I’ve been a bit busy at work the past couple of weeks. The hours have been long and the stress levels high. I had to do the unthinkable and work Saturday morning when all wanted to do was get out on my bike and ride. When I finished I was looking forward to a lap of Llandegla. The weather was foul so I was expecting a relatively quiet afternoon, but when I pulled onto the car park the place was heaving. A second later the penny dropped, there was an event on, Doh!
To make matters worse I knew there was an event on, I’d contemplated entering but decided against it, and since then I’d forgotten all about it. If I had remembered I would have gone to Cannock, but I was at Degla and I really wanted a ride. I decided to see if I could park and find out what trails were affected, I might still be able to do a decent ride.
Amazingly I found a parking space almost as soon as I drove onto the car park. On the walk to One Planet Adventure’s Tail Centre I had a total reversal of mindset and decided to see if I could enter. As the days have got very short, and I thought my ride would run into darkness, I’d got my lights, so what the hell, I’d give it a go.
I could enter, but because I’ve become a slave to magic money I hadn’t got any cash to pay the entry fee. After a bit of begging and pleading with the good people in the bike shop, they took payment for me and I was in. I’d got the wrong bike, I’d done no prep, I’d worked a morning shift, I hadn’t had any lunch, I was feeling tired and emotional and on the drive over I had a feeling of impending doom, but all that’s okay because I’d got a ride!
It was warm, wet and foggy, at least warmish for the time of year. On the long trudge to the top of hill the rain came and went, but mist and fog persisted. It was hard to see riders up the trail, they loomed out of the cloud, grey on grey. Sometimes you’d hear them before you saw them, disembodied voices lost in the fog. It was quiet and still and I was a lone female rider cutting through the smalls packs of men on the climb. I felt good on my bike. The pedals were spinning easily, probably because I’d had a few day off the bike, an enforced rest due to my work load. I was feeling fast, but that sense of impending doom persisted.
It wasn’t The Fear, The Fear was away on holiday, this was something different. This was an irrational nagging premonition of ground rush. That horrible feeling when it’s all gone wrong and the trail is speeding up to meet you. A foreboding of free fall, the intuition of impact, a the presage of pain. It was a warning that it could all go wrong. The last time it all went wrong was here at Degla in similar weather. That’s all it was, a memory of a past incident that put me in hospital, a warning to be careful. It took a long time for my confidence to come back to me after that, and the memory was haunting me.
I had nothing to fear. I knew I had nothing to fear, even though I’d never ridden these trails in anger, against the clock, against others. I’d be pushing harder than normal, because that’s what competition makes you do. It sharpens your reflexes and makes you courageous. The conditions were far from ideal, and one of the trails had never been ridden, by anyone, so there would be risks. I just had to keep my cool, keep my focus and hope it didn’t end in A&E.
The event was a mash up. It was a free for all and you could have as many runs as your legs could take. I know from experience that I can push deep into the red on descents, so I was only intending to hit each stage once and head home as soon as I could, maybe taking in a few more trails if I had time, but I was thinking on my feet, none of this was planned.
The First Stage was the new trail, sort of. A couple of new jumpy sections had been grafted into the original Red Run. I’d ridden the old version once or twice, so the stage wasn’t a complete surprise, but the new bits wrong footed me. I had two runs and I didn’t get either of them right. The first one was to see what I was getting involved with, and I caught the guy in front of me. On my second run I left a bigger gap and went for it, but I couldn’t find the flow through the new sections. Part of me wanted to jump, but I didn’t think I had the speed, strength or experience to do it. I reverted to type and squashed everything. With the joy of après race stage times I know my second run was a mere 2 seconds quicker than my first. Which backs up my belief of going for broke on the first attempt and being done with it.
I was a bit lost after the First Stage, unsure where I was supposed to go for the second stage. In my head I thought I would carry on around the trail, as I would a normal ride, but after a bit of asking this turned out not to be the case. It was back up the hill past the start of Stage 1, then down The Awesome Rolly bit to were the Black Run splits. Stage 2 went down Parallel Universe, a trail littered with jumps and a rock garden. Stage 3 was on it’s older sibling Parallel Universe 2012, or as some people know it Wobbly Rod’s Black 1. This is old style single-track flow, and I love it!
After a quick straw poll at the trail head I discovered every one was waiting to hit Parallel Universe. I took the opportunity to queue jump and launched myself into Wobbly Rod’s with reckless abandon.
All was good for the first few meters, but when I crossed the rocks and went into the tress the lights went out. I rode stage one with my lights off and I started this one the same. It didn’t seem that dark at the top, but with murky weather and the trees the moment I went into the woods it got a lot darker than expected. The idea of fumbling around to turn my lights on didn’t even occur to me, the time cost would be too great. I’d make do with what I’d got. Then there was tape marking the course, it was messing with my idea of where the line should be. I had to tune it out the noise and concentrate on the trail.
