Day 7 - The end is Nigh

We woke up to grey skies and lots of people were hungover after the night stage frollicked into the early hours, I was glad I went to bed early.

Ryan looked a bit of a sorry state and Ginger James didnt appear til breakfast was nearly over and he looked like total shit!

As we were packing up our kit the rain started again, so waterproofs went on, changed my tyres back to something with more grip, but noone cared - today was the last day, we only had a short 62km left to do, including a 2km special stage right at the end.

We all went inside for the results of the special stage, it was impossible to tell how we'd all done, so I wasn't really expecting to come that high up the board, even though I'd put in a good performance on the climb. So when I got a 3rd again I was dead chuffed!




check out all that gurning!



After the prize giving, we were set off - slightly later than normal, into the pissing rain. This was the order of the day. It rained and rained, and rained some more. The ground turned shitty, mud clagging round the wheels, grit grinding in the brakes. Before we'd even done  5k, I was feeling weary, I had to take a gel. It helped, but it was such hard work, lots of bits were unpassable, someone hit the deck in front of me in the river - face first, she was OK. *snigger*

There were a few lovely stretches of singletrack, they were slippery but rideable, some of the double track wasn't, a couple of proper gnarly slippery descents that nearly had me careering into a tree. There was a superb singletrack just before the lunch stop - in Brechfa (spelling)  I think, it cut down the hillside over some boardwalks, over a river with plastic piping as an obstacle - I'd like to say I rode this but I ballsed up my speed and line and had to walk it, back through some woods and onto the midgefest that was lunch. Needless to say we didnt stop for long, getting eaten alive wasn't really anyone's idea of fun. The rain had nearly slowed to nothing now and the sun was threatening to poke it's head out.

The ladies on the feed station said it wasnt' far - a big push up (which she meant literally), one more big hill then 8k on the road. The big hill was crazy steep, even RAF legs didnt get much further than me, it was a steep wet, rocky quarry road which was pretty eroded, and went on for 15 minutes! calves burning and back on the bike, back on sludge, churning my poor bike through the muck, it felt like the wheels weren't turning.

Finally we hit road and I knew I could make it back, it was still hilly but it was easier than the mud churning. I stopped for a slash in a field had a stretch, i was feeling pretty wasted and still had to do the last time trial. It's only 2km it'll be fine.

I rode on back through  Builth Wells and up to the campsite through the finish line. Rob and Ryan were there waiting already showered, Ryan had trashed his lovely Yeti and wasn't very happy, Rob grabbed me a can of coke to knock back before the time trial, we could go when we liked, he suggested getting it out the way before I got cold so I got on with it. Rob said to use the porta loos at the bottom of the hill as a berm and not to brake - joker!

 The course was pretty much  a 1km climb and 1km descent, I'd made the assumption it was a fire road ascent, I was a bit wrong there! It wasn't massively technical, but I quickly regretted locking out my forks  and fumbled to release them to get up over the rocks and roots. The hill went up quite steeply, i didnt have much left, but I pushed on up, it twisted up into the woods and climbed a bit further before twisted back round onto some sweet natural singletrack, the rain hadnt made it too slippery as I bobbed in and out of the trees, down a couple of smooth drops and hard right turn, a weird left turn that looked like it wanted to go the other way through a gate, bit more rooty wood singletrack and into an open field descent which was taped off and zig-zagged down the hill. The rain had made the grass slippery so I was a bit reserved then thought fuck it, let it go! I careered down the hill and saw what Rob meant about the bogs, I wasnt gutsy enough not to brake before I made the 90 degree turn out the bottom of the hill but I tried to use the camber to throw the bike round. I straightened up and sprinted for the line. Wahoo! I'd finished, I hadn't died, my bike was still (just about) working, I hadnt dnf'd.

Hurrah! The End! :-)

Matt carr stuck his mic in my face, I can't remember what I said but his reply was "you can't swear!" oops

Dropped off my chip, got my finishers jersey and first things first... free beer! :-)

I was meant to drive back with Rob and Ryan but they wanted to get back and miss the presentation, I quite wanted to stick around as I suspected I might still be lying in 3rd overall, I hadnt thought I'd done the special stage quick enough but overall my penalties might be enough. So I arranged to get back with Ginge the next day which would mean a celebration tonight!

After a couple of beers, I got my stuff from Rob's van we said our goodbyes, snogs n hugs n that. Ryan's parting comment "you fuckin's stink!" charming. ;-)

Presentation was going to be about 4 so I had time to go and have a wash - I was filthy! and wsh my bike down (also filthy!)

The guys at The Big Adventure Store did a brilliant job servicing and fixing this when I got home!

