Mud, Sweat, and, emmm Little Mix.. (Ulster XC Series Round 6 - Craigavon)

BEEP BEEEEP BEEPPEDY BEEPPP BEEEP!! Wehhhh, go away alarm. As I mustered up every last ounce of 7.30am effort I could muster, in return I got to see the most laughably half assed claw for my phone through the furry haze that used to be my eyes. A little like one of those arcade machines that can never quite grab the fluffy bunny or rubber duck that you never wanted in the first place. With a couple more attempts, I got a hold of my phone/alarm and squashed it til it cried no more.

The night before I'd gone to bed nice and early, last bit of recovery before the last XC race of the season. Unfortunately, try as I might, I was still counting sheep til long after midnight: maybe I slept too much over Summer. Consequently, the battle to conquer what lay beyond my bed on Sunday morning wasn't greeted with much valour.

Many scrambled eggs, spinach, fruit and a cold shower later, I was beginning to feel a bit more rad. Dude. All out of beetroot juice though, much emotional distress as a result. Got some clothes thrown in a bag, some tools thrown in another bag, some powder thrown into some bottles, and some shaking done to said bottles. The main man, of Team Maxbo fame, Barry Van Kellett, was most generous in offering me a lift for the morning, so all was left to wait for himself to roll up. And what better place than back to bed to wait. It's tough at the top.

I'd say something nice about driving through Lurgan and Craigavon, but I'd only be lying. Van Kellett stopped to buy a bottle of water and I put on my scariest face and sucked some air into my biceps as I guarded the bikes. Ross Kemp come at mah'.

Got to Craigavon Lakes, I know, a Cross Country Mountain-Bike race around a pond, it doesn't make much sense, but it definitely does make for much pain. Being relatively light, I can pull away from the heavier strong-men on climbs as it's all power:weight, but with it being a pretty flat track, power:weight ain't all that important, so I was promised an absolute hammering session from my fellow S2 men. I could feel my little legs tremble at the thought.

Some craic, a practice lap, and a race number with nothing to attach it to my bike with, later, I got back to the car to catch some rays before kick-off. Zak Hanna was also rolling in the Barrymobile for the day, so myself and him lay back, ate some food and listened to some radio. Little did I know how much that'd haunt me for the rest of the race. Little Mix, you aren't even a real band.

Next up, I'd a warmup to do. I was chatting away to Richard Stewart by the car, probably discussing some super serious tactical plans(...) as usual, having the craic. A little shooting pain in my back. What's that now? Hurt a bit, but not too bad, fairly sure I was imagining things, carried on chatting. Normally a little shooting pain like that goes away after a second or two, this one, not so much. Was just around my HR monitor so I thought maybe I'd snagged it or something. Trying my best not to look like a wimp and carry on conversation, I stuck my hand up to have a feel around. See if Van Kellett had really gone as far to shoot me, to sabotage my chances of winning. Felt something! Like a burr off a tree, the wee prickly thing must've jabbed me. Went to pull it out, but as my fingers gripped it tighter, it was far too soft to be a bur, not to mention the fact it was moving. STING! Again. It was a bloody wasp stuck down my bib-shorts and I'd just been stung twice. Never a dull day. Pulled the remains of the wasp out of my leg in utter disbelief. How it got down my shorts I'll never know.

Got a relatively good warmup done as far as warmups go. Started a bit early, and then ended a bit early. I managed to get my chain stuck between two chainrings when shifting down off the big ring. Effort Daveee. Took me a solid 5mins (which feels like 5hrs when your race starts in about 10mins) and some very oily hands, to get it pulled back out. Ideal race prep. Never sweated so much in my life.

I love this next photo. There were no S1 riders on the day, this is the S2 field - the fastest men of the day - lined up with only minutes to the race. I don't think I've ever seen such a chilled out start line. So much awesome, what a fine bunch of men.

The man with the whistle blew his whistle, (with relative ease and finesse, must be a Flo Rida fan) and we were off. Stuart Ballantine got a class start, and I made my way towards him as best as I could. The first few corners were absolute madness, what used to be Craigavon's finest grass had turned to the slideyestest mud ever, and my fine choice of a Specialized Renegade on the front and fairly worn Racing Ralph on the rear meant I was going nowhere unless it was sideways. I'd've been safer bringing some ice-skates.

 For the first time of the day, things had gone to plan and I'd got clear of everybody else (apart from Stu) so had plenty of time and room to get round the corners in one piece. Got past Stu and was on my own for a couple of seconds, but that definitely wasn't the plan. I hadn't mentioned this yet, I don't know how I'd forgotten, but the race was 6 laps. 6 LAPS! Yes the tracks are always different, but we generally do 4 laps, and my shagged knees limit my endurance training a lot. Not good! So the plan was to sit in 2nd for as long as I could and let somebody else worry about pacing. If I could make it to the end, super, if I couldn't, shame, if I made it to the end with enough left in the tank to get into 1st, perfect.

Robbie Lamont came past, and Simon Curry and Ross Blayney were with us too, along with Stuart. The first lap was fast. I was sitting in 4th when Stuart attacked before Craigavon's one and only hill that we happened to be going up, up the back of the course. Which normally would've been grand, but this part of the trail was only wide enough for one bike, so I'd no mission of getting round those infront of me and onto Stuarts wheel. I sat there as he picked up ground, nothing I could do. Thankfully the trail then came to an open grassy bit, so I was able to get round and catch upto him again. Sit in 2nd, plan.

We were riding fast through the singletrack, really fast.  Normally I'm super focussed in a race, there's not much to think about when you're chewing on air for all its worth, but with such a long race, it was a little different this time. That sitting in the car earlier, so unassumingly listening to Radio 1, chilling out. Well from that, that new Little Mix song was firmly wedged between my ears, and flippsake but I could hear nothing else. My thoughts went a little something like, 'corner, brake, pedal, mamma told me not... corner, brake, mamma told.. corner, pedal, pedal, mamma told me not to waste my life, she said... sprint, corner, mamma told me not to waste my life, she said spread your wings my little butterfly.. etc.' . For-ever. I was by no means ever a Little Mix fan, but I actively dislike them now. Horrfic. 'least it wasn't Nicki Minaj.

Skip forward a bit, Robbie, Simon and Ross caught up, and Stuart disappeared. For the next couple of laps we swapped places, but everyone was looking very strong. I was able to copy all the sneaky XMTB lines and it was brilliant fun to be riding with other people after spending so much time racing out on my own all year! What an experience it was to race. I kid you not: we met a horse, dogs, an old lady raking her mobility scooter, and countless parents and kids all over the trail. More people in 90mins  than Davagh forest has seen in its lifetime!

