Nappy Yew Hear

Or something like that.
Happy New Year you nice people who take the time to read this, here's my last post before the world ends!


I'd like to take this wonderful opportunity to thank everybody who has helped me in any shape or form this year. You know who you are, and I'd list ya's, but that'd only lead to me forgetting somebody and falling out.
The problem is.. I'm here, and you're there. So I guess saying thanks is kind of impossible? There are a couple of ways we can do this. If you'd like to close your eyes, place your left palm towards your right, and your right palm towards your left, slowly bring them together, and when they connect, give a firm handshake, and repeat these words, 'Thank you so much!' in a tremendously sincere and thoughtful manner (and then take a step back, smile and blush). The alternative is for you to go eat that chocolate bar in your cupboard that you have just began to crave now that you think about it. Think of it as a gift from me to you. ;)

It's been a pretty good year. Well, in some respects it's been good, in others not so much... Aw screw that I'll save you from reading my 2011 biography! Injuries have been the major downsides, but obviously we be mclovin' the positive thinking so it was nice to keep the injuries in the background for the most part of the season and pull off some decent results.
The UK School Games was a pretty amazing experience. Good to ride some new tracks and meet some new people, definitely a lot of super talented lads on the mainland that I'll hopefully get to race again a few times next year. Obviously a bit of a disaster that my knees were both in bits and I was living to throw up on painkillers all weekend. Then I went and got knocked off the bike the first day, so my results were pretty far off where they should have been, but I guess that was out of my control!
Otherwise, National Champs XC track was amazing, thanks to everyone involved in making that, aswell as XMTB's Lady Dixon and Castlewellan courses, both so good to race on and definitely some of the hightlights of the year winning on them. Many good days at the start of the year were also had with the MTBRider crew. Once I can afford to get the Supreme fixed up I'll be back out for some big bike fun! Epic Blast/Red Bull Foxhunt, as always, was a fantastic race. Again, by that stage my knees had given up, but the craic was still had and it was pretty special to be racing down a mountain beside an Olympian, a World Champion, and a World Cup winner, but mainly because I was up against my real heroes, Gareth McKee and Greg Callaghan. Oh and not to mention shredding it down the hill with Dan Sheridan and getting to see Tarbo in a wifebeater. Racing at the Scottish XC round over in Perth was pretty cool too, crazy track with some super steep descents and then mad climbs. T'was just unfortunate after dropping my chain with about 5mins to go that I couldn't get back on the pace and win it, 2nd was nice all things considered.


If you're really bored you can try and spot my bake in that video still there up above ^

Overall I've had an Irish Cyclocross Champion title, Irish XC Champion title, Ulster XC NPS Overall title(winning all 7 races), Ulster Criterium Champion, Rode on Ulster Track Squad to win Interpros, Hillclimb win at UKSG, only lost 1 Irish NPS race on the Canyon but unfortunately hadn't entered enough to win the series, 4th place in a DH race, and a couple of 3rds in club time trials and road races. So after being out with my dodgy knee for 3 months at the start of the year, and being my first year racing, I'd say that's a pretty successful year.


Next year's goals haven't really been planned yet. Obviously I'd like to do the same as last year but with a few more wins and enter a few more races, with the British XC Champs and European XC Champs in mind, but until I can get rid of the injuries I'm carrying at the minute I can't really set anything in stone as I don't know how long getting back to fitness is going to take. Will miss the Irish Cyclocross Championships this year, pretty gutted about that, but I'm doing all I can to ensure that'll be the only big title race I'll miss. Hopefully there shall be some New Year's Revolutions made!

Thanks again to everyone who's helped me in any way this year, even if that's just by reading this!
Here's to an awesome 2012! UTNew Year!

Green Oil Kit Has Arrived

It may have taken a while to get this length, but to be fair to Mr Green Oil he's been on BBC News with this stuff lately so I guess he had more important things on his mind than getting my kit in the post!

Today the Parcelfarce van rolled up the drive and a fairly shabby looking box landed in through the door. Looked a bit like they couldn't find a football for their tea-break and booted this around instead. Cheers boys.
Once I had completed the completely pointless exercise of trying to fit something that looks even remotely like your own signature into the handheld computer thing the postymen have, I got my hands on the box. I ended up sending the postman away with a scribble that not even a dyslexic one year old fish would be proud of, although I'd answered the door with only one holey(not holy..) sock on as I was in the middle of putting me socks on when the doorbell rang, so I'd imagine with the overall appearance I was going for, he wasn't terribly surprised with my attempt at a signature. Art, I shall call it...


Got the box opened and this was what was inside. Looks pretty sick it's gotta be said.



Huge thanks to Green Oil for supporting me this year, looking forward to working with them.
Take a look at their website - http://www.green-oil.net/

Monty.

Here Goes..

Follow @DaveMont

It's been too long. I'm completely at fault, I know, and for that I apologise *insert excuse*.
I've found myself heading onto this Blog somedays when slightly bored*, to find no changes. Then it sort of strikes me that it couldn't be updated, because it's me that updates it.. Adur. So here I am, here's an update, ka-boom. Please feel free to pop round and personally give me a kick up the ass if my next update takes this long.

*but not properly bored because only boring people get bored..

I have many stories for you to be honest, so many that I'd need a proper book to fit them all in, I guess this is the problem with no posts within the last month! I'm sorry, ok! Here are some photos and short stories anyway -

