I was very happy with a time of 5 hrs 4 mins but, not so chuffed when I discovered that I’d been demoted from 18th to 53rd as result of my woefully inadequate descending skills on two 8 minute special stages. To me (not that I know anything about MTB events), the special stages make the other 4hrs 45mins of mad thrashing somewhat irrelevant. I suppose you just need to be really good at riding planks of wood covered in chicken wire as well as everything else. Team mates Mike Devlin and Hamish Irvine (who have excellent descending skills by any measure), suffered a similar fate in the final results
Winge over..... A great event, well organised and inspiring terrain. Need to practice on those planks before next year.
Results
Video thanks to David MacMillan of singletrackbikes.co.uk
This is what Mike Devlin of Mikes Bikes had to say.........
Mountain Bike “racing”
Before
I start, this will include a rant!!! Three intrepid (okay old)
athletes, Mike Devlin, Hamish Irvine and Andy Hyslop entered the MTB
enduro event “Tour de Ben Nevis” at the weekend. As a group they all
suffer from a minor affliction, and a major misconception. The major
misconception being, “1st over the line wins “, Hamish & Mike should know better,
having “competed” in the Merida mountain marathon which produces no results. Anyway, what follows in Mikes account of this gentle mountain bike race Warning: This article includes some rambling.
Hamish,
Mike & Andy arrived on the start line in Fort William on a very
cold and wet Saturday morning (Forecast was wall to wall sun!),after a
long and cold chat to Steve Broadhurst, Catriona Brown, Peter, Duncan
Clark etc, we were piped (bag) along the high street………….and then it
started.
Stage 1
Immediately, we got stuck into a long hill climb, and quickly the 300+ thinned into 20 ish racers. Riding alongside Hamish, I felt good even great!! Cue 1st attempt at dropping him. After 30mins or so it got a bit rougher, and I promptly fell off!!
Stage two began, oh joy (v technical down hill, big drops, all rock and steps), despite being well warned I rode it all on 1st sight, a combination of extreme skill (modesty is over-rated), 29er & luck! I did it “sight unseen “and stayed upright. The
highlight of the descent was passing (avec smug grin in place), the
black beast (Hamish), who had decided to walk! We then hit the hill to
Mamore Lodge (mega steep honest), and I was delighted to have dropped
Hamish on the down hill (not that I am competitive). This delight had a
very short shelf life, for at the top of the hill, a familiar “hello
hello” was proffered from the big man as he cruised past!! At that point both of us were overtaken by the 1st woman, so our god like status dropped somewhat. After a very long and sore Land Rover track, I caught sight of Hamish in front and Andy behind! After
fording a river, the “walking” section commenced, yes I did write
“walking”. Now hill walking is not my favourite activity, especially in Shimano Carbon soled race shoes, whilst carrying a (big) bike. I saw Hamish drawing further away, and Andy drawing nearer on his Merida 96
carbon full suss. My resolve failed! I sat on my bike at the top and
fell over, Andy & Hamish rode away. On top of this ignomy, I lost my
chocolate bar ( the subject of a long dream on the climb). I thought,”oh well” a long slog to Fort William now, how hard can that be!!
Actually, very hard, after 4.5hrs of hard riding, a nice man told me I was 20th out of 300+, and that there was a “short
technical section” ahead.(Translation: short technical section-try world cup XC course. Given I had worn my rear brakepads to the metal, a technical section was not my ideal finish. Halfway
down, I got off and ran(or was that walk gingerly)! It was safer.
Somewhere in the woods two DH demons overtook me (so fast I missed one
of them), and one with a smug podium smile. (Damien Forster, ex owner of
off beat bikes, so he knows a bit about the trails. Finally, I reached the finish alone in 22nd place after a mind numbing 5hrs 11mins & still thinking about my chocolate bar. The team did well for old men Hamish Irvine (12th), Andy Hyslop (18th) Mike Devlin (22nd).overall………..or so we thought This
is not the end of the story………… we were unaware of the “rules”, which
meant that “style” points were awarded for various sections DH, UH
(that’s uphill) etc. Personally I don’t get it, but in this world of
equal ops for all, it must have some logic! Steve Broadhurst reckons
that if Mike etc actually read the instructions it might have worked
out. The key appears to be, ride very slowly for 75% of the time, fix
your hair at the top of the DH (if you have any, I would polish my
helmet) and bomb it down, then return to riding slowly, till the next
style section!
Sore loser! You bet!