The track was taking no prisoners, and after gobbling up Stu, Ross was the next to go, breaking his seat or something on the Ice Rink... And then there were three. From here, there were probably one or two laps to go. Very, very fortunately I wasn't as tired as I'd have expected, all was going to plan. We lost Simon somewhere, and then there were two! If disaster stayed at bay, we'd be on the podium. Sweeet as. For the last lap, my legs were feeling like they would love a good cramp, so rather than attacking, I held onto Robbie's wheel and rode as conservatively as possible... as you can see.

Got to the same bit as Stuart had attacked at the start of the race, just a hill and the slippy corners to go, and attacked. Thankfully my legs played ball, and we sprinted up the hill. Slid round the corners, sprinted up some more hills, and I'd pulled away by a reasonable distance. Eased it off a bit and spun over the line, job done. 1hr 36mins of racing, I could feel every second. Couldn't have asked for a better finish to the season. A hell of a lot tougher than usual, but such tight races are fantastic justification for every night spent sleeping, and every morning spent training, when all me mates are out on the rip. I love racing me bike.

Big thanks to everyone who's helped me out in any way over the season especially me mammy and daddy for putting up with me. As always, Rynopower and Green Oil have been a dream to use, Rynopower is so far ahead of the game, and Green Oil does everything and more you could ever ask of it. To everyone who's done my bottles, given me a lift, cheered me on, read this blog, looked pretty with me on podium photos, taken photos, given me advice or lent me parts, I love you, srs.

Next up is my first ever season of Cyclocross, from October to January. Excited.

Monty's 2012 XC Season, over and out. Thanks again.

Irish National XCO Championships 2012 - Djouce Wood - Sunday

Breakfast time at 8am began with a bowl of fruit, it'd be rude not to. Following that was a bowl of cereal for the same reasons. Then we were presented with the real menu, and it was only politeness to order a ham, cheese and tomato omelette. Some toast was set on the table, probably about 6 slices of that were on my plate at one stage and then mysteriously disappeared. Before I knew it, a fairly sizeable slice of wheaten bread found its way onto my plate and everybody knows a plate cannot be left til it's clean. A good 30mins after we'd began, it was finally over, we'd conquered it. Job done. Many sighs of relief. Chilling out, chatting away, and next thing the B&B owner comes over to the table with a plate of peppers and carrot. The boys had been joking that I wanted some cabbage in my omelette as I usually have a good plate of spinach and beetroot juice with me breakfast. Inspired by this and my lettuce eating acts of the previous day when we had arrived in the car, the B&B owner had no cabbage, but had thrown together the best meal she could in the form of peppers and carrot. Much laughing was done, and then the reality struck that I was gonna have to eat this too. Life's hard at the top. Not one to back away from a food based challenge, I set about the 'icing on the cake' as it was. Solid preparation for a race not too many hours later on in the day, right? This is what Joe (friel) would want.

Wind things on a bit to 1.30pm, as I hopped on the turbo and got the legs spinning to prepare for the battle of epic proportions that loomed ahead like a tropical(e.g places such as Kinallen) storm. Tunes were a blasting on the iPod as I got to work. If I could go back in time right now I'd probably go there and turn the sun down and not have ended up with bib-short tan lines on my back: probably not the best look.

Gave my bottles to Lucy(thanks ever so much, you did an awesome job) and headed off to the start line. Line up behind the mighty Elite force of Irish XC MTB we did, and watch in awe as they tore the start field to bits, McKee's steak from the night before clearly not quite affecting him yet as he took the holeshot. A minute later, or so, "I'm gonna blow the whistle within the next 10seconds" announced the man with the whistle. I guess this meant we were meant to go then.

I think I missed this memo. Everybody took off, I tried to clip in while in the land of fluffy elephants and cows with trunks. Probably y-fronts. I was either in 2nd last or last place as we hit the first corner. Hmmm. Got out of the saddle and sprinted a bit to get a good line into the next corner, but to no avail. Awwwh fork. Tried again before the next corner came, this time I made some ground and got a good line through the corner, slipping into 3rd or 4th as we headed down the hill towards a rough and rooty bit of singletrack. Out of the whole course, I think this was one of the toughest bits, so hard to build or maintain any sort of rhythm over the random roots and holes, although the lads on 29'ers probably just thought they were riding on a bouncy castle as usual.

First real climb of the track was a steep one, attacked on this and didn't look back. Heard tyres behind me for far too long and worried a little bit, but thankfully by the first bit of singletrack I was all on my lonesome. 'Battled with my machine' as Phil Liggett would say, through the veins of the earth, managing to stay upon my bicycle relatively well. Then onto XTC's descent. So, so beautiful. Bump, bump, berm, berm, berm, bump, berm, jump... you get the picture. Probably still losing about 10 seconds a corner to Gareth, but the entire track had a devilish tendency to leave you absolutely kebabed for any of the 'fun' descents. A final berm and bump shot you out onto the fireroad at lightspeed, and it felt only right to try and maintain the pace to the next section of trail and make motorbike noises to yourself. 

A hugely technical but fairly short descent ensued, a proper bike killer: rough, rooty, twisty, slippy. In practice I could hit this sweet as you like, but come race time, on every lap I made some stupid mistakes after leaving all my energy behind on the fireroad to get there. As the gaps between the trees got smaller every lap, my shoulders got more and more battered as I pinballed my way down.

A fun off camber descent, some more bermy corners and a deadly steep climb(there were some shouty people here on my 3rd lap, spectators are awesome!) and then as your memory told you you should be ripping down a super fast straight line descent back to the fireroad, the trail turned up the hill. Here, it seemed no man had boldly stepped before, a small hill for Seymour and a large hill for mankind. I didn't even notice this climb on my first practice lap as I was so preoccupied with trying to stay in a straight line with 40psi in my tyres, but unfortunately, come race time, I had no such luxury. It was tough going, very steep, but also enough roots and technical bits to completely flummox you if you lost even half a degree of concentration.

 To prove this point, obviously just for your benefit, on my 3rd lap I lost my concentration for a second. It came back relatively quickly as my rear end slipped out on a root. Brain says dab left foot - foot follows suit - brain did not calculate the steepness of the hill we were riding on the side of and the fact that the ground below my left shoe was a good 30cm below where it should be - eject. So as I rolled down the hill mostly on my face I just hoped that there was nobody close behind me that I'd be stuck behind for the rest of the climb. More important was probably getting back to my bike, easier said than done when lying in the opposite direction you would like to be on the side of a huge hill. With an allmighty pressup I pushed the earth down and myself up, and slipped my way up the hill back to my bike. Getting started again was 'interesting', and once you'd lost your rhythm, it was extremely tough going on the climb that I hadn't noticed the day before.

