Just back from Mountain Mayhem '06. Left Scotland at 10.30pm and 10 degrees c. Arrived Ledbury 16 degrees c and 4 am. Pretty good going. Cracked a Sam Adams for myself and my co-pilot/wife, and set to work dealing with tents and what not.
Somehow, we missed my to-be-team mate, Chipps, who had retired at 3.47am. Beer and white russian had apparently flowed...
Awoke and preps made. Signed on as a slightly under-manned 4 man team with Chipps a.k.a Johnny Dangerous and me a.k.a Enrico Gonzales. Chipps ran, and rode (swiftly and smoothy), Trina snapped photos (see flickr, SSMM2006 tag) and the heckling was brash.
We managed sixteen laps in total, but far more impressive was the amount of sleep we got. I actually feel pretty re charged after this one. Fastest lap for me 36min. Pretty happy with this and my recovery after each laps' climb was good, plenty of zing in the legs - which is encouraging. Chipps went super well, ever cheerful and super quick to boot. He even managed to light up his test Assos outfit for the night laps.
Jenn won solo - wooop!
Chris rocked the Kenwood Jersey to 20 laps solo.
Shaggy, Steve, Dave, Seb, Phil, and so many other good friends kicked arse on the super dusty, dry and bumpy course.
I had but one problem mechanically. As previously noted, I have been trying to minimise kit. This has meant the move to CO2 for races. Unfortunately, due to the presence of a photographer (www.joolzdymond.com see her snaps, the one of jo and jenn is sooo good) I tried to jump the Kelly out of a bomb hole with a slightly off camber, right turn exit. Landed sideways and blew *both* tyres off the rims. Seems my penchant for running somewhat relaxed tyre pressure and 19mm rims isn't good for those free ride moments... The CO2 was used in earnest as I poppped the bead another twice that lap and ended up with a mile long run to the arena... All good tho' as 48psi (eeep, ping!) sorted out the rest of my laps. That felt scary hard so I can only guess what I ususally run.
What else? Met Abby and Ariel from Maverick. Good folk and Ariel rides smoother than butter...
Also, jerky rules. That's it.
Thank you to Chipps for the last minute entry, Trina for photos and support and pizza and beer and putting up with stinky-me.
No thanks to really stingy nettles and sunburn.
2 comments:
kicked arse ??, more like had my arse handed to me on a plate :-)
but truth to be told I couldnt care less now, the penny has dropped, I aint ever gonna do the ride I have in my head now, but so what ?, I had a whale of a time being with my dera friends and thats what counts in my book, I'll leave the heroics to Jenn from now on and try hard not to cry when she hits the podium :-)
Gotcha race face on in that photo!
Well done to the Dark Marquis too for just keeping on going.
Disappointed not to make 20 laps myself :-(
Pleasantly surprised to find I'd done one more lap than I figured :-)
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