UK Gravity Enduro - Dyfi, 19th & 20th September 2015

It's the Dyfi race weekend, HUZZAH!

It's Robyn here, I completed the big Dyfi loop on the Saturday prior to completing the seeding.  Having got myself back onto flat pedals for a couple of rides prior to the weekend I was feeling a lot more at home with the bike. From the start you could see for miles, it was a great grassy track with natural jumps over rocks as you descended which give you the opportunity to just let it all hang out on the bike and have fun.  I really enjoyed the slalom style section at the bottom and clocked in one of the better times of the season on my Orange Five.  Couldn't fault my bike set up at all, the Manitou Revox rear suspension came into its own element on the big rock jumps, so smooth and supple.

The stages throughout the races varied from freshly cut steep mud to rocky trail centre affairs. The Michelin Wild Rock R2 enduro tyres really are absolutely incredible on the rocks and roll really nicely, I haven’t had a flat running tubeless on these all season.  Later in the day I few off the bike moments as fatigue set in and was pleased to complete stage five completely clean after a long 5 hours out on the bike!  I came in 19th courtesy of my off the bike moments, I'm happy with that though as the whole weekend has been fantastic.

Dyfi hosted a superb finale to the UKGE series2015. It was a great opportunity to race against a fantastic set of rides. The food from The BillyCan was delicious – lentil soup is perfect before heading up to seed. Steve, Charlie, Liz, Chris and all their workers have put so much into these events and I’m already excited about the return to gravity enduro racing next season. Before I finish my year I have one more Welsh Gravity to complete and then I will start thinking about the 2016 season.

Robyn x

UK Gravity Enduro - Ae Forest, 29th to 30th August 2015

The UK Gravity Enduro at Ae Forrest was a Bank Holiday bonanza of riding, it was a total barn stormer with mammoth thigh-busting pedal-to-the-metal sections in between! Round four had everything!

Arriving early on the Thursday meant that I had plenty of opportunity to ride the course before seeding on Saturday. It also demonstrated to me the amount of work that goes into this kind of event, a LOT, big thanks as always to everyone who makes these events happen – they've all been rad!

Now, the stages:

Number 1 was a typical trail centre type course with built up berms and jumps leading into a gnarly freshly cut section which twisted back on itself a couple of times before hitting a tight right hander and then plummeting down a steep descent into the finish. My Manitou suspension really soaked this up and the track was pure delight to ride, you picked up some good speed and really felt it on your face when swooshing around the corners, brilliant!

2 came along with fresh thick mud, roots and a sneaky few bumps and lumps which caught out the unwary, including myself, which wasn't very pretty I admit!  You then flew out onto the fire road for a fairly long sprint until reaching the red trail centre section and then hitting it in reverse. This meant a fair bit of pedalling which tested everyone's fitness. I could see the rider in front of me down here but just couldn’t quite catch the speedy Sally Evame!

Number 3 was a blinder, wow, this is the stage everyone had been talking about. Should I ride it again? I practiced this stage once and once only from the top to the bottom it required skills, flare and guts taking you down through steep muddy twisting switchbacks.  Once I had unclipped I found it impossible to get back into my pedals and fell awkwardly into a massive bush just past a lovely photographer who was shouting messages of encouragement to me, whoops!

Stage 4 came along and proved to be another absolutely epic stage; tight trees, mud galore, few steep drops before flying out onto a nice flowy trail lined some great cheering spectators, it was time to get a bit of stylish air time on my Orange Five!

Finally stage 5, the seeding run and the final run took place on the Sunday and what a mint trail it was!  It had everything, steep loose rocks, rock gardens, fresh cut loam and a great arena to finish into.

Each climb took at least 50 minutes totalling up to a long day on Sunday, five hours on the bike! This took a lot of guts, however we all fuelled by the great encouragement from fellow riders and all of the spectators, it's an amazing atmosphere.

Many thanks to everyone who encouraged me and cheered me on through the rounds, I ended the weekend further down the field that I would have liked after the mud got the better of me, still had an awesome weekend though.