There was free beer so I had a couple more beers whilst the presentation went on, the Male Solo had been exciting all week, with Matt Page and Ajay fighting it out daily, in the end Matt got 1st followed closely by Ajay and 3rd was a big surprise to everyone - a singlespeeder who rides flat pedals and is so humble and uncompetitive - he never realised how good he is, as he doesn't race! He even beat Matt on a couple of the special stages. Hats off!

Onto the Ladies Solo and the special stage of today, I again surprised myself by getting 3rd once more and overall for the week I also got 3rd place! I was very pleased to have podium'd at such a challenging event, and with some gore vouchers and a cash prize to spend (probably on beer) it was even better.

Podium girls

After the presentation we had some dinner - there were very few people left now, just the hardcore and the staff. At 7pm we'd arranged to walk into town for a pub crawl, after traipsing a couple of miles and getting chased by horses we settled in the pub.

I was pooped. I couldnt even muster the energy to have a proper conversation, I opted for an OJ and lemonade - what the fuck? Ok, just one rum.

I could barely keep my eyes open, and by 9 I was looking for excuses to go back to the campsite... it wasn't like I had anywhere to be.

Luckily I wasn't the only one to feel like this so a bunch of us walked back and were in our tents by 10.30 - rock n roll!!

Day 6 - Nightrider (and throwing my toys out of the pram)

I didn't wake up til 6:45 today, and it was also the first day I had felt any sort of aching - not just my head from the booze abuse, a bit of a dull ache in my thighs. I looked and felt like shit. I dragged myself to breakfast where the others were already sat down.
The midges weren't as bad today, well there were still lots around, but they weren't swarming and quite so bitey.

I can tell I'm getting weary as I'm not biting with the guys piss taking today. I fuelled up on the usual nosh and tried to soak up the booze. Aware that I was dehydrated too I tried to force water down my gullet too.

I packed up my tent, and got my shit together, the music on the PA system was getting me in the mood today, we were in the bottom of a valley, so the standard climb to start the day and get the legs pumping was inevitable.

When we rolled out of the campsite, we went out across the back of the field we'd been camping in, which surprisingly didn't take us immediately uphill, but out through some farmland and onto some moorland, then of course we did go uphill, but the uphills for the first time were "fun" they were interesting, rocky ascents that you had to think a bit and concentrate.

Me and Jason were riding together again today as Dan's knee is still fat and sore, I'm surprised he wants to hang out with me again after yesterdays strop! Today had been promised to be wet (not like that) with the infamous river crossings - about 11 or so of them I'm told (I didn't count them) it wasn't long before we were splashing through puddles in some spectacular valleys, the puddles soon gave way to the river crossings. They were such fun riding through, the first ones were pretty shallow and short, they became deeper with larger rocks, by now we were pretty wet, shoes filled with water, but we were bouncing along splashing around like a couple of kids. It was by far the best mornings riding we'd done. The rivers went on for miles and we were j ust thrashing through the water, pedalling through the trails and land rover gulleys and obviously riding along the river meant we were hardly climbing at all! When we pulled out of the trails and onto the road where the lunch stop was we were really happy and smiling. We sat down for a bit and had some lunch,  I was starting to feel hungover now we'd stopped and took an extra jam sarnie for later.

After lunch the course went down a steep road then onto a bitch of a road climb, then onto an even more of a bitch steep rocky climb. I suddenly had nothing left in my legs, I was turning the pedals but the bike didnt seem to be listening. "come on legs"

I don't know what happened to me (maybe the beer knows) , but from then on I was riding like a total twat. I couldnt get over the easiest obstacle, having to stop and push over things which would normally not phase me or be a problem. I was feeeling totally zapped and unhappy, talk about Bipolar! Jason's singing didn't even help my mood as it deteriorated further. We had been told that ahead was the longest stretch of singletrack in Wales, so I thought this might help things as it would probably be more flowing than the wet lumpy moorland we were riding across.

The next few miles went something like this.... Pedal, mud, grind to a halt, dismount, push, growl, remount, mud, dismount... and so on. It was breaking my soul. Where the fuck was this singletrack?? What? We're on it? Jeez. It was maybe the longest piece of singletrack but also the most unrideable. every 100 yards or so you'd smash into a big boggy patch of mud so any hope of getting a bit of momentum was near impossible. I could feel my rage building. We passed the photographer who I couldnt even force a smile for, I was near tears. I don't do crying.I smashed once more into a boggy patch, got off, yelled at the hill. Jason was somewhere a little ahead of me, and I wished I was riding on my own today, when I'm having a bad patch like this, I just need to be able to slap myself in the face and plough through it.