Final lap, mostly having fun smashing turns out behind the people I was lapping, then back to the sufferfest once I got round them. It finally struck me that I had won as I hit the last bit of singletrack coming back into the start field, so I threw the best whip that my lack of energy could do, and stood up and got on the pedals to push it in to the line and clear a bit more room for post-race binging. Coming through the start field was awesome with all the tech/feed zone crew cheering and the finish flag just around the next corner. Popped an absolutely horrific wheelie as I crossed the line and that was it for another year. Irish Junior XC Champion. 

A huge sigh of relief as the entire year's being a bumder, missing loads of parties, not really leaving the house, spending every last penny on my bicycle, training all on my own, going to bed early etc. was completely worth it as I crossed the line with another 9 minutes passing before 2nd place came home.

Thanks to all the family members, friends, accomplices and sponsors behind the scenes that make it possible! As always, rocking Green Oil's fine products on my bike, and Rynopower in my belly.

Monty, over and out.

(Ps to anybody wondering how I can win an XC National Championships, but not ride a local road race, my knee is still giving me loads of trouble, and flares up really badly if I'm on the bike for more than 2hrs. Mtb races are 1h-1h30, while road races are 2/3/4h, I'd love to be racing them, but I physically can't at the minute)

Irish National XCO Championships 2012 - Saturday

Horrific, impossible, plain old fashioned crazy, would have been my response had you asked me what I thought of the course after my first lap on Saturday. I hit roots, I slid, I hit corners, I slid, I hit Willy, I fell. The most important race of my year, and I'd forgotten how to ride a bike. Meanwhile, Gareth danced off down the trail, taking everything in his stride. What was I missing here? To be fair, I'd come home from Davagh NPS, washed my mountain bike, bolted it to the turbo trainer and there it stayed til Saturday morning of race weekend. Making excuses already Dave, oh dear oh dear.


Myself, Vitus/CRC superstar Gareth Mckee, and chief driver/mechanic/organiser/Vets racer/all round nice guy William Mulligan set off from Banbridge at 10am sharp, t-28hrs. As the wheels got rolling and the craic flowing, plans to sleep on the drive down were scuppered as usual. After getting some severe slagging for tucking into a bag of lettuce leaves: the perfect roadtrip snack in my eyes, it was clear that deep down, Mckee was just jealous. Willy kindly pulled in to a filling station for him to try and squeeze a greasy sandwich into the lettuce shaped hole in his belly.


Shortly after, we bumped into the most beautiful start field in the country (minus the fresh sheep waste packages). I'm getting deadly at remembering to put my contact lenses in for races of late, it's so nice to be able to see, and what nicer than Powerscourt waterfall and many miles of lush countryside and pretty peaks to look at. Headed to the sign on tent, was greeted by some nice WORC men, and put pen to paper as best as I could remember how after not being near school for the last month. No turning back now, race number 301 became my lucky number for the weekend whether I liked it or not.

 
Setting out on our first practice lap was not a pretty sight. In fact, it was more a case of a similar word, that rhymes with sight. Thankfully we got back to the Mulligan Mobile after lap 1, and knowing there wasn't much potential of pinch flats, I stuck a Nobby Nic on the front in place of the Renegade, and let about 20psi out of the Racing Ralph on the rear. Screwed out the Terralogic thingy on my forks and slowed the rebound down a bit, and we were ready to roll, round 2. Immediately the Canyon felt like more of a John Deere: we were going nowhere fast, but the grip was almighty. The difference in the 1st and 2nd laps was like day and night, and a smile couldn't help but creep across my face as I rode over roots I could barely ride around half an hour ago. After Willy sacrificing himself on multiple occasions in the quest of finding the limit of his Racing Ralphs, we called it a day. Saturday it shall be known as from now on. Throttled the John Deere back to the car, well, what was left of the car under Djouce's thriving fly population, and headed down to our B&B. Coolakey House was the place, literally less than 5mins down the road, fine job. Was tucking into my bag of lettuce leaves as we pulled up, kind of oblivious to the fact that we'd stopped and the owner of the B&B was at the window of the car chatting to us. Guess I should've been looking at her, pretending to listen and smiling at various intervals, but I was too busy munching. "Are you hungry?" she asked. 'No, I'm David', I thought, as I was reluctantly drawn into the conversation. Soon after, we got the keys to our rooms and I headed out for a cooldown as Gareth took to the shower.


 
Got back just in time to see my boy Brad Wiggins finish the TT, all about 10 black and white pixels of him that spanned the TV screen, while some woman nattered away in the language that only those of TG4 understand. Stole some of Mckee's magic shower gel and got the hot and cold juices flowing. Fast forward through a good night's craic with the BCC men, Clive Caldwell, and his best lady, Lucy.. chilling out in the common room bit of the B&B. Got a bit bored and headed in to the breakfast room to see what I could find, came out with an orange, mug of what tasted like heated diluting juice, I think they call it herbal tea or something. McKee tells me you don't put milk in there with water, but you're probably not meant to put weetabix in either so that was the least of my worries/extravagances.

Bed time. I'm not going to lie. I've literally been fearing this every day for an entire year. I'll not even begin to go into explaining the noises Gar makes when he's blissfully riding his bike through the clouds in z'land, but if you're reading this MI5, and you've some boys you need a torturing, I'm sure Gareth wouldn't charge too much if you supplied him a bed and a teddy. After heading off to bed at about 10pm last year with what lay ahead still a mystery, I tucked myself in and snuggled up to my pillow. Little did I know I would spend the next 4 hours in every position imaginable, and some probably not, trying to find somewhere that I was hidden from the sound waves coming from McKee's airways. On the toilet, behind the curtains, between the bed and the wall, at the other end of the bed, in the far corner, with my bag ontop of my head, with the bed ontop of my head, nothing worked. Fortunately the mental and physical expenditure involved in the planning and testing of the various positions eventually led me to sleep, the last time I checked my watch it'd been 2.30am...

This year I was prepared. I'd been practicing all year, and not yet found a single pair of ear plugs that would stay in my ears. As thick a pair as I could find, and as big a roll of duct tape as I could find were going to have to do the trick. Earplugs in, duct tape wrapped round head and keeping the ear plugs in place, all I could hear was my heart beating in my head (If you've seen 4 Lions this may bring back good memories) and with those thoughts I drifted off to sleep. Job done. Praise be to God.



Tune in tomorrow for part 2, it'll probably mention the race thing I did on Sunday...

