Torq in your sleep / night time enduro / enduro lights...
Discussion
That drop is a b
h. I won't drop in when I'm riding alone, just in case. I usually go straight on (through a Rhododendron bush!) and use a later (shallower) drop in. It's quite nasty, because it is at 90 degrees to the approach, and those big roots make it hard to pick a decent line. One caveat, though - I can't be sure all of those trails will feature on the course, and if they do, I can't guarantee that the photos were taken facing the direction of travel. I just rode around for several hours, trying to follow as much of the route as I could find.
Good luck with the single speed thing if you go for it! I struggle enough round some of that on a geared hardtail sometimes, despite riding it all regularly.
Are you on Strava? If so, post up a link to Sunday's effort when you get back (or take a look at my Strava, I'm 'yellow jack' on there too). I'll be honest, I was glad I was stopping to take the pics yesterday, as I was struggling to ride with any pace at all at some points.
h. I won't drop in when I'm riding alone, just in case. I usually go straight on (through a Rhododendron bush!) and use a later (shallower) drop in. It's quite nasty, because it is at 90 degrees to the approach, and those big roots make it hard to pick a decent line. One caveat, though - I can't be sure all of those trails will feature on the course, and if they do, I can't guarantee that the photos were taken facing the direction of travel. I just rode around for several hours, trying to follow as much of the route as I could find.Good luck with the single speed thing if you go for it! I struggle enough round some of that on a geared hardtail sometimes, despite riding it all regularly.
Are you on Strava? If so, post up a link to Sunday's effort when you get back (or take a look at my Strava, I'm 'yellow jack' on there too). I'll be honest, I was glad I was stopping to take the pics yesterday, as I was struggling to ride with any pace at all at some points.
The singlespeed thing is up op in the air at the moment, my knee's playing up and I've done something to my shoulder yesterday at work. Hopefully tomorrows physio session will get me sorted and then I'll see how I go. It's not too hilly round Minley so singlespeed isn't too much of a problem.
I've just found you on Strava, I'll post a link up to the race once I'm back home on Monday.
I've just found you on Strava, I'll post a link up to the race once I'm back home on Monday.
I'm entered for the 12hr veterans, riding it on my singlespeed Pace RC129, wearings arrows kit.
Not sure how well this is going to go, was going well with training till last weekend, where upon been bunged with flu and a chest infection, rode last night briefly, it wasn't a pretty sight. Hoping to be at least capable of surviving the event, was hoping to be racing it.
Not sure how well this is going to go, was going well with training till last weekend, where upon been bunged with flu and a chest infection, rode last night briefly, it wasn't a pretty sight. Hoping to be at least capable of surviving the event, was hoping to be racing it.
BadgerBenji said:
I'm entered for the 12hr veterans, riding it on my singlespeed Pace RC129, wearings arrows kit.
Not sure how well this is going to go, was going well with training till last weekend, where upon been bunged with flu and a chest infection, rode last night briefly, it wasn't a pretty sight. Hoping to be at least capable of surviving the event, was hoping to be racing it.
I'll keep an eye out for you on the way round. Not sure how well this is going to go, was going well with training till last weekend, where upon been bunged with flu and a chest infection, rode last night briefly, it wasn't a pretty sight. Hoping to be at least capable of surviving the event, was hoping to be racing it.
I'll be on either a Niner singlespeed or a full sus Epic wearing Beyond Mountain Bikes kit
neenaw said:
BadgerBenji said:
I'm entered for the 12hr veterans, riding it on my singlespeed Pace RC129, wearings arrows kit.
Not sure how well this is going to go, was going well with training till last weekend, where upon been bunged with flu and a chest infection, rode last night briefly, it wasn't a pretty sight. Hoping to be at least capable of surviving the event, was hoping to be racing it.
I'll keep an eye out for you on the way round. Not sure how well this is going to go, was going well with training till last weekend, where upon been bunged with flu and a chest infection, rode last night briefly, it wasn't a pretty sight. Hoping to be at least capable of surviving the event, was hoping to be racing it.
I'll be on either a Niner singlespeed or a full sus Epic wearing Beyond Mountain Bikes kit
Well that was an 'interesting' day!
I knew it was going to be one of those days when I got to the signing on area to be told that I wasn't down as being entered in the race, possibly as they'd had a 'blip' with their computer system. As a result another rider and I were showing as not being in the race so they told us we could register at 11:30 and pay again. The exceptionally unhelpful woman from Gorrick who was at the signing on seems to take great pleasure in not signing us on until about 11:45, 15 minutes before the race started.
As a result, by the time I lined up for the start I was pretty much last with a field of about 200 or so to try and make my way through at the impending bottleneck at the first singletrack.
