You may have noticed a wee slowdown in the site goings on - I would say I've been too busy to update it, but in reality, I just always had something better/else to do, and kept putting it off til tomorrow.
Oh and someone lost the timetrial results for a few days, but we found them again.

So where were we? The previous time trial was a damp one, with the track being particularly slidey, great if you were messing about, but the sideways action if you were on the wrong tyres was'nt welcome.

The ever rapid Nick Craig turned up to show everyone how fast theyre not and did so by not riding (cos he'd got a bit of a sniffle - he's old you know, he could catch his death..) - way to go Nick, you show us!... ;)
Russ from Scott also had an invalid excuse not to ride 'I've just sold my bike', so we'll lend you one - 'err I havent got any clothes', thats fine we've got some you can wear, I finally gave up trying to get him to ride when his excuse was something along the lines of 'I cant ride on a wednesday as my great grandmother was Jewish' or something.

Right im going home - i'll finish this tomorrow - probably.

Michael Powell riding for Sherwood Pines/Polaris Apparel wins Vet category at last weekends G2 Revolver.

Mick completed 18 laps taking 11hrs 19mins at last Saturdays 12 hr night ride epic at Sherwood Pines in Nottinghamshire to take 1st in Veterans and 2nd overall.
Mick said about his race –

"You'd like to think with me being local I'd have an advantage but they always seem to find trails that I don't know when we race here. It was hard work, especially as I've never raced at night before. That was pretty scary. It was tough and I nearly climbed off at 11 laps but my friend kept me going. I'm not sure I want to do any more. I think I'll stick to the National Marathon series instead. I've never known dawn to be such a welcome sight. On the first lap everyone set off like absolute lunatics, I just couldn't believe it. It was pretty close out there between us, well apart from the guy that won it he was absolutely flying".

The course was 12km with a good mixture of singletrack, fireroad climbs and flat out fireroad descents. The previous days rain had left the course in a Topgear style Mildly Moist state, but the previous bad weather held until a very light almost mist like shower of rain greeted the riders to a deep orange dawn.

The Pines/Polaris club members also had an entrant, with two teams in the team of 4 category.

A dog fight between the two teams soon ensued with no one wanting to be beaten by their fellow clubmen. A crash and a knocked head put paid to one team member and soon after an ongoing chest infection put paid to another, leaving Fatboy Racing Team A with only two riders for a large chunk of the night.
Team B weren’t without their obstacles throughout the night either a snapped chain losing them the lead (7th overall) in the Pines club race off and putting them half a lap behind with half the night to go.
Unfortunately for team B there was no stopping the grinding relentlessness of Carter and Metcalfe who soon overtook Darren Clarke of team B, whose red rear light had been like a rag to a bull for Carter, giving him something to focus on in the early hours of the morning.

I found the hardest part of this event not to be the racing, but the on off nature of the team event. You’d be nice and warm at 3am, wrapped up, then strip off at the rough ETA of your changeover man and get cold because you’re 5 minutes early, then ride for 40 minutes, red hot, then back and wrap up again and await you turn once more, eat and drink, pee, energy gel, pee, strip off, get cold, pee, ride.

Again well done to Mick, much respect for basically riding offroad from the shop to Bristol

Overall a good event which if it makes a return I urge you have a go at, just so you say you can.

Above is a GPS route of the new TT course, click to enlarge. Hopefully I can get the data and upload that, and then I assume you can add it to your own GPS should you want to do a spot of training.

We're also considering perminently marking the course too making life easier for everyone.

...without a hitch!

A new year sees the opening of a new timetrial course. For those of you hoping to be able to compare your times to last years course, im afraid the Forestry Commission saw fit to grub up a section and whitewash it with the new family xc route.

Andy and Adrian et al, have done a fantastic job with the route, at almost bang on 3 miles per lap (of which there are 2, GPS mapping possibly coming soon so you can go have a sneaky practice). Utilising pines network of singletrack, some fast fireroad sections, a section of the new family route and some gloopy slow stuff, theres a bit of everything on the new course.

Theres a good combination of fast and slow climbs as well as one nice little fast open descent, theres even some slow off camber turns which judging by the tyre tracks caused a few people to out brake themselves.

To summarise, new track, same old atmosphere and whitty banter, nothing too serious. Not enough Juniors or women..






















Oh and finally, an old balding downhiller came 5th...IN YOUR FACE!

Time trials start in T-7 days and counting.

The new course is plotted and is now 2 laps of a 3 miles for adults and 2 laps of 2 miles for jnrs.

Starting directly behind the shop and looping out in the opposite direction to the last course.

Kick off as per usual commences 6 - 6.30 pm.

1st race to be held 16th April 08 then fortnightly from there on in.

Cats.

Under 12 0-11
Youth 12-16
Juniors 16-18
Seniors 18-39
Vets 40+

Points for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th in each cat. 4, 3, 2, 1 accordingly.
Points for every 30 sec improvement below 50% of the fastest time posted on the first race.