Look how happy I look!! :-)




I passed through some shrubbery and there sat in the bushes was Jason. He told me to get off and sit down for a bit. I was relieved, we sat down in the bushes admiring the valley below (i'd forgotten to look at how gorgeous it all looked whilst I was sat staring at my front wheel swearing like a trooper) I got out the emergency jam sarnie and we sat there for probably 20 minutes. I once more apologised for being a cunt. Poor Jason. I tried to perk up, it can't be far now back to the ranch so we got back on and rode on through the rest of the singletrack (boggy splashes)

When we got back everyone must have already been back, the special stage today was the Exposure lights night stage so people were wandering around in compression tights looking serious.

I went to clean off my bike, had a shower and went to get my tent. The campsite today was on a farm and instead of the inflatable catering tent there was a large barn where it was all set up. I got my tent and started to put it up, but couldnt find my poles.... hmm.. I went back to the lorry to see if they'd fallen out. Nope. Bugger, where were they?

After some rummaging around I gave up, there were some spare pop up tents knocking around so they let me borrow one of them, i put it up, just as it started to rain. We ate a smaller than normal dinner as noone wanted to be too full for later then found out our start times for the special stage - mine was 9:36.

There was a real buzz around the camp tonight, everyone talking tactics about tonight's time trial. It was a 3km fireroad climb followed by a 3km singletrack descent. It was my sort of course, the long climb is where I knew I could put some minutes into the other girls - not the leading 2 who noone could touch mind! I had decided that I'd swap my tyres back to more racey ones for the stage and once I had and people saw I was greeted with remarks such as "that's a brave tyre choice", "they'll be fun with this rain"

I started to worry now, looking at everyone elses tyres. Ah fuck em, I knew they'd help me on the climb, and the descent I'd no doubt be picking my way down like the pussy that I am anyway so I won't slip!

I went to have a nap, and sent Martin a text asking him about the tyres - he told me to get on with it.

I got up, got changed, sorted out my lights (one on my helmet and a 100000 lumens exposure one I'd borrowed on the handlebars) I rolled out of the campsite with a few others, and we made our way to the trail, it was a few miles of road to get there, and soon we could hear the bass pumping from the PA system and Matt carr yelling through mic.

It was raining pretty constantly now, not really hard, just a steady drizzle. I knocked back a gel, I was still feeling shattered, I'd been tempted to sit it out but decided to follow rule #5 and harden the fuck up. When we got there though, the atmosphere was so surreal I soon got back in the zone. The music blasting, the excitement of all the riders, Matt yelling "pedal!pedal!pedal!" as the riders started off the ramp.

It wasnt long before Matt Page and Ajay shot through the finishing chute just seconds apart. Matt had been caught on the climb but he'd managed to pass on the descent.

9:36 soon came about and I climbed up onto the metal ramp, music still pumping, I could see myself slipping off it - that'd be embarrassing! Matt gave it some banter down the mic at me, and I was given the countdown - 3...2...1...."Pedal!Pedal!Pedal!" and I was off. The hill started quite sharply and  pedalled hard until I was round the corner out of site, it eased off a little and I started pushing. Some of the corners even on the climb I found a bit sketchy and had to ease back a little. It wasn't long before I caught up with the guy in front, then the lady in front, then just as the route was about to take the singletrack climb, I caught one more bloke for luck. I fucked up the bend on the first bit of singletrack, it was a steep climb on a hairpin, I had to dab my foot down for a second.

I was concious that there were people fairly close behind me and not wanting to hold them up on the descent, but I knew I'd done a good job of the climb.

The descent was fantastic, it was just smooth, twisty, well maintained singetrack, a few big berms, nothing nasty to catch you out, a few steep drops. I wasnt hammering it, I was overtaken by the RAF guy with amazing legs who was absolutely flying. Then I got stuck behind a lady for what felt like ages, I asked to pass when I could, but there was nowhere for her to pull over, so I had to sit behind her picking her way down the hill worse than me. I was gettting frustrated, after a kilometer I finally got passed and hammered the pedals and went for it and after a few more twists and turns I was through the finish line. The tyres were totally fine and I regretted not pushing past her sooner, but I always hate it in case I get caught up again and look like a dickhead.

I hung around for a bit after, then rode on back to dry off and got a burger from the caterers who'd put on an extra supper, it was the nicest burger I've had in ages, but I could only eat half so gave the other half to Fi. Once more the camp was full of riders high on endorphins from another fun stage.

There was beer being sold again, but I was shattered, and didnt want another hangover, so I was sensible and got an early night (early being 11.30!)

Results were to be the next morning