It could make your eyes water

The week away in Morzine was good for the soul and also my legs and skills, it seems.

Chris hadn't been too bothered about my performing at my best (peaking) for Torq 12:12. This is a 12hr race in The Gorrick area.

It was actually held and based in the same field and surrounding areas where I did my Royal Engineers Basic Training in Gibraltar Barracks, 22years ago. I felt a bit old, but somehow revitalised.

Memories of creating an ambush in a gully, and getting a kicking when we got it wrong.

Happy days.

Right; the race!

It had been a busy week for me with work and home life, and my telling everyone to buy this month's MBR because they printed a lovely piece written about me by a Lady called Alexandra. They also used WC2C Pap, Matt Cope's, photo's.

Major result! Great thanks to all involved.

Why are these experiences always humbling?

So, back to the race, again, and I only got there on Sunday Morning, in time to set up my bikes and for Rob (Da Manager) to finalise the pit in his bid to keep me going strong.

The course was great fun, and there were some real comedy offs, and some painful ones, in the dusty conditions. It actually rode like mud since it was so deep and the track was probably about 80% singletrack.

It was going well and I was keeping a steady pace, passing team riders and fellow soloists. One guy kept shooting off when I rode up behind him. Then he'd slow down and I'd catch him up again, so he'd shoot off. I pushed a wee bit and just sat behind him, as he seemed to ride a little raggedly when he got excited.

Poor guy went over the bars at one point, and I felt a bit guilty. I stopped to check he was ok but he wasn't much for conversation, so after a couple of cursory words in which he proved he was ok, I left and carried on. He must have hurt himself because I lapped him as he lurked at the end with his mate, 2hrs later.

At about the 4hr mark I had a bit of a problem: my favourite and oldest saddle snapped! I was only 10 or 15mins into the lap. So I picked the saddle up and jammed it in the front of my skins, and clipped the saddlebag around my wrist.

The next 30-40mins were done in "stood-up" mode and my pulse was way too high. Joolze got a photo of me, and I had to shout out, "It's a saddle, I promise!" My eyes were starting to water a bit.

It took probably around 3hrs to get over that because my legs were killing me for that period, but the lap times stayed consistant.

In addition to the seat, both of my bikes had problems with seatposts slipping, no matter how tight I had the seat tube clamp. I managed to get my saddle bag undone, extract my multitool, then tighten my seatpost after pulling it up a few millimeters; WITHOUT STOPPING! I was all over the place, mind you. I stopped after that to tighten it up, because I scared myself the first time.

My bikes are going to have a liberal treatment with degreasers this week, because it cost me around another 15 minutes over the race period. I know what the problem was, but can't own up to it quite yet.

No matter what happened though, my times were consistant.

Nutrition? Perfect!

Mental status and preparation? Bang on!

I've never ridden so fast for so long. I think I found another gear!

My coach is the business!

My support and Nutritionist support (Zoe) was awesome too.

5th place, which could easily have been improved upon.

Happy days!

Unfortunately, I have no photos as I was a bit busy.

2 races to go and then it's back to preparation for a BIG ride, next year, as mentioned in MBR.