This has officially been my 9th trip to Wales in the past 9 years I've spent in the UK. I love Wales! I love the people and I love their lamb chops. It really felt like I went to my 2nd UK home.
We did this race in 2010 as a group, some of the group used it as a training ride for the TransAlps . The route was challenging, lots of climbing and the weather was PERFECT! It was so warm that we even went for a swim in the river afterwards.
This year however I entered because I knew that I was going to be homesick when I come back from home in South Africa and I needed a bit of a carrot in front of my nose to keep me training.
On my return to the UK I battled with a stupid cold so I wasn't sure if I should risk doing it, but I still went along.
We arrived on Saturday and the weather was not great, we spend the afternoon watching rugby and making ourselves very much at home in the same hotel as where we watched the rugby 3 years ago, The Greyhound Hotel. Welsh hospitality was at its best, we basically had a whole function room to ourselves and they even served the most amazing lasagne that we ordered upstairs for us.
Later the evening we went to the race village and met Rory who is a distributor of Pivot bikes in the UK. We spent a fair bit of time with him and learnt quite a lot about the British mountain biking scene from him. http://www.upgradebikes.co.uk/
Camping was provided on the Royal Welsh Showgrounds as part of your entry fee. Real toilets and showers was a bonus.
On Sunday morning our tents were almost flattened by the wind and it is a miracle that none of our tent poles snapped. I really tried to get out of riding the race, but sadly got no sympathy and had to do it.
I opted to do the shorter distance of 30km rather than nothing at all. I was signed up for the 75km originally.
The weather was appalling... I've NEVER EVER cycled in weather like that. WIND and RAIN FROM THE SIDE, WIND FROM THE FRONT and not ONCE a tailwind. Going through the mud was tough going. The wind was so strong that it pushed you off your line all the time and made you glide all over the place. It was bizarre, all I could hear all the time was the wind ringing in my ears. The race also felt as if it was just going up ALL the time, there were NO rewarding downhills, the only one that was there, was so muddy that I had to lower my saddle and scoot down with one foot unclipped. Everything was soaking wet. Despite of me having a cold and the strong wind I was quite surprised at how strong I felt on the climbs. The race was not very technical and it felt good riding up where men were pushing their bikes. ;)
Jason completed the marathon distance in a very good time. He was absolutely shattered though from battling against the elements. His feedback was that it was very very tough and that the layer of water on the grass sapped so much energy that it was hard to enjoy the race. The route was very exposed so being on a ridge all the time with the wind blowing from all directions added a twist to the whole experience. We both thought that more singletrack would've been nice.
Please see the link below for more races in this series this year.
http://www.mtb-marathon.co.uk/
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| First time I used my Epic bag - it proved to be an #epicbag :-) So practical - I love it! |
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