This is a photo of Rob Deegan upon a boat. Good times. This was down at the Avon Ri Hotel down in Blessington at an U23/Junior development camp. Had a fairly good time at this, little run on the Saturday, followed by circuits, nutrition talk, ride over to hotel, dinner, training talk. Then came general tippin' the place with Matt Adair and Rob Deegan, general running about the grounds of the hotel place in pitch darkness, active recovery, yeh? Found a zipline, lake with a pier, yachts, canoes, a bar, a playpark etcc. Playpark was a fabulous idea until we bailed down the slides and ended up with soaking bottoms for the rest of the night. Sunday started with porridge for breakfast, this did nothing but reinforce my strong dislike of porridge and leave me feeling pretty dodgy for the rest of the morning, but thankfully the rest of the day was pretty easy going so I'd nothing to worry about... I wish. The next part of the day consisted of a 3hr road spin. Bare in mind at this stage I have not begun any training whatsoever as I'm trying to get these injuries out of the way first.'Fair enough', I thought, a 3hr zone 2 ride should just about leave me standing afterwards. About 20mins into the ride, we're going about 25mph and I realise this is going to be no easy spin. It only got worse, worse and worse after this. So I tried having a little fun. We were doing hill intervals on a hill with those big old 10ft long speedbumps, so coming back down the hill I was grabbing as much air as possible. Banter was being had, until about the 3rd time I came down the hill, you know how it is, you can't resist descending a little faster every time, trying to get as much air as possible.. fabulous idea this was, right up until I was cruising through the air, looking down and seeing the backside of the speedramp passing by under me. Then the nose starting dipping and I really started getting scared. Ended up overjumping one of the babies by a good couple of feet. Flat landing the road bike after being in the air for over 10ft, not good by any stretch of the imagination. Must practise road bike scrubbing. Or not trying to jump in the first place... there's an idea! But yes, on with the torture that was the 3hr spin. We were pedalling at 24mph into a headwind on an incline at one stage? Well, I say 'we', by this I mean everybody else, as I just had to sandbag for the last hour. Someday I shall post on the concept of sandbagging, as it really isn't as easy going as it appears! It was a strange experience for the last hour of the ride. My legs should have been absolutely screaming their little heart out at me, but it was raining heavily, about 1 degree centigrade(which is about -50 when riding at 20mph into a headwind) and pretty windy. So rather than being able to feel my legs burning, I couldn't feel them at all, and please believe me, that feeling was no more desirable. Overall a pretty terrible ride, but it was worth it to hear the training talks and general craic that was had in the hotel. Oh, and to see this class statue on the right. Please leave a comment with your ideas of what on earth the kid is doing..

As you can see, this is not a good situation to be in. For any of you non-bikers out there, the deelybopper sticking out from the handlebars is in fact my gear cable: it should not be there. Thankfully I've always wanted to own a singlespeed bike, so I wasn't really that annoyed, I just would've rather have had the choice of deciding to buy a singlespeed bike, than being landed with a snapped gear cable 10miles from home!! Luckily, I was about 3miles from a local hardware store at this stage so with the mech stuck in the heaviest gear and some major hills to get over, I gave her stacks. Got to the hardware store and borrowed a screwdriver and rammed the limiter screw on the mech in until the bike was fixed in 3rd gear. Then continued to do about 40miles in 3rd gear.
Suddenly I seem to have gone off the idea of a singlespeed..

Crusing along the road down to Scarva, thought I'd head out Portadown direction on the Towpath. Turns out the towpath was a river.. Even better!! Made a good 3 attempts at cycling through this, but it was just getting ridiculous, it just kept getting
deeper and deeper. Thankfully there was a bit of wind on my back, so when it got so deep that I couldn't pedal without getting a footful of water, I was able to just keep the pedals level and the wind blew me along. But then the water started creeping up to the shoes even when the pedals were level, mostly due to the waves that were forming because of the wind! So with the bike's best interests in mind, I wasn't fond on getting the bottom bracket submerged, we turned back. Turning was much easier said than done, the towpath is only about 6ft wide at the best of times, and there's proper river on either side, but when path is covered by river, you can't see where the edges of the path are, and trying to manoeuvre a road bike through 180 degrees without being able to turn the cranks because of the water, while being blown to bits by the wind, is really quite an experience. I see a new sport evolving? haha. Get the speedos out.


In this photo(apologies for the quality, or lack of it) you'll spot a Jaffa Cake in the most unusual of places. How it managed to end up there, I know not. The other day I was just about to start a turbo session, but was a little peckish. Headed up to the kitchen and there was a glorious box of Jaffa Cakes in the top drawer. Mmmm. I took two, ate one, and set the other one ontop of the headset while I put my shoes on. Absolutely psyched for Jaffa Cake no.2 after eating the first one, looking forward to jumping on the bike and getting it and getting stuck into a good turbo session.. Head over to the bike, could Jaffa Cake no.2 be seen? Defffinitely not. Spent the next 10mins looking for the little piece of Jaffa joy, looking in every corner of the room, under every box and various other junk scattered around the room, telling myself 'it couldn't have rolled this far', but not being one to give up, searching on anyway. Finally, I think, 'screw it, I'll make do with no Jaffa Cake'. Hop onto the bike, look down, and the very bugger itself is sitting pretty balancing between the gear cable and the frame. Can you believe that? Losing Jaffa Cakes #firstworldproblems..

Getting into the Christmas spirit with pro Vitus rider Gareth Mckee, good times. In poundland waiting for mother one day and spotted a load of Christmassy hats, normally I wouldn't be one to spend a penny, but for the sake of putting a few smiles on peoples faces out round the roads with a Santa hat on my helmet, I got myself the biggest looking hat I could find. A bit of insulating tape, some duck tape and a bit of Blue Peter magic and I had myself a new helmet..

I got a laptop for Christmas, cheers Mother and Father. Luckily for you brilliant readers, this, in theory means more updates(Ohhh goody, I know). Mum got a camera that takes HD Video too, so sooner or later I'll get a video up, once my legs begin to work again. Regarding the lack of legs situation, it was getting better, with 45 odd hours of rehab work ontop of a similar amount of swimming and zone 1 cycling I was really giving my legs no excuses to get back into working order. Unfortunately all my muscles are still stupendously tight, and my knees are still fairly banjaxed. But all is better, if only slightly, than October, progress is progress, and we like progress :)

This photo has nothing to do with bicycles, other than you've found it here, on a bicycle Blog. I was just waiting for me Ma the other day, and saw this guy bating it down the main street in this West Coast Customs special. Absolute boss beyond measure. Ridin' solo. Pretty sure that's not legal, but who's gonna catch him when he's upon a powerhouse of a steed like that!

For now, that's all. Phew, says you. If you come back tomorrow there'll be something new though, I promise. Monty, out.

1st Major Road Cycle Of The Winter

As I sit here, I'm treating myself to some turkey and a chocolate chip Snack-A-Jack. Or maybe 2. Or 3..
But I feel I'm entitled to a couple after remaining alive from today's escapades

Today I went out for a cycle. "But you do that everyday?" you will say. Well I know, but this was my first major road cycle of Winter, so it's vaguely more exciting? Not really.

Basically I haven't been out on a bike in so long that my brain was operating on a different frequency than my legs. I left the house with the aim of heading down to the towpath at Scarva, and then cruising up and down that, and then heading back home. Sounds simple?
I have been to Scarva many a time before, I know this end of the country pretty well. I got to Banbridge, about 7-8miles down the road, happy enough. Felt like heading down the carriageway and over the flyover for a bit of a change. Always good riding down a hard shoulder that's rougher than most mountain-bike trails on your road bike, with lorries and buses thundering past you.
Got into Banbridge, little kid hangs out of his car window and gives me a thumbs up, sweet. Hi there distraction no.1. Got to the lights, turned right and headed out the Lurgan Road. Saw two guys up ahead on bikes so tried to catch them. Distraction no. 2. It was only about a mile and a half later when I was almost at the end of the Lurgan Road that I realised that I quite clearly wasn't on the road to Scarva. Up until this point I had been blissfully spinning along in a dreamy state of abyss, then suddenly I realise I'm a mile or two the wrong direction. Palm to the face. Thankfully I hadn't yet made contact with the two lads up front as it would've been a little awkward trying to explain my mental disability to them when I suddenly realised I had to turn round.