Irish XC NPS 6, Davagh Forest

Today, some boys ran round a field, faffing around after a ball on tv, and falling over a bit. Closer to home, some boys sat on motorcross bikes, ploughed a field in Desertmartin and blew apart some old ladies' hearing aids. The real men, you'll have found in Davagh Forest, in a fearsome battle against every force mother nature could bring, armed only with some bottles of juice and a bicycle. Man vs. much mud and many midges. Heroes of war we should all be crowned, for just surviving.

As I finally scrape enough of Davagh Forest's finest mud out of what's left of my eyes to get two clear bits I can see through, I guess it's time to put some words down. I was told once that if you've a couple of sore bits, the body tends to pick up the worst pain most, and forget about the other ones. After punching my arm silly before going into the dentist's one day, coming out tail firmly between my legs: throbbing arm, some deadly painful holes were there used to be teeth, and an incredible vengeance at who-ever was winding me up, I was less than convinced. Only today did it strike me where I went wrong all those years ago: I needed a yellow bottle of 'midge repellent cream', that someone had used all up, then decided to keep their Hydrochloric Acid in. Who's was that? Boyyyy did it burn. Suddenly all the other niggles disappeared, my brain seemed much more concerned that the skin on my face was about to disappear too. I may stick to the Skin So Soft in future...

As I left the house, with only the directions on Carn Wheelers's website and my worse than awful sense of direction, I tapped 'Davagh Rd' into the Sat Nav... 'road not found'. Hmm. I'll try the next mentioned road. 'Sixtowns Rd'... 'road not found'. Technology, eh. This was looking good already!

We finally got up to Davagh late Saturday evening. Most of my family lives up around that end of the country, so I thought it'd be handier to get a lap in on Saturday, kip up at Granda's for the night, then scoot back over to Davagh in the morning for my day's bog snorkelling. At about 7.30pm, mother and myself pulled into an empty carpark in the furthest depths of nowhere's rear end, and Mum's expectations of a happy little camping village with lots of nice people on bikes milling about, fell faster than the Greek economy. Definitely a potential spot for a good scary movie. Didn't have contact lenses in, do have a box of 30 of them or something, but thought I'd save them to the big day, counting my pennies. While lying on my head in a bush in the first section, I decided it would've probably been better if I could see where I was going.

Looked at some fancy lines through the first section, tried riding them, fell off some more, and eventually just thought screw it, we'll probably still be congested by this stage so I'm not going to make or lose much time: ride the main line. Some technical climbs and descents round the rest of the track made for great fun, but it was a true hard-man's course, no let-up at all; pedal, pedal and pedal some more. Tyre choice was going to be a huge factor. Mud tyres seemed logical, for half the track was riding through bottomless bog, but then the other half of the track was smooth singletrack or fireroad. Oh what to do? Go with my worn out driest tyres obviously. Semi-slick Specialized Renegade on the front, kinda grippy Schwalbe Racing Ralph on the rear: it would be doing the steering.

Fast forward a bit to race day, woke up and the sky was still leaking; the track wasn't gonna be any drier anyway. Race was off at 2pm, so hopped on the turbo at about 1.45 and got some blood moving in the legs. Let out as much liquid weight as possible, and headed down to the line. Gridding got started for the mighty men of S2 and our Junior selves, and I was on the front row somehow, awesome. There was no pressure for a good start as the track had about a mile of fire road climbing before any singletrack suffering began. That said, I still did intend to put my foot into my pedal rather than the ground as the whistle went(or whatever they do to start the race, is it only me that honestly can't remember!?), but didn't quite get it in, so was about 20th before I knew it. 

Up the fireroad it was crazy as usual. People ducking and diving everywhere, one side of the road to the other, anywhere there was a gap, or they thought there was a gap, they'd jump into it. More times than not it was only in their imagination, resulting in the glorious tune of tyre buzzing and f'ing announcing our arrival. Men and mice separated, we hit the first bit of bog, through a puddle, or pond moreso, and then a slip and slide down til we hit the gravel singletrack. Would've loved to have been a spectator for that bit, boys everywhere and every shape. Thankfully there's not much else to do where I live than ride around fields, and most of the time it's raining, so I was well used to the terrain.

Got through the start loop and onto the main track, sitting in 5th or so at this stage. Unfortunately Moses was no-where to be seen as we neared the red sea, so we could do nothing but ride through it and hope for the best every lap. Pre-jumped into it and held on tight. Hit the thing so hard on my 3rd lap my front foot clipped out on the impact!

Still a couple of people infront of me, so put in a good effort to get by them to get to the trenches first in the hope I wouldn't lose too much time on my dry tyres. As promised, this bit was deadly. Was like nature's own turbo trainer, you could sit there and pedal as hard as you like and still make no ground. Only managed to clear the whole thing once in my 4 laps, but it was great fun just trying to keep the bike upright and moving in it. Back onto a fireroad descent, into 1st now.

After that I just held it steady and gave her the beans every time I caught a glance of an S1 rider on up the trail. Tried my best not to slack on the fireroads to ensure I was doing my dry tyres worthwhile. Many many slips and slides came and went, to be expected on that type of track. Brilliant fun had. All overshadowed by almost losing it on a super high speed but really tight little bit of gravel singletrack towards the end of the lap though. Must've been doing a solid 20mph as my front wheel caught the inside of the corner, front end started to fold, all my weight went over the front, rear end started to slide a lot, all the ingredients for the perfect face first smash. Thankfully my foot magically appeared and saved my life... and then got caught in the hedge and the whole thing started to happen again! Like there wasn't enough soil in my bib shorts already! Some great descents on the track though, most of them were fairly high speed slidey rooty bits, kept you on your toes.

One of the bridges in the boggy bit had no wire mesh on the first half of it. Front wheel popped on fine, this was going to be ok, back wheel on, go to pedal off it... ABORT! Feet were only starting to dry out a bit after the river crossing, then boom, both feet in half a foot of water and half a foot of muck below it. Need a better offroad diff installed! Eventually by the 4th lap I'd caught on that riding over them would be quicker than falling into them; eased off a bit and made it over. Just.

Caught me bud Matt Adair halfway round the last lap, so cruised with him in to the finish. Crossed the line for the last time, 1st S2 and 1st Junior, happy days. Matt was shouting at me to come for another lap, but as tempting as it was, I'm still carrying far too many injuries to be able to risk doing any more than required! Laughed at him having to drag his body round the battlefield for another lap, and took the much more inviting fire-road back to the car, to get some food.

Big thanks to Rynopower and the much needed Green Oil for the support. The bike cleaner was definitely of use! Thanks to Carn Wheelers for the class show they put on (lovely trophies too), Martin Grimley for keeping things running smoothly, all of the photographers, me mummy for taking me down, Brian Kellett for doing my bottles, everybody that moved over when I called 'rider up', all of S2 for leaving me alone, and Paddy and Stuart for a big hug on the podium. Oh and whoever supplied the box of bananas at the end can't be forgotten either, cheers!

