Sunday 27 June 2010

A very happy unMayhem...

It's taken me a week not to write anything about Mayhem. Somewhat amusingly, I managed to assemble a team consisting entirely of people called 'Dave', well, apart from me, obviously, I'm not called Dave.

 Friday... note traditional clouds...

But the things I'll remember aren't really the racing - we did okay by the way, ninth in vets sub-class, or 'oldies' I think it's called, yep, officially an old bastard and 27th in Sport Men out of around 110 and 250 teams respectedly - but actually it was mostly just a really nice weekend.


 Warm, sunny, hot, dry, and loads of mates to bump into a chat with. And I had a teepee, a nordic one made by a company called Tentipi and it was properly ace. A really nice vibe. Super practical and, get this, because it has an adjustable vent at the top, you can have a firebox inside the teepee...


... so, at three in the morning, when normally you're huddled in a sleeping bag or draped shivering in a belay jacket between laps, we were grouped around a crackling fire feeling, erm, hot. Which was brilliant. And next day, when the sun was doing its own scorched earth thing and normal tents were performing a passable imitation of a sauna, inside the teepee, it was, as Kevin McCloud, or however he's spells it, might say 'cool and light and airy'. Really nice. Goes well with the the prayer flags too. And the Horror Cat.



As a team we did okay, as an individual, hmmm, well. I guess the thing that's been driving me in biking terms has been soloing 24/12, the 24-hour version, so a lot of what I've been doing has been long, hilly and steady. Not a lot of intense threshold stuff. I did some sprinty intervals in the four weeks before, so I had a proper singletrack overtaking spurt, but...



So the first two laps were briskish but in a sub-threshold way, and then I sort of lost interest, or not so much lost interest, but didn't have the motivation to hurt myself. And didn't really fuel properly either. Which was ironic given that someone spent a big chunk of last year trying to convince me that I was overly aggressive - yeah, right - and there I was without the competitive urge needed to punch my way out of a wet paper bag. Fierce, me...


But there you go. I'll leave the fast racing to the fast people and most of my mates went pretty well, the odd podium and some quick laps and one unfortunate crash. And the most important thing was that apart from one dark cloud of a conversation that I kind of wish I hadn't had now, it was a weekend of sunshine and lightness.


Got to stop that bloody Maverick from creaking though...  If someone finds my creative urge, could they post it to me please. I feel like I've been run over by a steam roller. Which in a way I suppose I have.

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Bike building...

Odd but positive week. One of naming things Earthsea style. Finding that I now own one 2010 Bontrager Race X-Lite rear road wheel and one 2007 Bontrager X-Lite front wheel. And a new bike.


It's one in, one out around here, so the 'vento got debuilt and its assorted gizzards, bits and pieces went off to the transplant bank. I love the process of building bikes. There's something lovely about starting off with a frame and a pile of assorted parts and watching them morph steadily into a living, breathing animal. The precision of bolting things together. Adjustments. Clicks. A blend of exactness and feel.


And then the first ride and that odd mix of novelty and familiarity. And, oh, blimey, it does that really well. Like the first time you sleep with someone. But probably best not to sleep with a bike.


What's it like? A steamroller downhill making implacable progress with a funny mix of roll-over lateral stiffness and roll-round flexibility. Slack and solid and muscular. And a steamroller uphill, tolerating appalling line choices to clean the bulk of Middle Moor in reverse - no, I didn't get up the steps, but I will -  and beguilingly accurate as in 'I'll just ride this narrow rut ridge because I can' sort of way.


And on the flat, a stroppy, surly, uninterested teenager moping along with its hands in its pockets and whining quietly to anyone who'll listen.


Like it.