So, after slowing down, almost getting cleaned by a bus, and failing at a trackstand, turn round I did. But to add to the general chaos, today must be one of the Transfer Test exam things for kids getting from primary school into secondary school. So just as I was passing the huge school on the Lurgan Road, all the kids were coming out, and there were literally hundreds of cars everywhere. Now this wouldn't have been too bad if I only had to navigate it once, but when I'd got through it all and was beginning celebrating still being alive, and then realised I had to turn back and go through it? I experienced a feeling similar to that of being unexpectedly slapped in the face with a wet fish.
So round 2, all within the space of about 0.5km I got from the footpath on the left hand side of the road, to the middle of the lane of oncoming traffic, into my lane, onto the other footpath, and everywhere in between. Then on the brakes as cars pulled out from every hole in the hedge towards me, on the pedals again, on the brakes as cars stopped in the middle of the road to let other cars out, on the pedals again, then some cars were just randomly stopping altogether so back on the brakes, and then traffic lights that I'd forgotten about until I was through the red light and some kind chap decided to remind me with his horn. Y I so good at this bicycling stuff?..

Then just to top it all off, I hadn't been able to find a clean bottle when I was sorting out bottles thismorning, so had just grabbed a standard bottle of Riverrock or whatever it was and luckily enough it sort of fitted into the cage, or at least I thought it did. It was only when a set of lights turned green and I sprinted off the line, around a corner, bike being thrown from side to side, that I felt something hit off my leg, then my other leg, then my foot. Looked down to see my water bottle in mid-air, laid a brick. Thought I was then going to ride over it and fall off and about 20 cars drive over me and that really wouldn't be so good for the already screwed knees!
So 'oh crap oh crap ohhh crap, don't fall water bottle' was running through my head, and then somehow, it made it's way back into the cage!? Slapped around between my legs and then just popped back into it's cage(the bottle.. you dirty buggers). Maybe I've just found a new skill of communicating with water bottles? Stuff the cycling..

So I made it through level 2 of crazy taxi and was back in the centre of Banbridge. There's a pretty sizey hill up the main street of banbridge, and there was a car infront of me as I was cycling up it. Obviously natural instinct had me sprinting my little life out to catch Lancey Armstrong/the car up ahead. This was when I realised that I was no use at telling water bottles as it finally decided this time to well and truly fall out. Ttyl water bottle xox. I spun on out the road for a good 2 or 3 miles, up the hill on the Old Newry Road, heading out towards the Outlet. The Outlet? But you're meant to be going to Scarva?! Exactly. 3/4s of the way out the road it strikes me that yet again, I'm well on my way down the wrong road. Gooood onnneee Dave.


Finally get onto the mysterious Scarva road and am pretty happy. It's like stumbling across Narnia, minus the snow, talking animals, lamposts, witches and Turkish Delight. So really I guess it isn't much like Narnia, but when you're as spaced out as I seemed to be it did seem sort of similar. Get about 2 miles out the Scarva road and the right knee starts hurting, so once again I find myself having to turn round. Some sort of record for the most roads cycled without ever reaching the end of any of the roads? Send it to me in the post, send me anything in the post. I like letters, thanks.

Monty, out.

First Day Of Talent Team 2020

Had sort of been wondering whether to stick up a post about this or not as I haven't got much to say, but a short post'l probably do no harm!

What is the Talent Team 2020?

"Talent Team 2020 was recently launched with the aim of nurturing the young talented cyclists that we have in Ireland, and building a structure that will see the development of cyclists through to the 2020 Olympics. 16 of the best U16 riders in the country have been selected originally."

It kicked off on Saturday 29th October with a lovely drive down to Scott MacDonald's Winning Solutions in Dublin -

Session began with a rough introduction to all of the coaches and different important people there and then headed down to the CI van (you'll see she's no D-turbo) for some photos.



Then the sun came out and being Irish we had no idea what to do as we don't experience the rays too often: so everybody closed their eyes and looked generally retarded. Classic. Click on it there and you can see it bigger, fasten your seatbelts...



Then individual photos came, and things went from bad to worse, I'll save you the torture of having to look at a close up photo of me with a couple of hours sleep the night before.

After photos we jogged down to the local park for a bit of run. Probably shouldn't have done this due to my knee but thought I'd give it a go and see what happened. Wasn't too bad, sandbagged at the back for the duration of it to ensure I didn't push too hard. Hopefully can get this knee, or what's left of it, sorted for the season and not be sandbagging for the year! But, we look on injuries as a positive. Time to practise not looking like I've just fallen out the back of the yellow bus in photos.

Jogged back up and then Sam Bennett, pro Sean Kelly An Post rider, U23 Road Race Champion as far as I'm aware, got us stuck into some quality stretches to be doing.



After that it was time to get a bit of lunch down and chat about a bit with the lads. Then came a bike positioning talk from Paddy Doran and the distribution of a file with some goalsetting sheets and that sort of kit in it.


Overall a pretty good day, good to see the rest of the team and meet the various coaches we'll be working with, and get a bit of a chat with Sam Bennett, learnt a couple of new things I can put into practice.

That's it for now. Short one with plenty of photos. Over and out.

The Arrival Of Some Rynopower!

Yo! How's it going?

What is Rynopower?
I had a big quote from the website here (www.rynopower.com), but then decided you can click the link and go to the website if you like, not much point in me just copying it over here! Basically it's a supplement company over in the US of A, started up by Ryan Hughes, a pretty classy MX'er who used to be on top of it, and has learnt a lot from racing at such a high level for a long time. Rather than sit on his ass and become a commentator or something (Rob Warner ;) ), he's gone out and started up Rynopower, with the aim of providing us classy athletes with the right fuel for the fire! Aaron Gwin, Eli Tomac, Ken Block, Josh Grant, Jimmy Decotis, Robbie Madison, are all on it. What do they have in common? Champions. If you've never heard of them, get yourself a cup of Rynopower protein and decent internet connection prepare to be amazed by some of their videos on youtube!

