Coming up to Summer Solstice we have very long evenings after work to go out and play with.  Me, Rich, Martin, Scott and Rob went out for a good ride in the Cairngorms.  We met at Loch Muick car park and went up and over into Glen Clova (the Chapel Mounth descent is amazing) bottom we decided not to risk it (this time)

After the normal post wicked descent ” you nearly hit this” & “I so thought I was going over the bars on that rock” type chat we headed up to the falls of Bachnagairn.  Scott and I stood at the top of the waterfall contemplating jumping into the plunge pool, but not knowing how deep or the rocks under the water we decided to leave it for a sunny day so we can go and really check it out.

It was a bit of a hide a bike back up on to the top then descended down the ‘lightening strike’ back down to Loch Muick.

I had a pretty good stack here, managing to grab onto a load of heather to stop me sliding off down to the left.  Nothing serious just a few cuts and bruises.  Got to the bottom and then rode around the loch and back home to bed and get tucked in fast to get enough sleep not o fall asleep at the desk tomorrow!  A great ride and even better to be able to do it on a school night!  Rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking here

As I am on red alert and start shaking every time my phone rings when I am not next to Lara,  I have a self imposed 1.5 hour radius of Lara at all time.  So anything in the mountains is out of the question at the moment as I don’t want to miss the birth of my child (plus Lara would chop my balls off). 

Yesterday as the snow has mostly disappeared I arranged to go biking with Rich up at Fochabers.  As we set off it started to snow….. great.  Still I thought in a couple of weeks i might as well sell my bikes so I was determined to go biking no matter what.

By the time we had gotten to the trail, there was a couple of inches of fresh snow on teh floor, nothing hurrendous and off we set.

The snow had fallen onto normal earth so there was no underlying ice or snow to make it slippy and it was surprisingly grippy.  Was very cold and still snowing but it made it different and enjoyable.  It was also Rich’s first experience of any Northshore.  So i take my hat off to you, it is scary at the best of times, let alone when it is covered in snow!!!!!  But Rich looked down, saw the MTFU sticker on the top tube of the bike and went for it.  I sat there poised with the camera ready for the potential carnage……

Non – he rode it like a natural.  The look of relief at the end was funny though! I thought I had better do it as well to save face after egging him on to do it as well.  Camera was not fast enough to catch me though as I was obviously going so fast……. (yeah whatever)

A very enjoyabel ride, the snow made it good fun, and the odd bit of ice that did catch us out never did any damage.

When I say that word, most say – “what”.  Cyclocross is a little known niche of cycling.  it is a cross between mountain biking and road biking.  Take a road bike, beef it up slightly and then ride it around a very muddy field furiously for an hour.  The start is the normal looking around trying to look as intimidating as everyone else does (and usually failing). Gun goes bang and it is all you can do to keep up with the sprinting masses for the tight first corner with elbows out.

then, throw in a few hurdles that you have to get off and run over

then some steep muddy bank which is great fun and ‘interesting’ on a road bike geometry and skinny tyres

Then, add in some really steep muddy banks that need you to shoulder the bike and prey you get enough grip to get you to the top otherwise you slide back down to the bottom again

This being the first time I have done cyclocross racing it was a bit of an eye opener.  It is usually the domain of extremely fir road racers for winter training and in such I got my ass handed to me on a plate.  It was rather humbling and I will have to get a lot fitter to come a respectable position next time.  I really enjoyed it but I was not quite prepared for the pace of it!

I have the next race in two weeks, so this time I will at least have a bit more of an idea of what to expect.

After the race we went and had a look at the world’s hardest traditionally climbed rock route at Dumbarton rock as it was 5 minutes away.

It goes up the middle of the crag up the crack line.  Rhapsody E11 7a – it is quite an incredible line and my hat goes of to Dave Macleod who put it up.  Belowthe crag  is a rather optimistic if she will climb anything 7 month pregnatn Lara.

No I am not into some sort of weird hill stretching routine.  My present work contract gives me every other Friday off!  Scott, Rich, Me, Diesel and Isla (the last two being of the dog variety) did a loop around Pitfichie.  First time round for Rich who is just getting serious about the sport.  He did well, was a lovely day

Lovely way to spend the morning,  Was good fun riding with the dogs.  Isla aka the lunatic has been renamed by me today.  She is with out fail 6″ from Scott’s back wheel no matter how fast he goes down hill.  So as Scott goes through puddles etc she gets all his spray from the back wheel.  I have re-christened her “shit stripe”  think Anna will object but I will fight for this name!

Isla in her normal position behind Scott!  Biking dogs are great!

rest of the pics can be seen by clicking here

So after a quick navigational mishap and going to the wrong carpark, I was eventually corrected and we met Scott in the Car park atAuchallater only 30 minutes late.  The plan for the day was for Euan, Scott B, Scott M and I do go for a ride in the hills.

