The Garmin Challenge Glentress

This year so far we have been getting slightly spoilt with the dusty dry courses that have prevailed upon us in the land on mountain biking, but it looks like Scotland has remembered its original climate (boo!) and has returned to being rather bleek! On Sunday the guys from Bike radar and Garmin descended upon Glentress for the 3rd Garmin challenge event! It was a bit rainy and a bit yukky but pretty good fun out there on the mountain bike I have to say!

The event was class, really easy, pitch up, sign on , get a Garmin unit attached to your bike and follow that route! Check out the full report at:

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/winner-of-scottish-garmin-mtb-day-revealed-22589

I'm going to have some fun with my new Garmin Edge that's for sure!

Yee ha

Les

This is what its all about . . . . . The British Champs 2009

It's been a while since I have felt like this . . . . . . it is now Tuesday, my body is officially broken, if it doesn't hurt or is not bruised it has just decided that right now it doesn't really want to work properly! I went to the limit this weekend at the Champs - holy smokes it was fun!

Innerleithen what a place! For ages now I have always wondered why the Scottish Borders lacks mountain biking events especially since in a relatively short radius you are absolutely spoilt for choice! This weekend the small usually quaint (except on Saturday nights) town of Innerliethen played host to both the Downhill and XC 2009 British Championships! It was super exciting and the whole place looked awesome!

The XC course was not for the faint hearted, the climb was mega with enough steep little kickers in there to keep pain levels above threshold . . . the descent was mental and the field . . . . god that was just horrible! It was proper mountain biking and it was so refreshing! My race was hard, probably the hardest race that I have competed in yet. There wasn't much space for a breather out there and I had my fair share of problems but at the end of the day that's just what racing is all about! An eventful third lap resulted in me ripping my cleat out of my shoe - seriously I still have no idea how that happened. Anyway it left me trying to descent by putting the carbon sole of my shoe onto the pedal, yip it wasn't that much fun and pretty scary to be honest! I was just chuffed to get to the bottom, kind of in one piece, where Graeme kindly lent me his shoe for the final lap, it may have been a few sizes too big and my heel kept popping out on the climb but it was so good to actually be able to ride like I know I can on my last descent. Hats off to Sue Clarke (SIS) who took the win in the women's field on a proper hardcore track! Followed by Jenny Copnall (Look RT) in 2nd and Sharon Laws (Halfords Bikehut) in 3rd. I finished 8th and am mega chuffed with the result, first top 10 in the British yee ha!

The rest of the Glentress riders were on form too with Katy Winton taking the win and becoming youth Champion, Hannah Ferguson returned to racing after a pretty horrible accident mid week and finished 4th - good riding girls! Lucy Grant was 2nd in the Juvenile catgegory. Lewis Kirkwood also made the podium finishing 3rd in the Male youths and Sam Waterston finished 12th. Jake Law and Graeme Short claimed to take this one easy but they seemed to be motoring when I saw them! And Last but by no means least Neil Wilson won the Vet's Downhill category - sweet riding guys!

I'm still buzzing from the whole weekend, it was so cool to race at home and have so much support out there so thanks to everyone who came along to watch! The marshals were awesome too thanks for all the chat along the way! The course was awesome and everything ran really smooth on the day. I think it was really cool that both events came together for the weekend as it something that never happens and it was really nice to catch up and watch friends and team mates riding in the Downhill, for the future I reckon it would be good if both events could run together but possibly on separate days for example like they use to do at Fort William for the World Cup. After all its the British Champs, its a really big deal to all the riders involved and each and everyone one of them deserves the limelight for a day!

G man you are cool, I never would have managed those hills without your wisdom! Kerry respect as always! Sarah thanks for the last bottle!!

Special thanks to The Hub, Bloc, Luvians, Baillie Gifford and Tunnocks.

Time for some more sleep I think

Yee ha

Les

Girls are Loud . . . . . . boys are rubbish :)

This weekend Kirroughtree played host to the next in the series of the No Fuss 10 hour events! Seriously what a host and what a course! At last a course that wasn't made up of relentless hours of firetrack road it was sweet!!!!! There was just under 300m of climbing per lap (see the course profile below!) and it was a real course for the power houses of the mountain bike field! The bitterness of the climbs and hard efforts were immediately whisk away by the fast flowing singletrack descents! If you didn't smile out there seriously you need to have a word with yourself! There was one relentless climb (you all know the one I mean!) in there, where the lactate filled the legs, it was always a relief to get to the middle section of the climb where it eased off for 1 second or so before the rest of the climb kicked in - ouch!, its only saving grace was its shortness and you knew when you got to the top a treat was in store all the way to the finish line! It just goes to show that you can actually put together a proper mountain bike race without an overkill of fire track! Two big thumbs up to the organisers at No fuss for this one yaaaa oooo!

The weather even held up! It was proper scorchio during the day and the rain that was due to arrive a tea time was delayed for a few hours until the race was finished! Well done to whoever was in charge of that one ha ha!


To the race - yaaaaooooo! After the solo efforts at 10 under the Ben I decided to kick back a little on this one and entered the race a part of a female quad . . . . . only thing was that there wasn't much kicking back as I was part of a totally magic team! Team name: Girls Are Loud, members : Lee Craigie (Square wheels), Emma Guy (Glentress Riders), Tracy Brunger (Glentress Riders) and myself (Glentress Riders). Since we were the only female quad and being the competitive little animals that we are, we competed in the male quad category! The laps were fast and we were all truly loving it out there, chasing people down, hoping for a clear run on the descents and just having some good old fashioned fun on our bikes! We didn't really know where we were in the standings for well over the first half of the race, when Lee went to check. We were pretty happy when she returned informing us all that we were in fact in the lead by a staggering 50minutes . . . . come on boys ha ha! Anyway that was kind of job done, the boys just couldn't catch, imagine that girls that can really mountain bike! We finished 12 laps in 10 hours 24 minutes a whole lap ahead of our fellow competitors! Check us out on the podium below wearing our make-shift beards to fit in with the boys ha ha:)

Graeme short also put in a impressive performance completing 10 laps in 9hour 49mins and finishing 3rd in the solo male vets! It was his first podium - yaa hoo! Nic Jenkins and his team Lady and the Cramps just missed out on third spot in the trios - good effort guys! Nic was definitely having way too much fun out there, showing off with bunny hops and all!

Big thanks to all the team for making it such good fun! El Captanio Kerry for time keeping, holding bikes and keeping everyone in line as normal! Lee's Aunt Ruth for great banter and cousin Sue for amazing legs massages before our 3rd laps - god that so helped me round! The guys at No fuss for another cracking event, all the marshals for their time and encouragement out on the laps! And as always my sponsors : The Hub, Bloc , Tunnocks , Polar, Luvians.

Champs next weekend at Inners . . . . . . . . its all gonna be a bit mad!

Les