As hard as I try, one of the most consistent things with my recovery is a lack of it! I can train, train and train again, but when it comes to rest? I'm a racer, I'm not meant to rest! Unfortunately this doesn't work. With overtraining/overexceeding comes injuries, sickness and de motivation, getting the balance of training and rest right is your maker or breaker!
So, can't get enough time to recover? Not able to eat 24/7 as you should when you're training? What’s the solution?
Going to bed at 8pm every night, removing all external stresses from your life, existing with your legs above your heart to keep the blood flowing, 24/7 eating, ice baths and not doing risky stuff to ensure you don't get injured? Yes, but realistically, you're not gonna go out and do any of that are you?
An easier alternative is to get some good supplementation going, and this is where Rynopower comes in. If you're looking to knock your nutrition on the head to help your recovery as much as possible, look no further!

Got some of the goods in the post this week, Rynopower's very bestest gold-package with an extra tub of protein and a couple of t-shirts/stickers/shaker bottle. Good stuff. Unfortunately I got dicked upon by postage from US to here that I wasn't aware of. Package was 14lbs, so ended up being $50 dollars to reach me over here in Northern Ireland! Not such good stuff! Not happy with that at all, but will hopefully get something sorted!

With regards to the actual products, can't really say too much yet, will give a proper review within the month, but so far I'm very impressed! Rynopower offers a wide range of task specific products: protein; carbs; recovery; electrolytes; endurance; motivation, in powder and tablet form which is a nice variety. Also, unlike a lot of the big industry sports nutrition companies, Rynopower has nothing to hide: all nutritional information and ingredients are available on the internet and most of them come on the packaging anyway, go onto the website and take a look for yourself!



So far I've used the 'French Vanilla Protein' and 'Recovery' capsules a lot. Protein has a bit of an interesting taste to begin with, didn't really know what to expect with 'French Protein', coz I know they eat worms and snails and stuff over there! A couple of sips and it's all good though, nice stuff, not too sweet! Looking forward to breaking into the swiss chocolate too! Nice concentration of it with 250mls of water, very drinkable compared to some other products from different companies I've tried. Also the powder dissolves evenly throughout the water! Easy to take this for granted but I've tasted too many shakes that the powder just piles up at the bottom of them even after the wildest shake you can manage!
On another note, the shaker is a super job too! If you don't have much money on ya but want to experience some of Rynopower's top quality kit try out the shaker for starters! Perfect for all occasions: gym, aerobic stuff, swimming, school, work, romantic dinners, hamsters, throwing over people, drinking, losing, dropping, forgetting to close etc. Although the lid on it is actually really good! Good firm click on it when you close, it'l bring back those beautiful memories of clipping into your pedals even when you're lying on the sofa injured like myself! ;) What's not to like about it?
Recovery tabs go down a treat, just throw a couple down the pipe before bed-time with a couple of hundred ml's water and you're sorted! Will try and do some tests over the next months and see if they're any use now.
(UPDATE: Just tried the chocolate flavoured protein thismorning: class. I don't even like chocolate flavoured drinks but this is spot on, goes down effortlessly. If you're going for some protein, which you'd be crazy not to, get the chocolate flavour ordered!)

I know to some, the products may seem expensive, but just bare in mind how much you spend on getting grams off the weight of your bike? You're getting something here not losing something! Grams of this kit is much better value for money for yourself, concentrate on upgrading yourself not your bike and you'll see much bigger improvements believe it or not! This stuff is legit!

This Saturday is my first day training with the 2020 Olympic Talent Team so will neck a couple of different things and get back to you on how they are, maybe get a photo of the broken gym equipment after I've ripped it apart! haha. Maybe even get to try the race-situation portaloo test if I'm lucky, will see how it goes down, literally!



That's all for now! Will keep you updated, for now, www.rynopower.com

Screw the 'only write about interesting things' idea, here's a true ramble if a ramble ever was rambled

Ok, so it's been a month or two since I last updated the blog. This is partly due to my internet taking a huff, and partly down to me doing nothing interesting in the last month or two, not gonna lie. I know I said that I'd only write things when I did something interesting, and not try and make glaringly uninteresting stuff interesting, but screw that, I've nothing better to do right at this point, and I guess you're already a couple of lines into this post, so you must be sort of interested in this bull excrement?

In my months of uninterestingness, the cyclocross sensation Jeremy Powers, has rekindled my flame for finding the ultimate beats: those mad remixes that you hear one time and your water breaks, but then never hear them again, and like a forgotten sandwich in your schoolbag, they become a distant memory until one day, while looking for something else, they knock you out. I've found a couple of those tunes, and they say to share is to care, so obviously imma show you all how much I care about you and share this toonage with you guysss: these will make your balls drop.
(These are all ravey beat type numbers, I do have a fairly extension of acoustic and metally songs if you're interested though? Leave a comment or g'is a shout through some sort of internet communication medium)(If they're pulled down by the powers that be before you get to see them, your bad, visit my blog more often and don't miss stuff)

Avicii - Levels (Flo-rida Remix)


Dune - Heiress Of Valentina (Alesso Remix)


Example - Kickstarts (Afrojack Remix) (Takes a while to start, skip her to 1:15 and you're sorted)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPJHdbbkPLg

Labrith ft. Tinie Tempah - Earthquake


Nadia Ali, Starkillers & Alex Kenji - Pressure (Alesso Remix)


Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets (Star Slinger Remix)


Tara McDonald vs Sidney Samson - Dynamite (Nicky Romero Remix)


This one isn't a 'tune' as such, but they take a Maybach, stick the grille where the boot should be and the boot where the grille should be, give it wider wheelarches and stick a dragon inside the exhausts, so it suffices for a listen/watch in my humble opinion?
Kanye West ft. Jay-Z - Otis


In other news, I remembered about this blog today http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ . And what a blog it is.

Heading down to Dublin tomorrow with Ciara MacManus and Robby Deegdawg for some strength and conditioning day organised by Cycling Ireland, looking forward to that, has been much to long since I've chatted to the lads and had a solid training sesh with them!

Currently, bike-wise I'm not really upto much. Left knee is a little on the sore side so I've just been stretching the bit out and doing super gentle miles(not Myles..) most days on the mountain-bike to ensure it doesn't get any worse! 7.5mph average yehhh buddy. Hopefully the old patella shall be feeling fly like a g6 come November time; the Rynopower downed; chain Green-oiled up; and training will begin! BOOM. Hitting the gym once a week at the minute with Elite NPS no.1 hero Gareth Mckee, and had the pleasure of seeing Sir Simon Curry, James Curry, Matty Teggart, Gareth Hillen and Josh Daly all down pumping the 'ron the other night. Basically Banbridge Cycling Club took over the JIM. Ever done 100s?! The whole gym could probably hear me about to take a stroke, terrible craic. But then again it's so enjoyable? There must most certainly a couple of wires touching in my cranium.

