....my 1 week holiday than with a Bad Brains trip over to Llandegla trail centre in Wales.
To say we were heading to Wales, the start time for this trip was most respectable. In fact my 18 month old son made sure I was up with plenty of time to check, check and recheck I had all my kit with me.
I was to be privileged with the company of Fat Lad on this very trip to Wales so off I went as quick as I could to meet with a promise of good old British bacon butties and a cup of tea. There’s no better way of getting the cycling body prepped for action and with a little arm twisting I was enticed into having a second butty and more slurps of tea. Full of food and excitement of riding somewhere new we decided to load the car get ourselves on our way.
With two dismantled bikes and enough cycling gear to complete the Trans Wales we headed off West to our meeting point. The 2hr car journey passed by as if it wasn’t even trying to make us feel the discomfort of long distance travelling and soon we were crawling round the car park looking for a suitable spot to park up. With the lower car park full of cars and riders tweaking their bikes and making last minute pre ride checks we made our way up to the additional parking where we found Glen and Lynn and a few other Bad Brainers.
This was Al’s and my first outing at Llandegla and the countless sightings of body armour wasn’t doing anything for my overworked imagination of what I was going to find here. Is anyone riding XC?? Thankfully, when the ‘all I can see is downhillers’ vision had cleared I recognised some Bad Brains faces riding their usual choice of bike sans armour.
Bike rebuilt, lid on, Camelbak packed and strapped into position we freewheeled down to the trail centre to meet up with the rest of our group. Good turnout. Without counting there must have been around a dozen of us. And with groups photos taken we headed off onto the start of the track.
The initial part of the trail is a wide track which steadily climbs out of the trail centre for a good stretch and eventually brings you to the first of the downhill sections. Now, Llandegla knows how to do berms! These were big and immense fun to ride.
After an extended stop due a shoe stuck to spd pedal incident we continued on with the fast flowing singletrack. Now, if I were to try and describe the extent of this ride I think I would get entirely lost and meet myself coming backward a few times. So, all I can try and do is sum it up as best I can, here goes...
- Big grin
- Berms
- Switchbacks
- Jumps
- Table tops
- Short climbs
- Long downhills
- Rocks
- Drop off’s
- North shore
- Fun black sections
- Front wheel landing!
- ‘should have put my seat down’ moments
- Thrown off line
- Heavy braking
We rode a couple of the sections twice and maybe three times, it really was worth the climbs to get back to the start. Each run building the confidence to go just that bit quicker and to ride the jumps just that little bit smoother.
Eventually, after lots of fantastic riding the trail was nearing the end and finally we landed back at the trail centre. Time for tea accompanied by a huge helping of a huge cake brought by Chip. If there’s ever a time for sneaking your own cake in to a cafe this is not the cake to do it with! With a diameter close to the size of a car wheel and a thickness that none of my knives at home would make it through this will now be my immediate vision whenever anyone mentions ‘cake’.
A cracking day out and a great start to my weeks holiday. I will definitely be revisiting at some point.
I will add links to pictures and videos as and when they are available as I didn’t take any of my own.
Showing posts with label wales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wales. Show all posts
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
my first Merida - Builth Wells Spring Marathon
“flippin hec’ – that were hard!”
Saturday 12th April
I arrived in Builth Wells, after a marathon of a drive, at around 1pm which saw me clear to getting a good camping spot tucked away in a quiet corner of the campground. By the time I had all the bits to my tent strewn around the place and the outer tent blowing around like an oversized empty crisp packet the camp ground was starting to fill up rather rapidly.
That evening we watched the ELBNO race get under way just before 8 and I think I hit the sleeping bag and roll mat combo at around 10.
It rained heavily through the night that could mean only one thing; it was going to be wet and muddy today!!
The marathon was due to start at 10.30 so I made my way to the start area just after 10. Myself and the other Bad Brainer’s lined up together for the start, we positioned ourselves fairly close to the front which incidently was to be the only point of the ride where I would be near to the front!
We were off, a mass of mtb’ers pedalling away through the town of Builth Wells and less than a minute in, the pace car was gone which I am sure was closely followed by a number of Elite riders. Glen started showing good pace early on and I decided to let him go on ahead and suss out the route! ;) I made good pace up the first hill which was on tarmac, finding it hard to ease off if other bikes were passing. “pace myself” I kept saying “save the legs”.