See you all on the hills,

Robyn x

UK Gravity Enduro Season Opener - Triscombe, May 9th-10th 2015

I was delighted when The Daddy, Steve Parr, announced that for 2015 one of the venues for the UKGE was going to be Triscombe, a mere fifty-minute drive from where I live!  This area is an understated biking gem hidden deep in the South-West of England where you can ride as hard as you like, I love it there and if you can’t find it I will happily show you around one day!

Living in the South-West I am blessed with great areas to ride my Orange Five.  Bike Park Wales, Afan or anywhere in Breacon Beacons are all within two hours, however I'm normally found at the Haldon Forest Park where I can ride straight from my work door and be there in 45 minutes, awesome!  If that doesn't tick your boxes the stunning scenery of Dartmoor or Exmoor surely will especially with their great surfer's coastlines thrown in for a good measure!  A lot of the people I ride with rave about how sensational Scotland is however my area is proof that you can always find great trails to ride with like minded people, and this is true wherever you are, the fact the UKGE came to Triscombe is proof of this.

I arrived ready to practice the race course and transitions on the Friday, the weather was fairly bleak with fine rain and low lying cloud. Stage one and two both had freshly cut sections which, although were a riders paradise whilst the racing was underway, were as sticky as hell in practise!  Both of these routes were going to see a lot of traffic with being raced upon across the whole weekend and I liked everything about these stages, tight, twisting turns, jumps and berms!  I rode the transitions over to stages three and four, the stage three transition was the longest at 45 minutes and was a breeze compared to the hour plus transition over at Afan!  The route here took you along a beautiful ridge where you were rewarded with sweeping views over the distant Taunton and despite the hard pedalling these stages were great fun with plenty of airtime to be had off all the jumps.

Race Day Saturday, despite being so close to home I was slightly less organised with food for this event than I normally am, I didn’t panic though as I knew the awesome Billy Can Catering team would be on site.  And sure enough a little while later I was patting my tummy after a huge bowl of their creamy porridge laced with some cheeky chocolate buttons, I was now set up for the day, bring it on!

My seeding run was clean and I felt good on the bike taking the steep freshly cut section in my stride, with hindsight though I should have pushed harder on the flat section to make more time. The second run on Saturday went really well too, well until the end when I lost concentration and caught my handlebars on a tree seeing my catapulting skywards and, thankfully, landing softly in a large bush. I've only just got all the blasted ticks off my body!

Race day Sunday, I was pleased with my first two runs which went fairly smoothly, I got some mint air-time off some great little jumps and really enjoyed my riding. No dropped chains this time thanks to the Rideworks enduro chainguide which I am race-testing for them. 

Ooooh, shiny!

I was absolutely flying on stage three when I clipped another tree with my wide bars and lost a load of time trying to re-align my cockpit. Struggling, I cruised down the fourth stage not wanting to push it with wonky steering and feeling absolutely gutted with that carry on.  I finished the weekend taking 13th place in the Elite women category.

Wonky bars aside it was a wonderful event and I for one am grateful to the amount of hard work being put in behind the scenes to stage them.  It is a hard kick in the privates then, as some of you are aware, when learning that so many bikes were stolen by professional bike thieves that evening, it really beggars belief and I hope that they're caught sooner rather than later.  Maybe we could crowd-fund some replacements for the riders, just an idea?

It was lovely to see so many friendly faces from last season and, especially as a PE teacher, it is great to see so many young people coming into the sport, I was really impressed with Tyde D'Souza and Martha Gill.

A big shout out to Steve Parr for hosting such an awesome event and again to sing the praises of the little guys like The Billy Can Catering and the other unsung heroes behind the scenes who help to make the events what they are.  Well done guys, see you all at the next round.

Robyn

x


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UK Gravity Enduro Round 5 - Dyfi, 18th August 2013

Steve and I first raced at Dyfi last year for the final round of the UK Gravity Enduro!   The track compared to the rest of the rounds with it being pretty damn fast and loose, sick!  We liked it so much that we headed back down there in February for Steve's 30th Birthday Bash. But, sshhh!

