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...
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