Got onto the Irish Youth Talent Team 2020 - http://cyclingulster.com/?thenewsid=5122&newstable=news - so if all goes to plan you can see me at the Olympics in 2020! Stick it in your phone as a reminder. Be cool to look back and see the good old days right here, the times of yore and all that. Definitely buzzin' to get some real training done, can see 2012 being a very good year!

That's all for now. Got some www.rynopower.com in the post there today, but, delivery companies, do they not realise that most of us have jobs/school at mid-day? Don't think I've ever gotten a package on time. Instead of them coming at a reasonable time or leaving the package somewhere handy, I'm gonna have to ring ma boys DHL Express and inform them of my whereabouts over the next couple of days so I can sort a time to get my RYNOPOWER!! Going to tip the gym like, can't wait.

But for now I'm away to pack my bags for tomorrow coz' I'm an organised kid like that. Over and OUT. Thanks for reading!

"I think Joey's ok"

Got a link to this on Faceyb today, couldn't have you's missing out on it! You could honestly watch this 50 times and still laugh every time. Oh Joey you've made my day. Enjoy!

UK School Games Day 1

You know the way you need the right kind of music to do certain things, well I began writing this about 2 hours ago, and then decided it would be good to stick some tooones on. That resulted on sticking Spotify on, realising that most of the songs I want to listen to 'have already been played 5 times' so can't play them again. Ever. Ah maybe someday I'll be able to afford a Premium account. Finally I think I've found something that'll do for now, got Nero's new album - Welcome Reality, so here goes naathin!

Sainsbury's UK School Games was probably the biggest event of the season for me.. so obviously with my luck everything began to go wrong just before-hand!

Left knee is still pretty goosed from January this year. Trying to get a physio who knows what's going on is like finding a haystack in a coal mine, only about 20 times as expensive. If anybody's reading this and rates themselves as a physio or sells legs, gimme an email at davidmmonteeATaolDOTcom (if you're selling viagra or offering me a saudi arabian bank account please don't). Right knee was grand, was getting through the season pretty decently with a leg and a half, but then I fell off in Dromore park of all places, a month and a bit ago, so it's now screwed too. Mad pain in behind the kneecap. I'm meant to be going to Plymouth for the final British NPS next Friday, so if you could get those legs to me ASAP that'd be great. Cheers.

Got the overnight boat on Wednesday evening, arriving in Sheffield in the party bus (Shelbourne Motors kindly donated a van to our cause) at about 9am Thursday morning. Just in time for a full fry! Knocked that back, then back to the van and down to Sheffield University, or the Athlete Village. Stood about there for roughly a lifetime, and then finally got some Lipsyl(the first freebee we got like, was wondering if we were at the right place at all..) and our passes and then headed to the rooms. Ohh baby. I'd love to tell you the rooms were amazing, lovely place etc etc. But I think I was too tired to really take in the surroundings by the time we got to our rooms on the FIFTH floor!! Looking back I really should have counted the stairs to make this seem legit. But there were 2 flights for each floor and there must have been a good 10 steps on each flight. First competition of the weekend was getting up them with food, clothes and water!

So yeh, coming into the UKSG with a cold and no knees. Brilliant. Had to lower my expectations of getting at least the 1 win and top 5ing everything else to settling for top 15 in everything, but mostly just making it through every race alive. This worked for all of about 10 minutes, before I was knocked off on the only fireroad part of the course, and subsequently ripped my whole left side to pieces. But more about that later. Back to the 2nd morning..

Left the Village and got on the bus to take us down to Wharncliffe and Wheata Woods. Feeling a bit sick, just the old dose of the nerves I thought. Well, nerves and the fact that I'd had some scrambled eggs and tomatoes thismorning, then some cereal, then some fruit, then a load of water, then some lockets to get my throat working again, then tried to take some painkillers. Lockets and scrambled eggs on their own I'm sure don't mix so good in retrospect, and with everything else packed in there too it didn't look promising. Knowing it wasn't gonna be a good start to the day, I just tried to get on with it, normally feel awful before a race anyway. But then I tried taking the painkillers without any water (for whatever reason like..). This resulted in a nice big gag as the first one didn't go down quite right. Sprinted to the other side of the field for a bit of privacy and I'll save you the detail on the rest. Chundering. Not good.

Sitting top 3 or top 5 in the first event, feeling confident, boom, 13th. Bad just got worse. On the positive at least I could wrap some bandages around it and people would know I'm injured and cut me some slack. Muscular pains are so selfish in that way, nobody else can see them. Haha. Got it sprayed with something and a couple of plasters over it and got back down to the pits to recover for the next heat. Don't even know how I did in it to be honest! Not so good anyway. Managed to end up in the C finals in which I took third. Dirt Crits were basically track racing on mountain-bikes on singletrack. We started at the back of the grid in almost every heat, and getting past 15 other boys on a track wide enough for 1 bike wasn't quite impossible, but pretty darn close. Lesson 1 of the weekend learnt: Starts are everything.

Next up that day was the Team Relay event. By now my good old pisspot had been noticed getting sideways by a couple of guys, mainly the commentator, so the weekend was looking like it wasn't gonna be terribly successful, but tremendously fun styling it up for the crowd. Think we were sitting 2nd last in the Team Relay by the time it came to me as last man, top teams must have been finishing very shortly after I left. Took off in the standard power-wheelie and drifted her round the first corner, commentator going wild. Hell yeh, buzzing. Luckily a lap was sub-10mins so I could just smash it out and not really worry about tiring. Gave it my best, sent the jumps for all they were worth and got my lines sorted for the rest of the races in the weekend.

Passed 2 or 3 people on my way round so we must have ended up at the top end of the bottom 5. Lol. After racing we weren't allowed to take our own transport back, we had to get the bus with all of the other teams. Fair enough for the teams that had 10 or whatever amount in them, but it was a bit of a nightmare for the 4 of us having to pack up super quick, take all the bags we wanted with us and then run up to the bus when the van was sitting about 2 metres outside the tent! On the way out to the Woods it was the same. Packed into the bus like sardines isn't at all desirable when you're feeling like Britney Spears after a night out (luckily I still had my hair though).Day 1 finished up with dinner back at the University, and bed. Only I couldn't get to sleep because I was stuck to the bed with my cuts. By 1.30am, knowing I had to be up in the morning by 5.45am, I was beginning to get slightly worried. Only thing I could think of was wrapping myself in toilet roll, so that's what I did. Seemed to do the trick, managed to get to sleep.