We rocked into the venue on Thursday evening and it didn't half piss it down all through the night.  Met up with Helen Gaskell and Sarah Newman who had brought along Helen's little sister Bex Baroana who turned out to be the secret missile of the weekend!  I have to say that one of my favourite bits of the weekend was following Bex down Stage 3 and hoping to god I wasn't going to follow her over the side of the cliff!  One word for Bex: 'Loose'!

We all rode together on the Friday to practice the stages and my legs just felt dead, I had changed my whole group set to Shimano which meant I was pushing a harder gear, good for the long term though I must admit!

Practice went well, some of the stages were brand new and we sectioned some of the lines which seemed to be getting a bit blown out from the rain. Steve Parr and his merry men fixed it all up for race day though, hats off to those guys.

On Saturday we took it easy and just practiced Stage 5 which was also the qualification track.  It was really grim during the quali's though, incessant rain and windy.  I didn't seed that well, I didn't really have the best of tyre choice considering the course conditions to be honest.  The track consisted of a lot of flat grassy turns.  Steve seeded OK but again similar issue with tyres.  

Photo copyright of Doc Ward

Here's Steve with a run down: qualifying was on the crazy side especially due to our tyre choices. The track was super wet and down a field so you can imagine the battle on a worn out daft tyre... nonetheless I scrapped my way to the bottom a little sideways.  Think I qualified somewhere in the top 15, further back than I would have liked as this kinda track usually suits my riding. .....

(Angie) Race day came around and Steve felt he had his work cut out, originally his aim for the weekend was a top 10 but after qualifying he knew he would be happy with a finish in the top 25.  It would be hard though as much as we both love riding at Dyfi, we both knew that the race pace was gonna be off the map!

Stage 1 was cancelled for us due to some dude breaking his hip or something along those lines, poor bugger!  Wishing him well.  This kinda played in Steve's favour because that particular stage a had a pretty big pedally section and like me his legs were knackered!

This was also Steve's first time using the new Thomson dropper seatpost and he was getting some envious stares from other riders, ha!

Sunday is an early start for the girls, we're always off first but it does mean we get to watch everyone finishing which is cool.  My first three stages were OK however on Stage 4 my chain came off, then after hearing a 'Pppppssssttt....' noise and thinking it to be a flat tyre I stopped, got out all my puncture repair kit stuff and then realised it was just water hitting the hot disk brake rotors!  Looking back I can laugh about it but at that point in time I was fuming! Gggrrr!  

Photo copyright of Doc Ward

Still on Stage 4 I trucked on and came into a fast left hand berm, it was here that the bike stopped dead and I went face first mouth open into the biggest puddle ever. I kid you not it was huge.  (Think of those old Thelwell horse cartoons and you're not far off!)  My goggles filled up with water and I couldn't do anything but jump back on my bike with twisted bars and laugh manically the rest of the way down!

Copyright of Thelwell

(Steve:) I was super happy with the rest of the event, everything was going well and I managed to keep smooth solid runs throughout three of the stages.  I finally found myself at the top of the final stage, soaking wet through with the rain, willing myself to stay on the bike and finish off what could have been prefect day... hahahahhaha, spoke too soon, It wasn't to be.  I was all over the place, drifting uncontrollably everywhere and stacked it twice, once into the only tree on the track and the other towards the bottom, slap bang on the floor!!  Shit happens eh!  It's funny really and I still laugh my arse off thinking about it.  I need to crash more, it keeps ya honest, only joking but I loved it!  

Photo copyright of Doc Ward

So that was our last UK Gravity Enduro of the season.  Helen Gaskell took the win for the Elite women with Sarah in 2nd.  For the season overall Steve finished up 9th and I was in 6th, not too shabby, we're both chuffed with that.

Next race is the infamous Tour De Ben!

Biking, Biking, Mushrooms....!