Monty, out.

Lady Dixon - XC NPS 4

After round 3 back in Tracton, I was not in a good shape. It most definitely cut my life expectancy by far too many years. Me back was broke, I couldn't walk on my left calve, and then I got a throat infection. I'm not even just gurning for the sake of gurning, I had to get me mummy to put on my socks and shoes for I couldn't Ben Dover, thankfully her mind isn't logical enough to realise that there was no reaching my feet in the shower either...

Many hours spent sleeping(it's a tough life), painkillering, hobbling round the house, and the back was getting better, and I've just got used to my left calf being a selfish brat. But then came the throat. Oh baby. There's only so many Soothers a man can eat in one day! Yearly recommended sugar allowance within a week, not to mention whatever other crap is in there. Difflam spray is class at numbing your throat, but unfortunately every bite of food still went down like a fire breathing cross between a rock and a cactus. That combined with not being able to sleep for more than 3hrs at a time: negative craic. So much so I was tidying my room at 4am one morning.. Disclaimer before the mums and dads force-feed their kids Soothers and Difflam.

2 weeks, 2hrs of bicycle riding. (n-2hrs) of thinking. Very dangerous. Not recommended.

Throat started clearing up a bit on Thursday, so rested and then took the bike out on Friday, hoping to get a few taper intervals done and get the software reinstalled in the legs. All good, got myself a new Strava KOM and all, buzzin'. Then came Saturday morning, and Friday's heavy breathing and time spent in a Sauna far too close some hairy 'big boned' men, had me back on the ever-diminishing anti sore throat collection, wondering whether I could race at all on Sunday or not.

Mummy thought I was wise not racing. Father couldn't believe a cold was stopping me. After Saturday morning spent reading as many stories of people racing with deadly throats as I could and checking the corresponding obituaries when I'd time in between forcefeeding my throat remedies. Turns out not many people died from racing with no throat, so I thought I'd head up to Lady Dixon for a practice lap or two and decide after that.

I'd write about that, but I want to get to bed at some stage before sunrise, you probably do too.

T'was Sunday morning, all lubed up with Green-oil's dry wax, digestive system lubed up with Rynopower's carbs and a few electrolyte tablets - not sure whether they give you diarrhoea or take it away - the mighty Saab's engine was ignited and wheels got turning in the direction of Lady Dixon park. Well, beforehand, I'd forgot to close the lid on the protein shaker and most of it was over the floor, left half the toolkit at home, but I HAD remembered to put my contact lenses in for the first time in many centuries, so everybody was smiling.

Got cruising did I and Father, and rolled into the Park before long. Thanks to XMTB for trying to tell me I'd missed sign-on even though I was an hour early, and Martin Grimley reiterating this ;) Take me to your time machine.. Got some fancy waxy rope rather than cable ties to put on my number, so was already saving grams on all the early sign-er on-ers of S2, loving it.. until I was tying the bottom one nice and tight round the head-tube to be super dooper aero, and it ripped through the number. Saving more grams. Was good to see Matthew Adair showing his face, and huge thanks to his family for doing my bottles!
Also I love good weather. I love how suddenly it's deemed appropriate for everyone to walk around with no top on. Why isn't it like that all the time. Best not to stand chatting round the toilets to other men while sporting the topless look though..

Brought my turbo, but couldn't decide whether I wanted to use it or not, there was already little enough grip on my rear tyre let alone sticking her on the grindstone on a hot day! Jumped on anyway as I'd nothing better to do. Oh boy. If you've too little money for a mx bike, but too much to have any sense, buy a hardtail and stick a Specialized Renegade tyre on the rear, on a turbo, and get some mx videos on. Some major clutching and throttle was given, and I got the engine worn in. As tempted as I was to stay and race my imaginary mx friends, Martin Grimley was getting sweatier and sweatier over by the start line, so I thought I better head over and get gridded.

A nice gridding spot was had, 2nd man in on the 2nd row. After a bit of a laboured start, the effects of my super pro warmup wearing off, and beginning to need the toilet a little, we finally set off and all further humanely thoughts were ejected. Animal time. First corner was always gonna be interesting, sprint into 90 degrees right hander, luckily I got by a few boys and got a smooth enough line through it, not too many elbows brushed. First section was carnage, a fairly large tree in the middle of the track that didn't seem to want to move for anybody, as good as their game of chicken was. Riders going everywhere, roost going everywhere, lethal craic.

Held her steady for the first lap, probably started in about 10th, think I came across the line 2nd in the first lap, happy days. I'm not gonna lie, I've no idea what happened after that. Just know I managed my main goal of not falling off, and was cornering fairly smooth by the end, so fairly happy. Got into first in the 2nd lap I think, then held it steady, thinking it was plain sailing from here. Pass a few s1s, pass a few ladies, then realise there's someone hanging about my tail. Ahhh go away.

Think it was lap 3 as he got closer I realised it was the man himself Marc Potts. Started off in A4 cat. on the road this year and is almost an A1 now. Man is a machine. The race had just begun.

Coming across the line onto the final lap I said to him to go on by, being the tactical genius that I am(not), I thought he'd probably be quicker in the singletrack, and I could slipstream him a bit on the grass, so it would all be much more civilised with me behind him rather than the other way round. Inevitably he didn't pass, ah balls, smash the singletrack and see if he can hold me. By this stage I was loving the singletrack, on the 4th lap lines be dialled. Pulled a couple of seconds on him occasionally, but I don't know whether I was going fast or he couldn't be bothered being tight on my wheel, as he always seemed to be dangling around my rear like a dingleberry.

Sat on the limiter for the grass, trying to make the most of a passing a few backmarkers and having a man between us both, but there wasn't much loosing him. Drank all me juice in a tactically genius realisation that my bike would be lighter if the contents of my bottle were in me, and I'd go faster. Maybe this helped, maybe it didn't, but by the bottom of the last climb towards the finish line, Marc was still behind me. Meanwhile I think my quads were still somewhere halfway round the lap, I'd dropped them somewhere, for every time I stopped pedalling came on a deadly cramp, my legs were crying out for their fallen friends on the battlefield. 

Slacked off a bit, again thinking I can save some energy if I ride behind him up this last open climb, and then hopefully pip him just before the line if I make it. Turned out as he came past, there were 2 S1 riders on his wheel, or something that seemed a lot more complicated than i'd expected. Then coming into the corner before the climb there was a lady rider, and he got infront of her, but I was stuck behind her in the corner. Basically I rode my spherical bits off to catch him again, but such a ship had long sailed. Crossed the line a couple of seconds back, 2nd S2 and 1st Junior.