The first feed station was around 25km into the ride, just before this little tent of energy there was a wooded section which on map looked good but in reality and in thick ankle deep mud was in fact a bloody nightmare! A combination of mud, slippy tree routes and riders bunching up made for a very tricky section.
Shortly after the first feed station, where I ate a banana at light speed and filled up my Camelbak reservoir, we were back into another uphill tarmac section followed quickly by up hill off road. There certainly seemed to be more up hills on this ride than downhills! Somewhere around this point a fellow biker asked me how to get rid of cramp which he was suffering in both legs, I told him about the old Salt n Vinegar trick which I had learnt from numerous people and offered him the only bag I was carrying. Not long after consuming these on the move, and I had pulled away a bit now, I heard a great ‘yelp’ from behind and turned to see the Salt n Vinegar man going down like a sack of ….!! Maybe the crisps idea was not the best advice after all?! He wasn’t the last I saw suffering the effects of cramp that day.
We were fast (or probably slowly) approaching the 40km mark at which we knew there was a hell of a hill to climb. No sooner had we remembered this, we found ourselves dropping into granny ring yet again for another long drag. I think this ride is the only ride I have done where most of it has been in my granny ring!! We made it to the top where a photographer was waiting to take a pic of the pain in our faces, I’m sure he must have succeeded with me.
After an awesome downhill the choice to take the route for the 50km race was presented to us. Dasnut, who I had been riding with for a while decided this was to be his chosen path back to Builth. I quickly convinced myself that I would carry on and conquer the 65km, especially now I had come this far. Shortly after saying our goodbye’s I started to wonder if I had made the right choice especially now that the heavens decided to open. Huddled amongst a crowd of bikers under a gazebo in the middle of nowhere I found myself at feed station number 2. This time, I could hold back from stuffing my face with biscuits and crisps and the occasional banana. I set off in the rain, some more tarmac and then again off road into what turned out to be, for me, the hardest climb of the ride. A climb so long and with so many false horizons, this turned into a challenge of mind over matter as well as fitness. I eventually got to the top of what I thought was the last hill of the ride.
On the decent, which was grin-tastic again, I met up with a welsh bloke who just happened to be similar pace to me. So, not through discussion, we ended up riding the remainder of the ride together. The hill which I thought was the last, was indeed not. We were met by a marshal who had a smug look about him and proceeded to inform us that we could carry on back on the road which would be 6 miles back to Builth Wells or continue with the marked course up another huge hill for a 7 mile trip back to the finish. At this point my heart sank, thinking I had used up all my energy and that I would most certainly die if I went up this last hill. But…my new welsh friend somehow gave me the motivation and encouragement to do it and go for the 7 mile with huge hill option…so that we did. And, amazingly, I got my second (or maybe this was my third!?) wind from somewhere and started feeling good (ish!) again. The climb was hard, a fair amount of walking but the constant chatting made it all the better.
The final off road downhill was crazy, basically a very steep mud chute, that I rode completely out of control. Concentration at this point was minimal. A short tarmac and path section threw me into the winding finishing slalom through the farm yard and to the inflatable finish line. A finishers T-shirt was shoved into my hand and I made my way wearily back to my tent. 6hrs 25minutes of riding got me round this marathon, I was pleased just to get round, never mind what time I achieved.
There is something quite addictive about this kind of riding, although when doing it I’m sure I asked myself numerous times ‘why’ and probably told myself not to do this ever again, but worryingly I am looking forward to the next one….
Saturday 12th April
I arrived in Builth Wells, after a marathon of a drive, at around 1pm which saw me clear to getting a good camping spot tucked away in a quiet corner of the campground. By the time I had all the bits to my tent strewn around the place and the outer tent blowing around like an oversized empty crisp packet the camp ground was starting to fill up rather rapidly.
After a very quick tent building episode (to try and avoid the rain from the ever darkening clouds!) I took a walk over to the event village to see what was happening. A mix of trade stands, registration, food bar and general boggyness under foot. The remainder of Saturday was fairly relaxed (reading, listening to music, drinking tea) and I met up with Glen and Dasnut from Bad Brains.
That evening we watched the ELBNO race get under way just before 8 and I think I hit the sleeping bag and roll mat combo at around 10.Sunday 13th April
It rained heavily through the night that could mean only one thing; it was going to be wet and muddy today!!
The marathon was due to start at 10.30 so I made my way to the start area just after 10. Myself and the other Bad Brainer’s lined up together for the start, we positioned ourselves fairly close to the front which incidently was to be the only point of the ride where I would be near to the front!
We were off, a mass of mtb’ers pedalling away through the town of Builth Wells and less than a minute in, the pace car was gone which I am sure was closely followed by a number of Elite riders. Glen started showing good pace early on and I decided to let him go on ahead and suss out the route! ;) I made good pace up the first hill which was on tarmac, finding it hard to ease off if other bikes were passing. “pace myself” I kept saying “save the legs”.The first feed station was around 25km into the ride, just before this little tent of energy there was a wooded section which on map looked good but in reality and in thick ankle deep mud was in fact a bloody nightmare! A combination of mud, slippy tree routes and riders bunching up made for a very tricky section.
Shortly after the first feed station, where I ate a banana at light speed and filled up my Camelbak reservoir, we were back into another uphill tarmac section followed quickly by up hill off road. There certainly seemed to be more up hills on this ride than downhills! Somewhere around this point a fellow biker asked me how to get rid of cramp which he was suffering in both legs, I told him about the old Salt n Vinegar trick which I had learnt from numerous people and offered him the only bag I was carrying. Not long after consuming these on the move, and I had pulled away a bit now, I heard a great ‘yelp’ from behind and turned to see the Salt n Vinegar man going down like a sack of ….!! Maybe the crisps idea was not the best advice after all?! He wasn’t the last I saw suffering the effects of cramp that day.We were fast (or probably slowly) approaching the 40km mark at which we knew there was a hell of a hill to climb. No sooner had we remembered this, we found ourselves dropping into granny ring yet again for another long drag. I think this ride is the only ride I have done where most of it has been in my granny ring!! We made it to the top where a photographer was waiting to take a pic of the pain in our faces, I’m sure he must have succeeded with me.
After an awesome downhill the choice to take the route for the 50km race was presented to us. Dasnut, who I had been riding with for a while decided this was to be his chosen path back to Builth. I quickly convinced myself that I would carry on and conquer the 65km, especially now I had come this far. Shortly after saying our goodbye’s I started to wonder if I had made the right choice especially now that the heavens decided to open. Huddled amongst a crowd of bikers under a gazebo in the middle of nowhere I found myself at feed station number 2. This time, I could hold back from stuffing my face with biscuits and crisps and the occasional banana. I set off in the rain, some more tarmac and then again off road into what turned out to be, for me, the hardest climb of the ride. A climb so long and with so many false horizons, this turned into a challenge of mind over matter as well as fitness. I eventually got to the top of what I thought was the last hill of the ride.
On the decent, which was grin-tastic again, I met up with a welsh bloke who just happened to be similar pace to me. So, not through discussion, we ended up riding the remainder of the ride together. The hill which I thought was the last, was indeed not. We were met by a marshal who had a smug look about him and proceeded to inform us that we could carry on back on the road which would be 6 miles back to Builth Wells or continue with the marked course up another huge hill for a 7 mile trip back to the finish. At this point my heart sank, thinking I had used up all my energy and that I would most certainly die if I went up this last hill. But…my new welsh friend somehow gave me the motivation and encouragement to do it and go for the 7 mile with huge hill option…so that we did. And, amazingly, I got my second (or maybe this was my third!?) wind from somewhere and started feeling good (ish!) again. The climb was hard, a fair amount of walking but the constant chatting made it all the better.
The final off road downhill was crazy, basically a very steep mud chute, that I rode completely out of control. Concentration at this point was minimal. A short tarmac and path section threw me into the winding finishing slalom through the farm yard and to the inflatable finish line. A finishers T-shirt was shoved into my hand and I made my way wearily back to my tent. 6hrs 25minutes of riding got me round this marathon, I was pleased just to get round, never mind what time I achieved.
There is something quite addictive about this kind of riding, although when doing it I’m sure I asked myself numerous times ‘why’ and probably told myself not to do this ever again, but worryingly I am looking forward to the next one….
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