The morning was lovely and it looked set to be a great day.  We set off down Glen Callater.  The first photo was taken and Burnett set off the trend of the day with ‘Gun shows’

As we rounded Loch Callater we had a rude awakening.  The track went steeply up the hill.  It was lung and leg bursting.  I am pretty sure I heard Euan mention something about “a searing pain of oxygen debt”

The two Scotts (name and nationality) after the sharp 400m of altitude gain.  At around 900m we unfortuntaly entered the cloud and that was our ideas of day long views out the window.  We skirted along the Coire Loch Kander.  The vis was low and I was glad I had my GPS

Eventually we found the top of Cairn of Claise our first Munro of the day.  We sat there and ate some food.  The clooud at one point did actually clear for about 30 seconds and then it came back again for the rest of the day.

A rather good ‘Gun Show’ Mr Burnett definitely has a talent at this.  One I hope to learn off of him if he will take me under his wing and show me the way.

We set off East ish to navigate around the head of Glen Callater via Tolmount and Fafernie.  It is also Stalking season at the moment and there was a lot of folk out with guns.  No one was brave enough to stick some sticks in their helmets and charge off into the mist making deer noises to add the extra adrenaline kick!

This was a mixture of fun ‘off piste’ riding where we just went were the force was taking us and if it felt like it was generally in the right direction we would pick a line down it – or Peat bog pushing.  Both were strangely good fun in a sick perverse sense.

From here we skirted over to Carin An Sagairt Mor (no idea how to say it) and from here the descent was brilliant.  Hats off to Mr Muir for suggesting it

Was lots of rocky steps, tricky nagery (yes that is a technical term) and fast bits back out down the bottom of the could so after 3 and a bit of hours in the cloud we once again had a view.

We had three punctures on the descent, 1 mine, two Scott M’s and all within 300m of each other.  We all got back down to the bottom smiling giggling idiots with the normal “that was brilliant” “did you manage to get over that rock ” etc.  this followed a fast blast back down the fire road to the van and then home.  A great day out of real mountain biking.

All the pictures can be seen if you CLICK HERE

Saturday was destined to be a lovely day.  The weather forecast was good with sunshine and little wind.  I had entered “Ten more at Moray”.  A ten hour mountain bike endurance race.  I had entered the solo category.  Basically in a nutshell, ride around a course as many times as you can and as fast as you can in ten hours.

My loving supportive wife had come along to support me, she set up her mat on the floor next to the transition area with her books and my boxes of food and spares.  The course was roughly 17km long with around 350m of climbing per lap.  At 9:30 it was off time, around 300 bikers all huddled up sprinted for the single track at the bottom of the field leaving a large bottle neck.  I was in no rush as I was solo.  A lot of the people do it as a team of 2/3/4 and do it in a relay style.  So go for hell for leather for a lap then rest while their team mates go and do a lap then repeat.

The first few laps went past no issues, the track was great, fast, flowing and fun.  This was going to be great fun – but it was rather hot!  Most of the track was in the forest sheltered from any wind and the thermometer was tipping over 20’s.  My thoughts started to think towards keeping hydrated.  Knowing how much I sweat, I thought I had better take precaution.  Every lap I made sure I drank my entire water bottle which was filled each lap with different liquids for interest.

Lap 3 and 4 went past no issues.  Laps were taking me in the region of just over an hour.  Lap five was where things started to get interesting. 

I was so hung up on drinking loads that I had neglected my eating.  Then came a sugar low.  Now those of you who have had it will know what it is like – not very nice!  it becomes a mental game, the demons start to appear in the mind.  “you are done”  “there is nothing left” “it hurts, it really hurts”  SHUT UP SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!!!  I pulled over and rummaged in my rear jersey pockets for food.  I inhaled all I had which was a zip tie bag of cheese and dried meats ( how very french of me I thought), a load of jelly babies, a cheese and ham sandwich and two power gels.  I climbed back onto the bike and carried on, still had about 1/2 the lap to go.  It was hard, head hung low, mind is only thinking negative thoughts.  It is really hard to not just stop there and sit down for a bit.

I managed to finish the lap and got back to the transition period where Lara was peacefully reading and lounging in the sun.  Demons again started up ” give up, go join the wife”  “you are empty nothing left”  refusing to listen as I know this race is a lot about mental ability rather than physical, I though if i can just get myself outside the timing area then I am committed, off I went.

The food I had eaten was about thirty minutes inside and my sugar levels were starting to rise and so were my spirits.  But it was to be one of those days, next came the cramp.  I was so preoccupied with beating the demons that I had forgotten to drink and had become dehydrated in the heat.  I have had a lot of experience with some pretty horrendous cramping incidents racing (Sabah in Malaysia in particular) and knew that the situation can escalate into something really painful if I was not careful.  I had been on the go for six hours now and was desperate to carry on but knew that in an hour or so I would not be able to ride my bike due to cramping.  So reluctantly on completing my 6th lap I admitted defeat.  Head hung low, I walked back over to the timing tent and handed back my timing chip prematurely.  The guy said ” good effort lad, you were 9th out of the 80 odd solo entrants”  twist the knife why don’t you mate!!!

It was just going to be one of those days, a good learning experience,  I really enjoyed the 100km I did, had some good chat with other racers, saw some old friends and learnt from it.  Another learning that I really perform best in the cold on the longer distances.