Unfortunately I overslept a little. Hadn't set the alarm as lads said they'd shout and knock for me. Clearly I was sleeping deep when they knocked and shouted, so I woke up and it was 6.15am and everybody was going down to breakfast. Que leaping out of bed shatting myself, realising I've toilet paper stuck to almost every bit of my body and it's on with insulating tape. Classic. Was like trying to pull a snake off myself, wrestled with it for a good 5mins before finally getting it off. Needless to say the floor was white, luckily there was no room service or they'd be wondering where on earth Santa's Grotto had come from.Day 2 shall be in the next post.

XC NPS 5 - Lady Dixon

I wrote this a good while back, for Richie Byrne's 'test pilot' thing, but as I've currently nothing better to do I thought I may as well stick it up here as well to give you's something to look at. It's a bit shorter than the rest you'll be glad! -

Race prep started the day before, with a ‘leisurely spin’ round the track with one of Dromara’s top pro XC racers and nice guys: Phil O’neill. I say ‘leisurely spin’ as after taking a mad brainwave to go for an hours run the day before, my legs were a bit dead and screaming out for some elevation and sleep but yet I found myself sideways in the wet around the track at the top end of my wee heart’s capacity! At this stage the track wasn’t marked out so a bit of local knowledge was invaluable (realised this as I tried to do a couple of laps on my own after Phil left and ended up lost for 40mins) cheers Phil.

Getting my laps in the day before meant I didn’t have to get all dirty on Sunday morning which was a fab job. Just chilled with super pros Rob Deegan and Aaron McCann for an hour, before my inner wee girl came out and I sat in the heat of the car for half an hour to stay out of the savage wind. Scoffed some Haribo, paid a few visits to the porta-loos and worked a bit of charm for some free red-bull and before I knew it everybody else was at the line (never quite got round to warming up, bit windy..)!

Race started as usual with Holeshot King Dan Runciman gunning it from the start while I rolled along attempting the seemingly impossible task of clipping my foot into my new fancy pedals. By the time most people had got to the first corner I had just about got the feet in and realised how high a gear I’d left the bike in. Sent her on anyway trying to spin up through the gears and after a bit of dodgy passing round the first few corners was sitting tight on Rob’s rear end. Before long we got out onto the grass and Rob so kindly let me past so he could get a bit of shelter, while Aaron brought up the rear. Unfortunately for Rob as we came off the grass into the singletrack his chain slipped off the front. I waited for as long as my trackstanding skills would let me but that wasn’t very long so I headed on at a steady enough pace hoping he’d catch up and we could have a race.

In the end my steady pace ended up being a bit harder than I thought and he didn’t catch up, so I pushed on so that he wouldn’t be able to see me on the open grassy bits as I knew if he’d something to lock his sights onto he’d soon be up with me again.

2nd lap was a bit wild as all the S4s had skidded their way through what were sort of grippy corners in the first lap. This resulted in me lamping her into them and having 2 fairly huge crashes, but luckily the ground was nice soft stuff and I missed the trees.. just slid about 10m down the track each time and had to sprint back for my bike!
Other than that there wasn’t really much excitement in the rest of it. The jumpy thing as you entered the singletrack bit at the very end almost killed me in every one of me laps, but thankfully my foxy forks are lethal and I was in good hands as I nosedived through the air about 5 foot past any sort of downslope.

All in all, had a super time, great organisation, great craic, great track. Free water tablet things at sign-on were a fine job, medals were nice(although money is cool for U16s and Juniors that are too young to work/still at school but have bikes to break every weekend) and the wind, although it was trying, didn’t manage to blow any of the porta-loos over. Cheers XMTB and all involved.

This Blogging Business

Right, upon reading previous writings, I gotta start writing about interesting stuff rather than trying to make normal stuff sound interesting and coming to huge anti-climaxes. Shall try to do this from now on, so if you're not impressed or even slightly entertained, comeback sometime and see if you approve.
Also intend to update this a bit more regularly, but we'll see how regularly interesting stuff in my life happens and work from there. Scroll down a bit for NPS Castlewellan report.
Cheers, Monty.

Irish NPS Round 7 - Castlewellan

The final round of this year's Irish National Points Series was held in Castlewellan Forest Park at the weekend. If you've never been, make it your business to get down and get a rip round it, it's shredding like you've never experienced before!

After checking the weather forecast every day for a week, and my fingers nearly dropping off after crossing them so much(such is life when you can't afford a pair of wet tyres) Saturday finally came round. Friday night had pissed it down. Brilliant. Dad left me up on Saturday morning and I got my stuff together and headed down to check out the track. It wasn't actually that wet which was good to see, but there was just a layer of grease sitting ontop of the trail that was making it next to impossible even to get up the first climb! Not good with the race less than 24hrs away and more rain forecasted!


Luckily enough things seemed to have dried up for Sunday, raceday. Hadn't really planned on doing a practice lap as it was only going to be the same track but drier than I had ridden the day before. But then I bumped into fellow Dher Michael Rea as I was just riding around, and thought I'd head for a shred with him to take my mind off the race. Practice lap went well, as imagined everything was a lot handier to ride than the day before, so was all sweet to the beat. Practice lap took a little longer than planned, and time went a little faster than planned, so before I knew it, there was like 10mins to my race and I hadn't started a warmup or got the right bottles, I didn't even know where I was gonna do a warmup! Mad times. A sudden urge to let some weight off in those classy portatoilets that arrive at every race took over me, and I searched the surroundings in desperation for the little green tardis's of happiness. There were three down beside the start line, sweet. Picked the nicest looking one and opened the door to Narnia. Unfortunately there was no toilet roll in Narnia. On I went to the next door, no toilet roll in it either. Even risked complete public humiliation and tried the 'Ladies only' portaloo with my fingers crossed. Nope. No bloody toilet roll again, and even worse, a huge dump sitting there in the toilet. Fair play the poor lass probably needed the whole roll for that one! I'm not one for pre-race rituals or anything, but this certainly wasn't going how I'd planned!

Luckily there was a carpark about half a mile up the road and someone had been so kind to stick a portaloo up there, and even kinder to put some toilet roll in it! Hero. I'll save you from reporting every little detail of the next bit as I do want you to come back to this website sometime! haha. But anyway I tried my best to get the heartrate up in Narnia as at this stage there was about 5mins til my race started and the warmup boat had sailed long ago!

