UK Gravity Enduro - Hamsterley Forest, 1st & 2nd August 2015

Hurrah, it's my summer holiday and race time all at once! 

Heading up to the North-East is always a pure delight and having raced at Hamsterley earlier in the year I knew what I was letting myself in for. It's a mint place to ride catering for both families and professional riders with its plethora of graded trails, you won't be stuck for ideas with advice from the forest's friendly bikers to guide you on your way.

The event, with its 20km loop taking in five stages plus the extra seeding time added from Saturday, had some people thinking it was too short however I disagreed. The transition times were tight and a shorter loop really levels the playing field for the riders who could only make it there for the weekend.  Having said that though, I was lucky with having a bit more time to spare, a plus side of being a teacher, and got some good practice in on the Friday which meant I could have a couple of warm-ups on the seeding runs. 

Seeding and Stage 5 - Despite its deceptively gentle appearance it's a long trail that demanded hard pedalling to ensure that you put in a decent time. There was a freshly cut section at the bottom of the trail that I hit too hard and came off my Five, thankfully I didn't lose too much time. Speaking of times, fair play going out to Elliott Heap who put down the fastest time of the day whilst still in the junior category, wowzers! 

During Gravity Enduro events riders seem to favour one or two of the trails over the others and for me these were Stages 3 and 4 which were slap bang next to the Descend Hamsterley Bike Park, the full-bore downhill side of the forest!  Here, it normally costs 5 quid to ride and you can book on the uplift system too, it's a really rad day out with friend and I recommend going!

Anyway, back to the racing, both of these stages really challenged my riding where you needed to be really switched on and focussed in order to rail the best lines, keeping up the pace.  Despite all of my stages going smoothly I wasn't up to a full-on race pace due to the onset of fatigue and this was reflected in my times, onwards and upwards to the next event.

Robyn

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Will Olson 1975 - 2015

Edit by Lee: The weekend was over shadowed as news came through that a fellow mountain bike brethren had passed away following a tragic accident during the Enduro World Series at Crested Butte in the 'States. Through respect to the rider and his family the event was cancelled and in honour of his memory his number 139 has been removed.  Lee and all of the team's riders hearts go out to Will Olson's family, a fund has been set up in his memory if you wish to donate: The Will Olson Memorial Fund.

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

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Life In Neon at the Durham CXNE, 15th November 2014

Woke up on Saturday morning feeling sprightly and raring to go, well there’s a change, think it was because I was so excited for the full weekend’s worth of racing. I was under the strict instruction not to go all-out during the CXNE race in Durham, since the next day I would be competing at the Nationals in the same arena, so, no biggie! Today was purely getting to grips with the course and keep my points up for the league, however, I knew this would be a struggle since I had let myself become way too competitive. Yes, that’ll be my hereditary dad’s genes right there! 

Dad wasn't racing today so it was all about me (ahem!) the benefit of this being that even when my bike got a speck of dirt on it, it was wiped off within seconds, thanks dad!

When we arrived, as usual, I got ready, practiced the course and signed on. This race was the first time I was competing on my new bright pink Frank The Welder CX bike and was super excited to try it out!

The course was pretty good with quite a lot of sections where you had to dismount. There were steps, hurdles, and a steep, slippy, muddy hill that was catching a lot of people out, myself included. Adding up all the technical turns it created a challenging course and kept the riders on their toes, exactly what you would expect with a National Trophy event the following day. Big applause for the course designers, you rock! My nerves weren't that bad to be honest, I was really enjoying the practice and having a good giggle, I knew that my race head would be on later in the day however.

Sure enough it was soon time to be gridded. My dad and me went to the start where Nicola Davies, Bev Blakeman, myself and then Jenn Batey were called out. Oh, was that the pang of my nerves kicking in just then?

Off we went and despite the strong temptation to sprint off straight away with Bev, Nicola and Jenn, I paid heed to my dad’s advice and kept a steady pace letting them fight it out up front. I ended up having a mini-battle with Natalie Batey which became rather amusing, I slipped off in the mud and Natalie overtook me, Natalie came off in the mud and I overtook her and on it went!

I will also tell you something weird; my dad screaming his head off with words of encouragement every time I belted past the pits. Under normal circumstances he’s on the course the same time as me, today however there he was being my proud dad!

The bell suddenly sounded for the final lap. This was what I was waiting to hear, head now down and firing up the adrenaline I got the cranks turning harder and managed to leave Natalie. I crossed the finish line taking fourth place in the Women’s category whilst keeping hold of the top Junior spot which I was stoked with.