The stage ended just before the two trails merged. I’d got down it safe and sound and I had no intention of having another go, I couldn’t see the point. I didn’t think I could go faster, not in the conditions. It was only going to get darker and as far as I was concerned that meant slower, and I thought that run was slow enough. Besides, I needed my legs to ride back up to do Stage 2.
I thought lights were the way forward for Stage 2, but the second I rode off the start it was a white out. I couldn’t see anything but the fog. Where the hell was the trail? I needed to come up with a strategy and fast. I didn’t think that trying to adjust my lights was really an option given the situation. I’d got an old pair of Hope lights on my bars, the type the run on four AA batteries, and thankfully they’re not the brightest in the world, but they cast enough light to see the trail. I’d got an Exposure Sirius cranked up to max on my helmet, and although it’s not the brightest light it was still too much. I made a frantic grope to the top of my helmet and pointed it skyward, the result was much better, but my vision was still limited by fog blindness. I made it down the hill okay, but I thought there might just be enough natural light left to do it without lights.
Confession time, I not a night time trail rider, my lights are for road commuting. My Hopes are my original commuter lights. I had to double up because one wasn’t enough, and they have the annoying trait of turning off when the batteries are low, plunging you into darkness without warning, so two makes for safer commuting. The Exposure Sirius was bought as a daytime riding light. I wanted something super bright to get me seen on busy roads, and it ticks that box, it’s also really good when it gets dark. As soon as I realised it was seriously impressive bit of kit, my Hopes got confined to the spares box.
When my after work MTB training rides began to run into darkness, I dug my Hopes out of retirement and bought a helmet mount for the Sirius, but until now they hadn’t been used. This was my first night ride, with one exception, when I was on holiday in September. That ride did not go according to plan. It was a mess from the start, all a bit ad hoc on the lighting front. And when we did start the ride it was a lot later than intended. When we eventually got going everything went wrong when a tree fell on us, but that’s another story. It wasn’t a confidence inspiring experience, and despite my doubts I was willing to have another go.
For my second run down Parallel Universe I went blind, riding without lights. It was boarder line at the start, murky but do-able, but the further down the trail I got the darker it became. When I hit the rock garden I couldn’t see a thing. The other riders lights filtering through the tress helped maintain my sense of direction, but other than that I was riding on trail feedback, memory, hope and my sense of smell. I hung on and let my Yeti do what it had to do, I was a passenger. I hadn’t a clue what I’d done, but in those conditions, it felt like the ride of my life, but I knew it was nothing special. Looking back at my times, riding it dark was only 3 seconds slower than riding it with lights.
Once I was out the bottom my runs at the top of the hill were done. I didn’t think I’d ridden very well, but I’d got no intention of trying to improve my times so I started back up the hill for the last time. With the joy of hindsight I should have done the Black run back to the trail centre. It would have taken me to the last stage, but being the good girl I am I followed the signposts into the murk.
The ride from the top of the hill to the bottom was fire road all the way, and it was the most difficult stage of the day, it was a total white out. As I’d never ridden this way before I hadn’t a clue where I was going. Visibility was down to a couple off feet and I was totally disorientated. The fog was so thick that I thought I was going too fast riding up hill!
Every now and then I’d pass a landmark, a place I recognised where one of the bike trails crossed the forest road. With recognition came a huge sense of relief, I wasn’t lost beyond hope after all. Eventually I crossed the end of the Blue run, then shortly after I was back on known territory, climbing the hill to the start of Julia’s trail, a track I love. I have now idea why, but I always get an immense sense of pleasure when I ride it. I never go for it, I just coast from top to bottom, enjoying the ride. All that was left was the climb to the start of the last stage.
I know the last stage as The Final Assault, a trail I have mixed feelings about. It’s fast, very fast in places, and with the speed comes danger. On a couple of occasions it’s very nearly gone wrong and left me with my heart pounding. The thought of going hell for leather in the dark and the fog was making me feel anxious.
As I rolled up to the start all my nerves vanished. There were a couple of guys hanging around the start, but they weren’t about to ride. They advised that super bright lights weren’t the best idea, but that was something I already knew. I didn’t fiddle or fuss with mine, I left them on the lowest settings. Once I’d got the okay to ride, I piled in.
The fog wasn’t as thick at it had been up the hill, In comparison the visibility was good. I was wishing I’d turned my lights up to max instead of leaving them as they were. It felt like I was doing a million miles per hour, but when I hit the jumps nothing happened. I wasn’t going that fast after all. I hammered up the hill for all I was worth and plunged into the last descent. When I got to the forest road, the traditional end to my laps of Degla, I had another surprise. Instead of that been the end of the event, I was ushered into a trail I’ve only ever ridden once before, and that was a long time ago. I had to get back on the gas and start pushing again.
With the end was in sight I had a moment. I hit a patch of mud and everything leapt sideways. I thought I was going down. My tyres bit and the next thing I know I was in danger of getting high-sided. A second later and it was all over. I was still upright and the lights of the trial centre lay ahead, job done.
