheer him, Jason and Chris home. Now we'd been watching for the first arrivals who we figured had to be the fast lads, and as Mick arrived, we hadn't counted too many over the line yet. Must be a glitch somewhere, we thought. Anyway, we managed to catch him approaching the line and a few seconds later when he'd checked with the marshalls, he told us that he'd finished FOURTH!!! What??? Yes indeed, we knew he was going pretty well, but none of us expected a performance like this! This one will go down in MidAirCrisis/NMBC history together with the Wild Boar 24 Hour as absolute high points for the Club thanks to our Yorkshire-born mate Mick. And to honour him further, I hereby promote him from Flight Lieutenant to Group Captain!
We should also heap praise on the other two aswell - Jason for demonstrating once more how tough he is under adversity and Chris for having the dogged determination to right a wrong (he's the only one that thinks it was, that navigational error at Grizedale!) while in pain, which we'd never hold against him anyway (er, em...). Just a shame the weakest of us punished ourselves unnecessarily by doing that outlap in the morning.
Categories: Juvenile (12-15) – two laps, Junior (16-18) – three laps, Senior (19-29) – five laps, Masters (30-39) – four laps, Veteran (40+) – three laps.