Megan

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Exorcising the Hallowe'en Ghouls ... CXNE Round 8, Hetton Lyons Country Park, 2nd November 2014

Photo copyright of Alan Dingwall

What is it with me and my early morning lack of motivation, guess I’m just a stereotypical teenager after all!  Needless to say that was out of the window on arriving at the picturesque Hetton Lyons Country Park for another day of fab CXNE Series racing.  No time to rest though, it was out of the van and straight onto the course to get the lay of the land, wow, this was going to be a hard push!

A stretched out large hill section followed by a deceptive little bugger of a smaller hill added to the endless off cambers, well I knew I was in for some suffering.

Ten minutes until I had to be on the start line, a quick dash to the van to throw some gels and energy drinks down my neck and where my mam was questioning my nerves (honestly, how could she tell?) and Colin (dad’s team mate) adjusting my bike, I have my own race crew y'know!  Shook myself down, felt pretty sorted with how to tackle the course and headed off for the start line. Yet again, (yep, you guessed it) another amazing turn out for the women’s category, we’re going places! In fact having said that it was a really good turn out for the CXNE itself.

* BANG *

Straight up and out of the saddle, Bev Blakeman shot off in front with a few others and I was running in third place for the first lap. After a while we split up, Bev and Nicola Davies showed their amazing athletic abilities tearing up the trail ahead along with Sarah Murray.

I wasn’t working alone however, I was constantly checking over my shoulder to see where Alison Sarmiento was, she was scarily creeping up on me!  A little while later she took her chance and rode past, this was just before a really thick muddy section where she dismounted, I knew I had to ride through it in order to gain back my fourth place.  It worked and I then knuckled down.

The last lap came around surprisingly quickly which was good as it meant I only had to tackle that blasted hill once more, gritting my teeth through the lactic acid build up. I came through the finishing line as the 1st junior woman and 4th woman.  Not so bad after all and what a fantastic course.

Now for a tough week of training in preparation for Inter-Regional Champs and then the Nationals at Durham the following week, wish me luck!

Megan

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I would like to ask Alan Draffan to step forward and take a bow for the fantastic photography, if you would like to see more of his work check here: Alan Draffan Photosport on Facebook

If you would like to follow The Development Cycling Team we have a Facebook page here: The Development Racing's Facebook Page

Rocketeering...... the CXNE Series comes to you from Darlington, 19th October 2014

The seventh round of the CXNE Series took place on a Saturday last weekend, talk about being lucky, mam and dad jetted off to sunny Spain on the Sunday so I would have missed the race otherwise!

Dad and me were the first people to arrive at the venue that morning, dad’s pre-race nerves had struck again, we’ve got to get there in good time y’know!  We had a walk to scope the course out and we soon had a mutual respect for the team that put it together:  Steps? *check* Hurdles? *check* Sandpit? *check*  ….and mud? *check*, we knew it was going to be a tricky ride.

Time to overcome the nerves, saddled up and got a few practice laps under our belt, I came away from this with a two stone heavier bike from the accumulated mud.  We were prepared for this though as dad had just purchased a snazzy new jet-washer which soon became my new best friend!

After cleaning down the bike I headed to the start line to be greeted again with a fantastic turn out for the ladies race. The first few were called out and gridded in the order: Nicola, Jen, Bev and then me!  The gun went off and we sprinted away, we stuck it out together until Jen got a puncture and sadly had to pull out of the race.

Nicola and Bev then dropped the hammer and charged forwards, I stayed with them however this only lasted a lap until I was really feeling it.  My thighs were starting to scream at me!

I was working it by myself from this point although it wasn’t plain sailing, I came off several times in the mud, often to my own laughter! The race seemed longer than normal, I’d put that down to the course conditions but I’m certainly not complaining, it was a really fun trail to ride.

It is however fair to say I was happy when I crossed the finish line. Almost as soon as I’d come off the bike I was called to the podium to stand in third place alongside Bev who took second and the powerhouse Nicola in first. I was overjoyed to be standing on the podium with such great riders!

There's no CXNE race this weekend coming so I’m going to use the extra time to get some training under my belt in order to catch up to Bev, I'll get you eventually! ;-)

Megan

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One big THANK YOU going out to the lovely Alan Draffan for the fab photos, you can see more of his work here: Alan Draffan Photosport.

If you'd like to follow The Development Racing Team we have a Facebook page which is here: The Development Racing Team.