The first couple of lap went pretty well for me, I manage to make up quite a few places before we hit the singletrack so I wasn't held up too much. The first few laps went well, I was riding at around the pace I was aiming for and by the 4 hour mark I was sitting in 7th place.
After the 4h mark, things just started to go wrong and get worse. I went from feeling good to just feeling drained with absolutely no strength or energy in my legs. The Spongebob climb was horrendous, it felt like riding uphill through wet concrete and just sucked the life out of your legs. With some of the new trails being so loamy, the dust was a problem at some points, I was still coughing it up 24h later!
I kept plodding around, tried a couple of gels and something to eat but I just couldn't get my legs to do what I wanted them to so after about 9 hours and 10 laps I threw the towel in. First DNF in a race for me so I wasn't best pleased.
It wasn't until yesterday when I was unpacking stuff from the race that I realised where I'd gone horribly wrong. I unpacked my lunch from one of the boxes! With all of the carry on trying to get registered and get my race entry sorted, I only had about 15 minutes to get ready and off to the start so I forgot to eat before I went out. I reckon this was probably why I felt like I was running on an empty tank
Oh well, at least I'll learn from the mistakes!
Here's the link to the course if anyone wants to try and ride it, I'd imagine that some of it will be pretty much trashed now after the weekends racing and the rain from the past couple of days.
http://www.strava.com/activities/185023745
One thing this weekend reminded me is why I don't much like the Gorrick races, they seem so disorganised compared to the likes of the Southern XC and 24/12. Despite that, I'm sure I'll be back again next year and better prepared for it.
I knew it was going to be one of those days when I got to the signing on area to be told that I wasn't down as being entered in the race, possibly as they'd had a 'blip' with their computer system. As a result another rider and I were showing as not being in the race so they told us we could register at 11:30 and pay again. The exceptionally unhelpful woman from Gorrick who was at the signing on seems to take great pleasure in not signing us on until about 11:45, 15 minutes before the race started.
As a result, by the time I lined up for the start I was pretty much last with a field of about 200 or so to try and make my way through at the impending bottleneck at the first singletrack.
The first couple of lap went pretty well for me, I manage to make up quite a few places before we hit the singletrack so I wasn't held up too much. The first few laps went well, I was riding at around the pace I was aiming for and by the 4 hour mark I was sitting in 7th place.
After the 4h mark, things just started to go wrong and get worse. I went from feeling good to just feeling drained with absolutely no strength or energy in my legs. The Spongebob climb was horrendous, it felt like riding uphill through wet concrete and just sucked the life out of your legs. With some of the new trails being so loamy, the dust was a problem at some points, I was still coughing it up 24h later!
I kept plodding around, tried a couple of gels and something to eat but I just couldn't get my legs to do what I wanted them to so after about 9 hours and 10 laps I threw the towel in. First DNF in a race for me so I wasn't best pleased.
It wasn't until yesterday when I was unpacking stuff from the race that I realised where I'd gone horribly wrong. I unpacked my lunch from one of the boxes! With all of the carry on trying to get registered and get my race entry sorted, I only had about 15 minutes to get ready and off to the start so I forgot to eat before I went out. I reckon this was probably why I felt like I was running on an empty tank
Oh well, at least I'll learn from the mistakes!
Here's the link to the course if anyone wants to try and ride it, I'd imagine that some of it will be pretty much trashed now after the weekends racing and the rain from the past couple of days.
http://www.strava.com/activities/185023745
One thing this weekend reminded me is why I don't much like the Gorrick races, they seem so disorganised compared to the likes of the Southern XC and 24/12. Despite that, I'm sure I'll be back again next year and better prepared for it.
Sorry to hear that it didn't go so well 
It's got to be a bummer when you get stiffed by a computer 'blip'. Did they really make you pay again??
Shame you had to jack it in too, but with 3 to 4 hours left to run, it sounds like it was probably for the best. Frustrating, but for the best.
How did you find the course, on the whole? It looks pretty good, from the Strava trace, but I've yet to get out on it since I got back from Reading. The telegraph pole climb after 'Give it a go' is pretty tasty, and the chap who designed the course told me he'd had to alter the right turn across the open scrub and down into drop for the fire road on the other side, to the extent that he christened it "Vicars and Tarts" on the basis that vicars and tarts could ride it safely. That was a brand new stretch, along with the right off the fire road, through the trees and over the rocks onto the top fire road. These were the 'softest' sections I rode, and looked most in need of some traffic to define them a little. From there you would have gone back down, via a few 'wiggles' to Farmer Palmer. One of those 'wiggles' goes through a 'bomb hole' that always catches me out with insufficient momentum, and in the wrong gear for the climb out.