Fairly happy, bike stayed in one piece, I drank up well, and spent no time on the ground. Quite the opposite to Tracton.

Well done to Marc for winning S2, Barry for not being last in the sprint, Dan for riding round in 3 gears, Matt for being Matt, Gareth for 2nd in S1, Findhan for riding round in a cotton t-shirt in 25 degrees, Simon for coming 4th S2, and I haven't seen the results so I don't really know how anybody else did, but if you did well, well done. And a huge thanks to XMTB for an awesome event, and Martin Grimely for keeping things running. Big up the Green Oil and Rynopower. Oh and thanks to everybody who took photos. If I stole yours and you don't like that, let me know. I'm sure I've forgotten somebody, for that I apologise, but its inevitable.

Skinsuits rock. Monty, out.

I may or may not add some more photos when I find them.

Oh and my throat is sore again, thanks for asking. I have my recovery tights on though so hopefully it'll be ok.

XC NPS 3 - Tracton Woods - Race Day Rambling

First race of the 'season', this was always going to be an interesting one. 'season', in the mighty inverted commas of mystery, because so far, it really hasn't been much of a season at all.

Pre-season training literally consisted of 3 weeks of what I would call, proper training, the rest mostly spent rolling around the floor stretching, or on the foam roller. From August 2011, my knees have been giving me grief, and been putting a mighty limiter on what training I can do before they blow up. After many, many labouring weeks and months of trying to get anything useful out of the NHS, I ended up with a MRI scan on one knee. Turns out there's some tissue growth disorder in and around my knees, which, according to the 'specialist', is actually fairly common in kids my age, but only flares up in those that do excessive exercise. The bone is growing too fast for the tissue, so the tissue is stretched, and then you go and do a load of training on top of that, tightening the muscles, so the tissue is stretched even more and that pulls everything every shape. Not good. What fabulous preparation for the season... and that's not to mention breaking my wrist 10 weeks ago aswell!

Thankfully I 'will grow out of it', the advice for now was 'not to push it to the limit'... oh the casual ambiguity around what could potentially destroy me future in cycling/world domination.

Race day began at 0030h with Barry and Brian arriving back from their midnight track walk. I seemed to have had fallen asleep (sleeping bags are for wimps), only to be awoken with Barry's torch flashing into my tent and him talking to me. At least this meant I could finally get me sleeping bag and also got kindly donated an air mattress thing, it was boss, many thanks to the Kellett Krew/Team Maxbo. After that I got to sleep fairly quickly, and other than the noisiest birds you've never heard in your life waking me up about a hundred times, sleep was good.

Woke up for a final time at 0730'ish and got some breakfast in before heading away for a practise lap (once I'd ridden through what seemed like every lump of cow excrement in the mighty camping field to get to the road. Irish races, can't beat 'em). Was fairly awesome being out on the track at this hour, had loads of uninterrupted time to ride about every line possible and not possible alike. 'Got 'em dialled' as it could be said...

Unfortunately this was next to no use when the race began. Turns out racing with 30+ S2 men is fairly different than racing with 3 or 4 U16s. With U16 racing, most of the time you're on your own, or in groups of 2 or 3 max, so there was never any worry about missing your lines, whereas S2 turned out to be absolute chaos off the start! Fun nonetheless! Additionally, it kind of added to the madness as I realised that I'd forgot to put contact lenses in about 5mins before the start. This resulted in me running back to the tent, hoking me contact lenses out of the bag at the other side of the tent while trying to keep my dirty shoes out of the tent. Got them out, got positioned nicely infront of Brian's door mirror, think I remembered which one was for the right and which was for the left, and got set on getting the right one in with my muddy fingers. Proceeded to get the left one out of the packet, onto the tip of my finger and heading towards my eye, BAM, gust of wind, goodbye contact lens. Brilliant. Tried looking about, but then realised I was looking for a transparent contact lens in a cattle field and had about 2mins to the start of my race and decided to screw that and get to the start line.

Had absolutely no idea what to expect, from myself, and my severe lack of training. Was hoping I hadn't lost much fitness from last year, but knew the chances of it increasing were terribly slim, and this year, as a Junior rather than U16, our races are twice the duration, so anything was possible, but the odds seemed stacked towards the disastrous end of the scale.

Track started with a 2-3min fire-road climb. Thankfully I got clipped in and off the line well, and was top 15 coming up the climb. Content with this, took it easy and made a few more places before the trail entrance, but didn't exert myself, plenty of time yet. Then we got to the 2nd bit of singletrack, and the rider infront of me slides out on a root. Chaos squared. I try tripoding the bike round him but proceed to almost fall over myself. Not quite the start I wanted. Got past anyway, and got motoring to catch the boys infront that had made a bit of time now.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847053584&k=K4qT6wj

Got caught up with them, and was probably sitting in top 7 or so now, but still not really feeling as if I was exerting myself. Saw BanbridgeCC man Simon Curry 2 men ahead, so got up to him and sat behind him for a while, knowing that he's a steady rider who consistently finishes top 3 in S2s, thinking if I can sit on his wheel for the rest of the race, that'll be more than enough to ask for in my first S2 race. This went well, until I took a different line to him coming into a technical section, and it was quite a bit faster, so I ended up coming up on his right hand side on a bit of trail only wide enough for one of us! Luckily averted disaster and squeezed infront of him. From then on, I rode steady, and before I knew it I had caught what seemed to be 1st and 2nd position, but couldn't know for sure whether there were riders in my race ahead of them, or if this was the front of the race! Thankfully at the start of the 2nd lap we passed S1 rider Lance McCarthy, and after trying to tyre buzz him for a while, he let me past and confirmed that they were the 1st S2 riders to go past him. Sitting in 3rd then, sweet.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847054973&k=VXnLzd3&lb=1&s=A

Rode for a bit longer, in 2nd place coming up a windy straight, so thought it'd be a good idea to speed tuck in behind the man in-front and save some energy. This was a fantastic idea, just a shame about the execution: he slipped past a stump on his right, but my front wheel was slightly to the right of his rear, and before I knew it i'd hit the stump and was lying on my face with the bike ontop of me, still clipped in. Wasn't sore, just a little offputting when you're trying to stick with the man infront but you're lying on the ground on your head! Got back on and caught him again and got by him and I was out on my own. Kind of couldn't believe it, was wondering if I'd completely screwed up my pacing and was going to blow up badly. Didn't blow up, probably actually went a bit faster over the end of the 2nd lap and into the 3rd lap. Passed some more S1s, but then coming out of a corner I went to pedal and nothing turned!! Disaster! Hopped off the bike and tried to see what was up. Rear derailleur cage had well and truly snapped, and the chain had jumped through the cage and was basically fooked.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847046634&k=mb6KVvs

Was able to bend some bits back together and get the chain re-routed and semi-working again. Unfortunately from here on I only had one gear, and when I applied any sort of force the chain was skipping.   Due to the time it'd taken to get the bike going again, I'd slipped back into 3rd place, but only by a little bit. Got going as much as circumstances allowed , and got back into 1st, and made some ground on the rest of the field again. Then about 1/3rd of the way into my 4th and final lap, the derailleur blew up for good, and I was faced with 2 options. Run the rest of the lap and finish the race, I still had good time over the S2 and Junior field, or run the rest of the lap and finish the race. Quitting wasn't an option if you'd seen the amount of food i'd eaten over the weekend... I needed to burn the rest of it off.. haha.