It was totally black when I got to my car and I hadn’t a clue what time it was. If you’d have asked me I would have said about 7 o’clock, so it came as a bit of a surprised to see it was only five, the event had another two hours to run. Something else I hadn’t realised until I started to dismantle my bike was just how muddy it was. Everything was plastered. It was probably the muddiest I’d been since I used to ride the green lanes of Devon in back in the late 80s and 90s. Back then the mud would build up so thick your wheels would stop turning. You’d have to scrape it off with a stick, but riding was different then, and so were the bikes.
Once I’d loaded my bike and got changed, I headed down to One Planet Adventure to return my timing chip and see how I’d done. While I was there I got a cuppa and a slice of one of the Chef’s amazing cakes. It’s worth going to Degla just for the cake, but what I really wanted was to go home. I was tired, cold, in dire need of a shower and a good meal. I’d been up since four thirty and I could hear my bed calling to me, tempting me in.
I wasn’t optimistic, I didn’t think I’d ridden very well. The last Enduro I entered, also my first, I came last, but I was hoping I’d done better this time, Degla is after all my local. With the return of my timing chip I got a print out of my stage times and my result. The first thing I spotted was that they’ed entered me in the wrong category. I was down as a Masters Woman, when I should have been a Grand Vet Women. I was ranked number 1, which raised an eyebrow, but I figured that was because nobody else had posted a full set of times. It didn’t matter though, they still need to put me in the right category. After a bit of messing about I was reassigned to the Grand Vets and I took my place in front of the monitor to see how my time compared. I was first of three, but there was still an hour of riding before the stages closed, so it didn’t mean a thing.
Warning! Warning! Prima Donna Attack!
This was not what I wanted, I wanted to go home. I didn’t think I’d won this, and I didn’t want to win this, I didn’t want to have to hang around for the prize presentation. If I ended up coming third, could I do a bunk? I think that would be okay, it is after all only three out of three, the wooden spoon, sorry. Second place? I’m not so sure, it would be a bit rude. But to win and not bother to show up for the prize presentation, to me that’s just down right ungrateful. In the world of XC racing, at least at the National Points Series Events, you’re threatened with punishment for nonattendance at podium presentations. Because I’m a good girl I’d have to do the right thing, even if I was only third when the race was finally over, I’d have to stick around to do the honours. My supper and that glass of red would have to wait. I walked back to my car and read my book.
Later on I wandered back to the HQ. I shuffled my way to the front of the crowd gathered around the timing screen and waited for the Grand Vets page to be displayed. I’d won (7:44), Pauline Moore was second (11:09) and Liz Shanklin was third (12:38). But this wasn’t enough for me. I was the fastest Grand Vet Lady, but how did I compare to the rest of the Ladies? I couldn’t work it out, I couldn’t hold the numbers in my head for long enough to make an assessment, I thought I was running 4th or 5th woman over all, which backed up my belief I hadn’t ridden very well.
It took forever for the prize presentation to take place. I circled the bike shop endlessly, eyeing up the goodies on offer, but I had no intention of buying. I had a couple of conversations with my fellow competitors, which was nice, but I wasn’t feeling very social. I felt like a fish out of water. I was having a bad attack of trans-participation-in-sport, was this right, should I have done this? And to top it off I was feeling like man in a frock. Not a good combination. I just wanted to get it over with and go home.
When we were finally called to take our place on the sofa, the stand-in for a podium, the mood was fun and lighthearted. It was all a bit of a cock up. The organisers weren’t expecting three Grand Vet Ladies so they had to do a bit of improvising, but it was all good fun. When my time in the limelight was over I hung around to cheer the rest of the prize winners, but as soon as I could I was in my car and driving home. I was bad tempered and grumpy, a mood that persisted. I avoided Strava, I didn’t want it to upset me any more that I already was. I didn’t need to be told how badly I’d ridden, I already knew. But I’d just won an Enduro, what the hell was wrong with me? Why did the victory feel so hollow? It was the trans thing, I felt like Lance Armstrong, a cheat.
Fast forward a couple of days and I’m on Roots and Rain to see if any photos have been posted of the event to put in this. I find two and tag myself, but I don’t look good. It looks like I can’t ride for toffee. A couple of days later I go back again, and this time there’s four, and in one of them it actually looks like I can ride a bike, not only that but the results have been posted. Curiosity gets the better of me and I start digging. First Grand Vet Lady, I know that. I was also the fastest lady on the day, that cheers me up. Then I check the Grand Vets Men’s results, I would have won that too! The more I dig, the better my ride becomes, my times stand up. This is a real turn around, perhaps I didn’t have the best of rides, but neither did anybody else. I did good. But this realisation opens another can of worms, one that takes me right back to where I started the season, is trans-participation fair?
Lulu-R's Cycling Times 