Banksey didn't feature in it's complete form. Instead, they used Banksey (upper) on the way out (left just after the bridge), then Banksey (lower) just before you went under the bridge. Up and Up, the nasty gravel climb before Spongebob is always a bh, but it's also a test of any improvements I've made in my fitness. You were almost a full minute faster up there than my PR, so I've got a way to go on that one. I like this year's course, as it's easier to follow (in my head) than most of the previous courses, and I'm keen to get out and try it for myself as soon as I can. Trouble is, I'll never trouble the 'full lap' leaderboard without assistants to man the gates where the cows are in the field between Olympic Ridge and Roadie's Revenge (the long flat gravel road).
Good on you for entering though, and without the hassle of not being 'on the list' and forgetting to eat your lunch, it sounds like you might have grabbed a decent result. I should have a crack at it, really, as I know those woods like the scars on the back of my hand, but it always clashes with Reading Festival.
Thanks for the update, and I got your 'follow' on Strava. I'll return the compliment next time I've got something to upload
It's got to be a bummer when you get stiffed by a computer 'blip'. Did they really make you pay again??
Shame you had to jack it in too, but with 3 to 4 hours left to run, it sounds like it was probably for the best. Frustrating, but for the best.
How did you find the course, on the whole? It looks pretty good, from the Strava trace, but I've yet to get out on it since I got back from Reading. The telegraph pole climb after 'Give it a go' is pretty tasty, and the chap who designed the course told me he'd had to alter the right turn across the open scrub and down into drop for the fire road on the other side, to the extent that he christened it "Vicars and Tarts" on the basis that vicars and tarts could ride it safely. That was a brand new stretch, along with the right off the fire road, through the trees and over the rocks onto the top fire road. These were the 'softest' sections I rode, and looked most in need of some traffic to define them a little. From there you would have gone back down, via a few 'wiggles' to Farmer Palmer. One of those 'wiggles' goes through a 'bomb hole' that always catches me out with insufficient momentum, and in the wrong gear for the climb out.
Banksey didn't feature in it's complete form. Instead, they used Banksey (upper) on the way out (left just after the bridge), then Banksey (lower) just before you went under the bridge. Up and Up, the nasty gravel climb before Spongebob is always a b
h, but it's also a test of any improvements I've made in my fitness. You were almost a full minute faster up there than my PR, so I've got a way to go on that one. I like this year's course, as it's easier to follow (in my head) than most of the previous courses, and I'm keen to get out and try it for myself as soon as I can. Trouble is, I'll never trouble the 'full lap' leaderboard without assistants to man the gates where the cows are in the field between Olympic Ridge and Roadie's Revenge (the long flat gravel road).Good on you for entering though, and without the hassle of not being 'on the list' and forgetting to eat your lunch, it sounds like you might have grabbed a decent result. I should have a crack at it, really, as I know those woods like the scars on the back of my hand, but it always clashes with Reading Festival.
Thanks for the update, and I got your 'follow' on Strava. I'll return the compliment next time I've got something to upload
Blimey it sounds like you really know the area, I've just had to sit and think about it to figure out which bit came where!
The telegraph climb used to be the cardiac climb or something like that and it went left into the singletrack after the climb for the least couple of years but from what I saw on Sunday, the area to the left of the fire road has been wrecked by the forestry work. The new 'vicars and tarts' section was interesting. It was incredibly loose and loamy but as the race went on there were more and more roots exposed, especially on the exit to the fireroad which made it quite difficult.
If the bomb hole you're talking about is the same one I'm thinking of after another new singletrack section, it nearly caught me out later on in the race. Again it started to break up due to being so dry and the roots became exposed. I managed to loose traction on the back tyre and when it spun I got my food caught in a thin root which nearly had me off the bike and back down into the bomb hole.
As for getting charged again, I wasn't happy about it but didn't have much choice. They'll only accept a copy of the confirmation email as proof of having entered, not a Paypal receipt, as I seem to have deleted the email I'm pretty much stuck and can't get a refund. These things happen though, not much I can do about it now. Definitely puts me off entering any of the Autumn XC series or the Brass Monkeys series though.
The telegraph climb used to be the cardiac climb or something like that and it went left into the singletrack after the climb for the least couple of years but from what I saw on Sunday, the area to the left of the fire road has been wrecked by the forestry work. The new 'vicars and tarts' section was interesting. It was incredibly loose and loamy but as the race went on there were more and more roots exposed, especially on the exit to the fireroad which made it quite difficult.
If the bomb hole you're talking about is the same one I'm thinking of after another new singletrack section, it nearly caught me out later on in the race. Again it started to break up due to being so dry and the roots became exposed. I managed to loose traction on the back tyre and when it spun I got my food caught in a thin root which nearly had me off the bike and back down into the bomb hole.
