CYB is of course well famous for its tough climbs and gnarly man-made technical riding loops and with my riding this past year focussed on going long, time spent honing my not-that-spectacular technical skills was rather less than I somehow felt it needed to be at this exact moment!

Having got to the start line already soaked and grubby with about thirty seconds to spare I thankfully didn’t have too much time to ponder this and before I knew it we were off – well sort of - and into the bottleneck at the entry to the first single-track climb.

I was at the back of the pack anyway so hopped off and ran until it thinned out enough to get a clear run. Then basically it rained and I pedalled and I pedalled and it rained. It reached the point where I thought it just wasn’t possible to get any wetter or for the grit to get in any more places (!) and as you know I haven’t exactly had a run of dry races this year!! There were cheery faces and cheery words in the feed zone and also the climb up to it (thanks guys and gals!) but mostly they were just gazing at the mud-splattered riders as if they were all totally mad. Of course everybody knows that we are actually the totally sane ones and it’s the rest of the world that is quite mad…..

My good ol’ skins top was doing its best and just about kept me above shut down temperature and I’m still amazed that my PI gloves perform faultlessly even when caked in mud and still manage to come up almost as good as new. Unfortunately I think I might have killed by PI butterfly socks this time but luckily they are mostly black so hopefully they will live to fight another day!

The laps ticked on and on and six or so hours later I safely arrived at the finish with no mechanical problems to speak of and in one unbroken piece, well apart from that rather painful crutch/headset incident when I forgot I’d had new brake pads! I was sooooo glad that this time my category race distance had been set at six laps as in the end only five of the veteran men actually posted more laps than this!
So was the course as terrifying as I was expecting? Well in a nutshell, no. Yes it was very challenging, there were hard climbs and lots of places where bits of rock were just waiting to shred your tyre, grab your wheel and/or face- plant you into the deck but it was such a fun rollercoaster of a course – the one I dreaded most but in the end turned out to be one of my favourites of the year.







So I guess that’s the National Marathon Series in the back of the net for another season and as I successfully retained my veteran title I’m of course dead chuffed with how it’s panned out.

Just one more MTB event to go and for a change I’m part of a team for the super-fun twelve-hour night race at Thetford - Dusk ‘til Dawn. Even if it’s not raining there the overnight “moistness” of this forest can chill you to the bone when hanging about between laps so this will be the ideal opportunity to try out some of my latest gear including a fabulous pink Odlo evolution warm zip neck base layer and Gore’s Alpine jacket in a yes-I-know-it’s-not-practical-but-I-love-it shade of bluebell.

Then it will be just about time for a bit of a rest and then probably a bit of a change so watch this space and see what adventures are coming up next…..

Catch up again soon!

NEXT RACE REPORT:
Dusk 'til Dawn at Thetford Forest 6-7th October