Hopped out of the loo and into the light with a terrific sense of achievement and fulfilment, ready to take on the world and all it's challenges. As the 5 people queuing outside looked on in disgust. Haha. Enough of that and on to the race..

Well actually before the race I fell on my face. Within the 2 minutes of hopping on my bike and riding half a mile back to the start line I'd managed to fall on my face, yes. Even better, I'd fallen straight onto the fireroad, so there was a lovely bit of bleeding coming from my cheek and jaw, major lack of skin on my shoulder, and I'd managed to smack my knee, which was already in agony and I'd been resting it from coming off the bike 2 days previous. Soup-ar.

Race began straight up a fire-road hill with 140ft of climbing, pace was crazy. Chris Oakley took off like someone was hanging a kit-kat up the road and it was him in the lead, Rob Deegan 2nd and myself sitting in 3rd. I kept the power constant, passed Rob, passed Chris, and got into the first singletrack climb first.

That was the plan. Feeling good now, going flatout up the first climb, nailing every line, all the track practice coming into use now. By the top of the first climb, about 5mins in, I'd made a good 10 second lead. A short downhill/flat and a steep uphill followed, and I gave everything to increase my lead. Plan to blitz the first lap to get away and then recover second lap obviously wasn't going to be as quick as riding a steady two laps, but it worked out ok coming across the line with the 2nd fastest lap time of anyone on the day for my first lap, 2mins 30 up on 2nd place, and then dropping back to a slightly slower 2nd lap. Ended up with the win, 2nd place 6mins 30secs down and 3rd 8mins 30secs down.

Pretty happy with the result, real nice to end the season on a high, winning the last NPS! Pretty sure I could have gone a bit faster had I had a warmup and a bit of a better pre-race, but dealt with what I had and got the job done. Track was a complete joy to race, so a huge thanks to XMTB for holding the race and getting the track into shape!

UK School Games is the next big event up on the cards. Have injured myself, so already carrying a screwed left knee for the whole year, I've now added the right knee to the mix too! Hoping I can get it working again in time for the UKSG, just a bit of a shame all the high intensity stuff I'd planned for now, to peak and then recover nicely, has gone down the drain. Life's a bitch sometimes. Just swimming and walking and lying up in the local leisure centre's sauna and steamroom, smashing out runs on the slide and stuff at the minute. Could be worse I suppose.

27 Quest-ions

Competed in the final Irish XC NPS round yesterday, but I don't really feel like writing a report. Will get it up before the night's out. So for now here's 27 questions that I'll pretend someone cares enough to ask. Borrowed 'em from the internets. Enjoy.

How are you feeling right now?
Allllrightey. Stoked on finding the 'bold' button! haha. Body is a bit wrecked from yesterday, lacking quite a bit of skin on my shoulder, face and knees, couple of bruises here and there but that's the harcoreness of XC racing!

Type of music you like most?
Depends what sorta mood I'm in. Bitta ACDC sometimes, bitta Chase and Status other times, Kanye, Rise Against, Biffdawg Clyro, Maveric Sabre, Ellie Goulding, Frank Turner, Tinie Tempah makes some good sense, Deadmau5..

Berms or flat corners?
A good moist rooty and roosty flat out foot out corner on a DH bike, but gotta be the safety of a big berm to rail on the XC bike.

Can you barspin?
Did one a couple of years ago, haven't tried since then!

Can you wheelie?
Reasonably. Not the best, nor the worst, wish I was a bit better though, must get a bit of solid training done this winter!

If you could change something about your home, without worry about expense or mess, what would you do?
Lift it up and set it down beside some trails!

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?
Not really that into famous people like, wouldn't turn down Beyonce though. She probably wouldn't eat much, I could finish up for her.

If you could meet any one person (from history or currently alive), who would it be?
Austin Powers. Lad.

Type of music you dislike most?
Bruno Mars-esque crap.

What are your worst characteristics?
Describing everything in too much detail is probably a big one.

What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Paint, stickers, posters.

What was the last thing you bought?
Ordered some new cleats for me shose today. Ain't that exciting!

When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
About an hour ago, getting the post.

Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Lack of a credit card would mean this one would be pretty hard, but if I could buy unlimited stuff from anywhere it'd probably be CRC or somewhere.

Who was the last person you ate dinner with?
Me dad

What’s your current Facebook status?
"YESSSSSSSSS!" - result of too much caffeine and winning the last NPS.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Owl for life! Not looking forward to getting up early to go back to school again soon!

Do you have a garden?
Yes. It's got 3.8miles of grass that takes up on 3 or 4 hours to cut. Raaad times.

Last mtb product you picked up?
MBUK mag

Last trail you rode?
Castlewellan!

What do you think about the most?
To be fair I don't really think all that much. Some empty space up here. S'pose it's gotta be bikes though!

What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer?
2011 XC League Table.xlsx.

What is the last thing you watched on TV?
300 last night. S'a bit repetitive them boys slaughtering the other boys like.

What time is bed time?
Normally about 9.30 but sometimes I get loose and don't make it til 9.45. Trying to cut down on dem wild times. 11ish.

What was the first time you rode your bike in a competition?
Epic Blast 2010. Yehhhhhhha boy! Good times were good!

What’s under your bed?
Some immigrants, lots of spiders, and other stuff that shouldn't be disturbed.

With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Beats and cows mooooing.

SXC round something

Judgement Day: Irish XC Champs 2011

I honestly don't know what happened. About 4 months ago I used to get excited by the jumps, skids, wheelies and g-narly to the power of max rad descents of Downhill Mountain-Biking. These days looking at a pro's power stats for a Tour De France stage or pulling on my lycra and going spinning on my XC bike seem to be making my boat float.

"Anything in particular", he asked. "Yeh, my calves are a bit tight" I replied. So as the massage man began, I buried my head in the towel at the end of the bed and clenched my fists with each of his pokes and rubs feeling like a right hook from Rocky. Then as expected came a hardly confidence inspiring, "What the f*** have you done to yourself"

Maybe my post champs tapering process may have been a little off the mark. Haha.

Got my super athlete warmup done, consisting of riding up the road, sending all the hips and bumps at the edge of the road, then spotting a car about halfway up the lane and sprinting to see if I could get past it. Didn't quite notice the other car pulling out and near got flattened, but I think wearing Matt Adair's invincibility cloak (skinsuit) saved me life, and I knew it was gonna be a good day.