As for getting charged again, I wasn't happy about it but didn't have much choice. They'll only accept a copy of the confirmation email as proof of having entered, not a Paypal receipt, as I seem to have deleted the email I'm pretty much stuck and can't get a refund. These things happen though, not much I can do about it now. Definitely puts me off entering any of the Autumn XC series or the Brass Monkeys series though.
It was a great course, actually liked sponge bob, oddly very rideable on my singlespeed. I packed after 6 hrs, arms pumped to nothing, and cramp all over, being ill all the previous week really hadn't helped. My one big question is where were the marshalls, seemed very thin on the ground. The bombhole you are talking about, I took the b line and missed it out on the first lap, the amount of people piling it, it was inevitable that they were going to get stuck and held up. Will be back next year, and also popping down for the brass monkeys series, it's now having a points share with the thetford series. 4hr singlespeed should be ideal winter training for the plans for next season.
neenaw said:
Blimey it sounds like you really know the area, I've just had to sit and think about it to figure out which bit came where...
I've got a head start on 'knowing' that area 
I was trained there as a young 'FRED' (Future Royal Engineers Disaster) back in '88/'89, and heavily used the woods there as a 'basic soldiering' training area. Then in the mid 1990s I went back as staff, and stayed for 8 years, planning and running training exercises, and doing various admin tasks. So I've walked, driven, run, marched, and ridden every inch of those woods, and the same again around Hawley Lake, and Hawley Heath. Minefields, bridges, water points, culverts, temporary trackway, road construction (including some of the 'roads' you used for the race), I've been involved with the lot. The field with the weird gabion basket 'structure' on it, where the start was, is a demolition training ground, and 'simulated nuclear blast' incendiary charges are pretty good fun on there, I can tell you.
It's really quite a compact little training area, yet you can ride it for hours without repeating the same section twice (in the same direction). Randomly stitching sections together is pretty entertaining, although the longest I've managed to ride continuously was about 4 hours moving time, and that was quite recent. Add Hawley, Yateley Common, and a few small additional areas just outside the training area limits, and you've got a damned good day out, and if you extend it across to the Fleet Pond area you can get up to Long Valley and Caesar's Camp with only a couple of roads to cross. That way will also get you onto the Basingstoke Canal towpath, and then onto the Blackwater Valley path. That then opens up myriad possibilities, traffic free all the way to the Thames at Weybridge, or most of the way to Basingstoke the other way. I'm not sure that it comes across obviously, but I'm quite evangelical about off road riding in this area - we're spoiled for choice really. The Basingstoke Canal gets you directly out to Deepcut, to Tunnel Hill, Ash Ranges, etc, and it doesn't need masses of tarmac riding to hit Swinley. You could literally ride for days without covering it all, and there's terrain for most styles of riding, and moods. All it really lacks is some true 'Downhill' trails and some 'Northshore' nonsense, but as I'm into neither style, it doesn't worry me. I bloody love it! It's also a damned good area for quiet road riding, although I'm currently without a road bike with which to enjoy that side of things.
It's funny you mention the Basingstoke canal, I regularly follow the canal in from New Haw out to Tunnel Hill/Deepcut then up to Swinley and back home via Windsor Great Park. Makes for an interesting day out!
I've only ridden the Minley and Hawley Lake areas during races and the one at Hawley was a horrible muddy mess! There seems to be any amount of good trails on the Mod land, it's just a shame they're trying to stop us using it!
I've only ridden the Minley and Hawley Lake areas during races and the one at Hawley was a horrible muddy mess! There seems to be any amount of good trails on the Mod land, it's just a shame they're trying to stop us using it!
BadgerBenji said:
It was a great course, actually liked sponge bob, oddly very rideable on my singlespeed. I packed after 6 hrs, arms pumped to nothing, and cramp all over, being ill all the previous week really hadn't helped. My one big question is where were the marshalls, seemed very thin on the ground. The bombhole you are talking about, I took the b line and missed it out on the first lap, the amount of people piling it, it was inevitable that they were going to get stuck and held up. Will be back next year, and also popping down for the brass monkeys series, it's now having a points share with the thetford series. 4hr singlespeed should be ideal winter training for the plans for next season.
I must agree on the marshals, or lack of. Previous races there's always been quite a few out on the course, especially at the points where it would be easy to cut the course like just before the bridge crossing. For some reason I never noticed the B line for the bombhole until about 7 or 8 laps in by which time I was glad it was there!
There's something about the courses at Minley that give you a real battering, I was wrecked riding my full sus so I wouldn't like to think how I'd have got on riding it on an HT or a rigid!
I did notice one guy riding a rigid Niner Air9 like mine and he was flying round, either that or I was just going really slowly at the time which is quite likely!
Edited by neenaw on Tuesday 26th August 21:31
Gassing Station | Pedal Powered | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff