The Wolftrax bares its teeth.... the Laggan Scottish Enduro Report

Photo copyright of Trevor Worsey

The Seagull has landed, had the small issue of a pesky wedding getting in the way of this race report! Only kidding, for those not in the know I have just tied the knot with the love of my life and fellow Development team rider Angie Foster (nee Coates) and I am typing this up on a road trip through the French Alps which is part of our three-week bike fuelled honeymoon around Europe but more of this on another blog further down the line.

Now let me take you back to Laggan.....

Laggan is nestled inside the Cairngorms National Park, a hidden away but no less picturesque mountainous area of the Scottish Highlands. Having said that, don't let the beautiful panoramic landscapes here deceive you, the No Fuss Events team had pulled it out of the bag with a great technical series of enduro stages combining the trail centre and various black graded routes which contained some of the most gnarly off-camber I've ridden this season, nothing that my Orange Five can't handle mind you. It was quite simply awesome, no two ways about it, every round of the Scottish Enduro has been challenging with their spot-on mix of tracks.  The format for this weekend was a day of practise on the Saturday with full-bore racing across five stages on the Sunday.

Stage 1 was a wickedly, and dare I say evil, well thought through course of pure pedal power which separated the men from the boys, it was being ridden blind and it soon became apparent as to why! I took about 11 minutes along this section, despite it initially railing across technical rock gardens, it moved into technical climbs with deep loam, it was eleven minutes of pure sweat and lactic acid build up! I was swearing at myself, swearing at the course, swearing at my legs but still loved it, it was bloody hard going but I just clicked and got the pedalling down. I've praised my tyres in previous blog reports but honestly they ripped the trail up along here, I'm running Michelin's awesome Wild Rock R2's and really can't fault them, that loam was no match for my 27.5 wheeled beast!

Stage 2 was awesome, the Laggan Black Route, it was a fast and flowing granite city strewn with big rocks to catch out the unwary, my suspension got a full work out down here and I was laughing all the way, this is my kind of riding, absolutely LOVED IT! My Orange Five handled this section with aplomb, it completely came into its own, can we have more of this type of trail please?

Stages 3 and 4 leaned more towards root fests, the best way through was to keep your flow and bounce along taking care on the off-camber sections. I overtook a fair few riders who had over cooked things on the steep sections here, Laggan claimed many victims over the weekend including myself.

Finally Stage 5 was full-on trail centre gravity lead rumble, big berms and jumps in contrast to the previous stages it was now time to just get on it and rail hard. I'd say Stages 3 and 4 were my favourites of the day, both were really steep and very dusty! I crashed near the end of Stage 3 and missed a few of my lines on Stage 4 which pushed me down the standings. Once everything was tallied up I was in 13th place though which I was happy with considering, it was a great weekend and I tip my hat to No Fuss guys, this is part of racing at its best.

After getting back from our Euro jaunt the next race will be the Tour de Ben, a highlight event of our year and I'm looking forward racing that monster. As you may have noticed Angie was sadly absent from this round of the Scottish Enduro as she was away on a work trip in Europe at the time.

See you all on the next mountainside,


Steve.

Enduro report; No Fuss Events, Tour De Ben, Fort William, 21st September 2013

Angie's here and taking over the crib - how you all doing out there peeps?

Steve and I lost our virginity to the Tour De Ben last year, it's run by the fantastic people at No Fuss Events, for anyone who hasn't attended one of their weekenders they are extremely well organised and always a whole load of relaxed fun.  However 'relaxed' was not the name of the game for this year's race, far from it, I felt like I was being chased by a pack of howling wolves hot on my tail!!

The all important riders' meeting

We rocked up to Fort William on the Friday and got all signed in, it suddenly feels very real when you are handed your number board and dibber!  After a good night's sleep in the van we woke up early raring to go, the start of the race was really utterly genius; everyone lines up at the end of the town and then a group of bagpipers lead you through the cobbled street before the whistle goes and you all fight your way past each other up the first hill climb, exactly how cool is that?!

The first stage was the best, a steep rock-strewn track over drainage ditches down to Kinlochleven, I had my tyres pumped up super hard which lead to me hitting some of the turns speedway style.  This cued a huge smile on my face after the 'whoop'-filled run and a quick "Hello" to my mate Gary Mac's parents and his 'wor lass' at the bottom!

The next stage started from a wee wooden bridge and was 80% uphill, a total lung and thigh buster! I won't talk about this stage as I don't remember much of it apart from the heavy panting and that's not very lady-like!  Not long afterwards we hit the river crossing, thankfully it wasn't that deep it marked the halfway point with 35km done and another 35km to go, bring it on!   This also marked the start of Stage 3 AKA the 'hike a bike' section which took me about an hour of flipping hard work and a lot of swearing!  I got cramp in my thighs here the same as last year, jinxed I tell you, jinxed, but pushed through it, I knew I was in need of some salt intake to combat it.

The steely eyed determination....

I met up with Helen and Sarah at the Laraig bothy where the marshalls were serving burgers and sausage sarnies, I didn't have the stomach for any of that so pushed some peanuts in my mouth and kept on going, I really needed the salt.  I didn't see the Gruesome Twosome after this, thought they would have caught up but later I heard that they were having a snooze track side!  From this point Steve started having a bit of an epic, his legs were cramping up big time and he was practically having to crawl bits, it's a bit of a shame since the first half was going really well for him.  Poor blighter.

Steve (and Helen) getting set to get on it....

The last stage was part of the Witches' Trails and by this time I was knackered but knew that I was so close to home and that the track that lay before me was a heap of flat out laughs!  I overtook a few people down here, it was a man-made trail centre type track but pretty steep with some sweet swooping sections, awesome fun.

After this I pushed hard on the pedals all the way to the end, and thank feck for that!!  Most of the time I was riding I was hating it and asking myself why the hell I was doing it but as soon as crossing the finish line I was so happy, buzzing ear to ear and simply can't wait to do it all again next year. That's what it's all about!

I cycled into the town and Steve met me with a big hug! I got 4th out of 14 girls so was pretty happy with that. 

See y'all at the next one!

Angie

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