Went back to the car to get a drink and eat some, but never got the chance as John Runciman came running over to tell me my race was starting in two minutes which I had also realised, but hadn't really registered how short two minutes is. So ran over to the start and jumped over the fence to find everyone had been gridded, and there was no room for me anywhere but the back, on the outside of the first corner. Nightmare. Luckily I got clipped in as quick as the man blew his whistle or whatever he did to start the race, and I had got up into 5th or so coming into the first corner. As I took the corner, since I was still stuck in the outside line, I tried to cut across into the inside so that I could line her up for the next corner right. This worked ok, til I heard the carnage behind me, 1 lad who I must have clipped was lying on the ground, another facing backwards, and everyone else ploughing into the back of them. My bad...

Made up another place or two coming out of the next corner, and by the time I got into the first bit of singletrack I was sitting in a comfortable second to Chris Oakley. Rode behind him for a while before he so kindly moved over a bit and let me past! What a gentleman! That left me free to get the power down and get away from the rest of the field. I gave her the beans and tried to stay off the brakes as much as I could, and coming across the line for my first lap I'd opened up a good gap.
From then on I did my best to maintain the lead by just riding steady and as smoothly as possible. This was the biggest race of the year for me(other than the Epic Blast, haha) so I really really didn't want to end it with a puncture or make a silly mistake and break the bike or myself! I opened her up on the fireroads and took her easy on the singletrack to make sure I was in no danger of wrecking something, and kept the legs spinning til I got back to the start/finish for the end of my second and final lap.

And that was it, U16 Irish XC Champion, jeb!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of my sponsors who I couldn't have done without. Lol Jk, I don't have any. Davidmmontee@aol.com.

Would like to thank me Mammy and Daddy, Simon Curry, Barry Kellett, Gar Mckee, Willy Mulligan, Ronnie Ogilby, Ciara MacManus, Greg May and everyone else who's helped me out this year.

Some Pure Beaut Photies

I don't have any stories to put these photos with I thought I'd just throw you a link for my Racing 2011 photos on faceybee anyway if you're interested. Maybe someday I'll write the stories to go with them too. Keep checking..
Should have some photos to accompany the below post tonight or tomorrow as well for you to feast your eyes upon. For now just copy and paste the link below into the top of your screen and job's a good'un!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1624055836846.2075572.1100007106

Putting Some Stuff Down

Ok, maybe this blog thing didn't quite start out as planned. Sort of missed writing up about the last NPS, UXC round and various road races and in fact any semi-interesting thing I've been up to. But rather than leave it until I do something even a wee bit interesting to write about, I thought I'd just go ahead and stick something down for til occupy your precious time.

Shall begin with a little write-up of the Quarry Circuit club road race that I went down to last night. I like this circuit, the start is only 4mile down the road so it's one I can't really make any excuses for not getting to! About 3 miles of the 5mile circuit is a road I ride a couple of times a week to get into town, so I know every pothole and dip which is handy enough when you can't really see infront of you for the sweat in your eyes! Couple of wee kicker climbs and downhills mix it up a bit from the usual drags of circuits and suits me pretty good.

Left the house far too late as usual, so had a solid 4mile time trial to warmup! Down the first hill and realised I'd forgotten to take the huge limiter screw out of my rear derailleur so was going to be stuck in the first six rings of my cassette all night. Faaantastic.
Got to the start, got me name down on the sign on sheet, coat in the back of Ivor's car, and watered the nearest hedge, all in good time for the last minute shout before we were let off, does well! Noticed I'd still got two full water bottles on the bike, but my completely unwise side told me to keep both of them in for the sheer sensation of complete crazyness to the maximum; carrying round an extra 750mls weight on me carbon fibre bike. Na, to be honest I just couldn't be assed taking it out.

Off we went, a fairly large group of shaved legs and lycra on a pain pilgrimage for the line when(if?) the fifth lap came. Hard to believe but I actually enjoy these road races. Well, to a certain extent. I enjoy the speed and excitement from every attack and change in pace, and the occasional bit of craic had between the bunch. Also hard not to enjoy the occasional sideways moment atop 700c wheels and tyres thinner than me finger. Not that I have extraordinarily fat fingers, the point I'm trying to make is that the tyres are pretty thin and sketchy! In most road races I've ever competed in, some hairy bumcheek always ends up shouting at me or someone else in the bunch though. If you're one of them and you're reading this, give it up(give it up, baaaby give it upp) you only look like a complete fool, racing is racing, if someone cuts you off or comes out of their line a little bit in a corner, MTFU.

Back to the race, 1st lap was fairly high pace, strong bunch that worked fairly well together. Myself and a tvr lad shared a good bit of the workload on the front and most other people took their turn aswell. After starting 11mins behind the 1st group we had made 4mins on them as we crossed the line for the first time. Keeping the pace steady, we gobbled up the rest of the groups in good time, and by the last lap most of the strong riders in each group we'd caught were all hanging on to us. With about 4 miles to go we caught the boys on the front, and the intensity began to build.

Coming in to the last corner of the circuit, it's a downhill into quite a tight left hander. Then you rise up from the corner, and it's a good 300m sprint up the road til you reach the line. Unfortunately just before the last hill, I had let two boys come past me with the intention of sitting behind them and then jumping after the corner, but then as I went join back in behind them, the next rider asked me to let him past, I thought fair enough, and let him past. Little did I know/realize that there must have been another 5 riders tight on his wheel, and once I let him past, I had no option but to either Mark Cavendish them out of the way(ever wondered why I wear the pisspot in road races?) or let them through. Cycling club racing rather than MMA club fighting I thought it was probably best to let them through and then see what I could do to beat the fudgers(up) through the corner and up the other side.

As we came down the last hill towards the corner, I hear 'tractor' being shouted. Next thing I get my head round the boy(or the 10 boys that have now got infront and blocked me..) infront and see a flipping tractor coming up the road, right in my line for the corner! Thankfully my bunnyhopping skills are fairly tidy and my bike fairly light, so I knew if the worst came to the worst we could just put all those hours of watching Danny Macaskill into practice and jump the fook off the bike into the hedge. As in most cases in life, the worst didn't come to the worst, and we all squeezed into the one lane to get past the tractor. I then did my best to put the power down around the corner and sprint out of it, but sadly there were no heroics to be seen, (well, other than blocking heroics by some of the other lads coming up the hill!) and I could only salvage a couple of places to end up with a 3rd place on the night. Maybe I should have thrown off that water bottle when I had the chance..

A chat to whoever was standing about and a few congratulations to the boys who got 1st and 2nd and before I got cold me and my 6 gears were back on our way home.


Til next time, Monty.

Ps. Ever tried beans and pork sausages from a can? Don't bother.

Something or other

Aye, I'm starting a blog. For tonight anyway. Tomorrow morning I may get up and realise I've better things to do with life, but for now I'm all yours.