So inevitably S2 riders started coming past me as I ran every uphill and flat and freewheeled and pumped my way on every decline. Then the 1st junior rider came past, and I'd lost both my S2 and Junior 1st place. Shame. Ran and freewheeled on, ended up 2nd Junior and 8th S2, so altogether not the worst performance, but just a bit of a shame that it almost certainly could've been a 1st in both categories!!

I'll not even begin to explain the aftermath of the race, but basically running a lot of a mtb lap with a bike, up steep inclines, bent over to hold onto the bars, turns out isn't such a good idea for your back! Really struggling to stand afterwards, but then I couldn't even bend down to sit in a seat, not desirable! Lay against a car for a while, got some iBuprofen gel on and about half a can of deep freeze on, and then finally made it into a seat. Couldn't move for about the next 2 or 3hrs, meaning I missed getting up onto the podium to get me photy taken, gutted.

It's now 3 days later and I still can't really bend down, back is still mega sore, but I can walk again, and it's getting better, so it's all good!

Track was amazing, big up the MBCC for doing such a super job of organising the race. Team Kellett was amazing, huge thanks for the lift down and back again, and packing up my tent when I was paralysed, and everything else. Also thanks to team BCC - Simon and James Curry and Gar Mckee for providing the morning's craic and helping the tent-packing efforts of the evening.

Also thanks as always to Rynopower for providing all me race fuel, and Green-oil for keeping everything running smoothly (unfortunately they can't fool-proof your derailleurs though..)

Monty, out.

NPS 3 - Tracton Woods - Saturday Night

  So this is kinda cool. Cool. Good choice of words Dave, for not only is it rad to the max, man, its also a bit chilly. Lit only by the 'light' (loosely termed) of my windy uppy torch, heated only by mother nature herself(well, a base layer, 2x t-shirt, jacket, fleece, coat, tights, 2x tracksuit bottoms and a buff are probably helping a little too) and with only my brain, or indeed lack of it, for tonight's entertainment, we're in for an adventure tonight. Not a b&b like all the young felines nearby, but like many's a great men gone before me, *insert famous explorer names* , I'm in a tent. And I've just dropped a bit of sweetcorn or a pea, it's kind of too dark to determine which. Balls. Princess and the Pea vol. 2 - Princess and the Sweetcorn. I joke, if the ground was flat enough to feel a bit of sweetcorn I would be more than happy. Rather, it's consistency right now is that of a lumpy protein shake, with added cow dung.

  It's 22:58, and I really intended to be in 'bed' by now, but with that shiny gleam of over-assurance, I told Barry and Brian that I had everything out of the car that I needed. Which I guess in a sense is true, as I have my dinner, clothes, bicycle and iPod. I guess I just overlooked one minor detail, my sleeping bag. Now normally this would be a simple case of popping over to Brian's tent(we've got an awesome 3 tent village set up here) and asking him for the car keys. Unfortunately the night before a race is never that simple, and Brian and Barry have decided to head off into the forest on a track walk* (yes, it's 11pm..) so although the car is about 10ft from me, the keys are probably about 2miles away at this stage. Bummer. Who needs sleeping bags anyway?

  Barry picked me up at around 2.30pm from my house, we met Brian in Navan, and many, many hours, a couple of scenic detours, 3 toilet stops, 2.5L of water, 4 rice cakes, 2 sandwiches and half a bag of leaves later, we rolled into one of Cork's very finest cattle fields, or for this weekend, the venue of XC NPS 3 - Tracton Woods. 3 tents were erected with only the finesse of 2 of Cork's hungriest men, and another one who wanted to go and ride his bike.
  Believing it was the smart option, I got into my tent asap, got naked(its a whole different experience in a tent, probably not worth putting one up and trying it though) and got into my cycling gear to go for a practise lap. Hopped on me bike and got going. This was awesome for about 5mins of cycling up am open fire-road when I could see where I was going. Once I turned into the trail, or the dark hole that seemed to vaguely resemble a trail entrance, not a thing could I see. By this stage it was after 9.30pm and the sun has long headed over to the other side of the planet. A 'practise' lap was done nonetheless, but literally by feel rather than sight. As I lie here, I have no idea what the track looks like, or where good lines are. Which leads me to question the purpose of that practise lap, ah well, it was fantastic fun!
  Thankfully the track is as dry as my throat will be by the time I've finished me race: grip is very plentiful, which was handy considering I couldn't see anything. I felt many roots. I therefore assume there are many roots. Most definitely a track for full suspension. All the same, it seemed absolutely fantastic; lots of fun bits between the bucking bronto style onslaughts of roots. Most definitely looking forward to another practise lap in the morning when I can see.. assuming I make it through to the morning. Nah, I joke, it's lovely in this tent, there's fudge all wind, dare I say it: no rain, not much noise, and its really not that cold.

  But if Brian and Barry could come back anytime soon now that would be nice. My wee toes are a bit chilly.

  Maybe sleeping bags are kind of useful.. or even just a mat like the dog below

That's all for now, til tomorrow, Monty, over and out.

 *Barry and Brian Kellett are brothers, not gayboys.

Just Some More Injuries..

Apologies fr a possible lack of capital letters and a few inevitable spelling mistakes but I've just landed myself with a fairly badly broken wrist, and typing with one hand is most certainly not where its at.

I was riding my xc bike on the road, about 20mph or so, them the bike went surfing and my body followed suit. So right now I've got a broken wrist, chipped bone in there too, cut knees, elbow, chest and bum. What fantastic fun.

