Tuesday 30 April 2013

What goes UP must go DOWN!

Last weekend four of us signed up to do the Wiggle Ups & Downs in our local playground, Dorking, Surrey Hills.



I have also done this race in 2010 so knew not to expect a lot of single track, but knew it would still be worth our while to ride it. Ray Hince, my friend from the Cape Epic usually volunteers for the Wiggle races and I thought maybe if I do the race I can convince Ray to do the race too. That was not hard to do, Ray was so keen to compete that he actually signed up before me.
 
Liezl & I set off with the boys, Zane & Jason. Zane fore warned us that he will be taking it easy. I knew what he said and actually meant was two different things. Jason left us early on, Zane was still hanging back, but Pokkeltjie & I was just not strong enough to go at his leisurely pace.

Pokkeltjie & I soon realised that we are actually picking up quite a few people along the way, that gave us a lot of confidence. We kept our pace, didn’t stop, just kept on pedalling. Unfortunately Liezl took a bit of a non-spectacular tumble when she looked back to see if I was still with her. She was left feeling bruised, but kept on going, not even stopping to look at her wounds.
It was great to be out, the route was well sign posted, better than 3 years ago. It was also great to ride some of our usual trails in the other direction.
 
The last third of the race was mainly on trails that I have not ridden before, so that was really great. It was at the top and back of the North Downs and Ranmore Common. It was just before the last water point where we started to slow down a little bit as we were not sure how far we still had to go, but we asked a guy with a Garmin how far we have gone. He said we had 37km on the clock. I knew it would take us roughly another hour to the finish as we were already riding for 2:30. The race finished with a very steep hill finish where it was almost impossible to ride. We attempted to ride it, but with lots of people pushing in front of us, we were glad to also push as this was hard going.
 
We cheered riders on that were riding up and made jokes with others who were also pushing just to lift our own and their spirits. We knew we would be home soon once the hill was out of the way as it was just downhill from there.
We rolled over the finish line after 3 hours 34 minutes. We were very chuffed with that. The boys smashed it and were already waiting for us at the Finish Line.
 
I met up with Ray afterwards and we kuier’ed up a storm. It felt like the good times we had at the Epic. I’m so pleased that he got to meet some of my friends. One of his first observations after meeting Liezl was, “She is just as nuts as you are.” J I am now also his self-appointed adopted 7th child. He-he.
Final Observations:
-          No man likes being overtaken by women
Favourite Quotes of the day:
-          Passing on your left
-          Let’s hit it – Zane Smith

http://www.ukcyclingevents.co.uk/videos/wiggle-ups-downs-mtb-2013/


Cape Epic Reunion with Ray Hince
Photo taken with TC's Nokia C5
 

Happy!!! Liezl, Jason, TC & Zane
Photo taken with Zane's Blackberry
#samesame



1 comment:

  1. Lovely article. Enjoyed reading it. (Zane's mom)

    ReplyDelete