I'm afraid this is all for now, as i'm already bored of this one handed typing.

here's a picture #usainbroke

The Holy Grail Of Tyre Leverage

Just take a look at these. Now look at me. Now look back at them. Back at me. Back at them. Back at me. Okay, I'll admit that was pointless, but you'll admit you didn't do that, you just kept reading. Anyway, I trust by now you've looked at that little red bicycle riding hood of beauty to the left of this text? If you haven't seen it by now, go back to Facebook and carry on with your life, thanks for the page views. However, if you are one of the Twitter pure race, you'll probably have noticed that luscious lever of legends currently on your screen, as you're just better people #yero. As a Sainsbury's advert would say, this is not just any tyre lever, this is a Bontrager tyre lever. Now to be honest, I used to associate Bontrager with cheap Trek bikes, I never really rated their gear at all. But that was back in the days, the days before I met my favourite tyre lever in the whole wide world. As unassuming and plain old run of the mill normal tyre lever as this looks, this perfect and precise piece of pleasure is far, far from ordinary.

Dt Swiss rims, Maxxis dual ply tyres? I'm sure most of you have been there. For those fortunate few who haven't, imagine trying to open a tin of beans. Done that before? Seem simple yeh? Ok, think about it again, only this time your hands are strapped into a pair of woman's mitts(because boys should never own mitts), your arms are tied together, you are upside down, and you can only use a banana, and it's not even a good ripe Fyffes banana. Seriously, it'll deep fatty fry your head til the extent you'll have pulled this much hair out. You stick the lever in, try to grab hold of a bit of the tyre bead, think you've got a little bit, give it a pull in the hope you'll get a bit of tyre off, the lever slips, you loose the tyre and you're back to square one. Repeat this process x10. Really, if you ever wanted a mental strength test, give somebody a Decathlon tyre lever and a Maxxis/DT set up on a cold day and leave them there til they have forcibly buried the wheel over their own head, or are eating the bearings in the hub while hitting themselves in the face with the QR skewer.

Hours I have spent, in the garage's very own artic climate, fighting polar bears with desert spoons. No matter how many times you try, it just seems to come to nothing every single last one of those times. By this stage if you were doing something more productive you could probably have made enough money to just buy a bloody new wheel, tube and tyre, and some petrol to set the old one a-light after shouting every expletive in the dictionary, and all those new ones you just made up.

But thankfully, all this fickle frustration is in the past. I was a little apprehensive, when buying these, as as mentioned above, I'd prejudged Bontrager. Such was the extent of my distress though, that I was willing to try anything just to be able to get my tyres on and off easier. Show me a brick and tell me it was good at getting tyres off and I've had snapped it up quicker than you'd have finished talking. Thankfully nobody offered me bricks, and instead I ended up buying some Bontrager tyre levers. Similar in looks to a brick, they are certainly much better in function. They even just feel nice in your hands, or toes, or whatever you use when you're all alone with the bike in the garage. Now I've tried Park Tools, Decathlon, Pedros, Weldtite, SKS... the list goes on(Well, it doesn't really, it just stops there, because I found these Bontrager babies and have never had to buy new ones since) and nothing has ever even felt as solid or well manufactured.

On first appearances, other than being cool 'cause they're red, they don't look like they're up to much. Not the most reinforced nor attractively shaped, and the part that should hook onto the tyre looks much to blunt to ever do more than find itself a one way ticket to the bin. Haha, I forgot the majority of us mountain-bikers don't use bins. I mean that middle shelf that you'll never look at again, that's where it'll sit until the day it falls down the back of the shelf, or just disappears all together. But instead, this tyre lever is as subtly sharp as a sharp thing, and it'll grab right underneath your tyre and with a gentle old yank of the wrist, you'll have the tyre on the side of the rim that it's never been before. Then its all smooth sailing from there. You fumble in the next tyre lever and give it a yank too, and before you know it even more of the tyre is exploring places its never been before. Give one of the levers a bit of a pull around the rim and the next thing you'll know you'll have the whole of one side of the tyre free. Get this right once, and the world IS YOUR OYSTER. You'll buy more tyres, ones for raining today, ones for raining yesterday, ones for raining the day before (it's Northern Ireland, don't even consider a dry tyre), just because you can. You'll then change the tyres before every time you go and ride, because you don't have to go through the emotional trauma that normally ensues changing a tyre. Honestly, your entire quality of life, and quantity of life not spent wondering if arm pump from removing a tyre is possible and not to mention realising how sore breaking your nails really is, and all of that just for your lever to snap just as you think you've hit the jackpot, will leapfrog all of those non Bontrager bearers.

Furthermore, they're not just red so that you can spend more time staring in awe of them without getting bored, although this is a useful aspect. In fact, you'll find that most things on a forest floor, which is where you spend most of your time upon your mountain bicycle, or the majority of the majority of the time, on your ass, are brown or green, not red. This may seem nothing special at first. But after being out on an hour's lap around Tollymore one day mid-spin, I stopped to grab some food from my saddlebag. I came to a controlled stop, I took my hands from the bars, I turned around, everything was going well until this point, but upon turning around, I could see the mouth of the saddlebag wide, wide, wide open. Now I can assure you that it was 100% zipped up before I set off for my ride, maybe I should do my next review on a Topeak Wedge saddlebag.... but anyway, my heart had already just dropped to about ground level, as there was a lot of good stuff I'd collected over the years in that saddlebag, or not in the saddlebag now as the case seemed. I bent over for a closer look, hopelessly wishing that there'd be at least something left in the bag, but unsurprisingly it was empty. No angels, no Jesus, no fancy oils or bedclothes, the stone had been rolled back and the tomb was empty. But here, I'll cut this a bit shorter. Basically everything had fallen out of my saddlebag. I retraced my steps, and bit like your woman who left the breadcrumbs in that story you always hear as a child, nothing else did I find, but before long, I stumbled across a little red ribbon of hope in the ground. Upon closer inspection, dayyym right, it was my tyre lever. Not long after, I found the other one too. The rest of the stuff in the saddlebag is still lying in Tollymore somewhere. Cue all you scroungers catching the next tailwind to Tollymore and pitching your tent, but I can assure you, due to the crappy blacks and greys that most bike tools come in, the other kit has found its final resting place.I found them, unlike everything else, 'cause they're red, so they stood out from everything else on the forest floor. Genius x genius = genius^2 .

So forget about your festive feetwarmers and candy canes next Christmas. Simply donate £3, and a child with a bicycle will recieve two Bontrager tyre levers. No longer will they have to spend hours walking to the water well, as they'll be able to get their tyre off to get a new tube in and now they can skid on down to feed the goat til their little heart is quite content. And not just once, but all year. A Bontrager tyre lever is for life, not just for Christmas.
You can even buy a box of 20. Now I'm not sure why, as two will last you a very long time. Maybe you can frame the other 18 or throw them at heures or something.

Monty's product reviews, out.

Ps suggestions for where my heart rate monitor strap has ran away to are much appreciated. Where would you go if you were a HRM strap and suddenly sprouted legs?