Change Pt.II

So I was looking for some inspiration to make a good first impression on you bunch tonight. What to do when you've no idea what to do? Google. Good answer.
True to form, Google got the goods. Look at that up above for a fancy, semi-relevant graph with double-barrelled title that will hopefully make this seem much more intelligent than it is.

Because really, I picked that photo because it perfectly describes my experience with the washing machines over here at Uni. I bet old Kubler and Ross would be so proud to see their graph being put to such good use!

Shock - My mummy isn't here to wash my clothes?!
Denial - Tell me it ain't so, Mummy, are you sure you can't come over? £2.50 to wash my clothes?! Half a fiver just for clean kicks? £1.20 to tumbledry? It can't be! That's the price of a good 3 bags of lettuce!
Frustration - AAaaaarghhhhhh!
Depression - hold me. hold me tight. I am so depressed.
Experiment - The treacherous journey to the washing room for the first time . Feeding each coin to the great white monster, as it heartlessly gobbled them down without sparing thought for me; desperately clutching to what remained of my frayed emotions. Surrendering my clothes to his belly, giving in to the glutinous beast. Watching the time crumble, foundations for my anxiety towards the happenings behind the locked door.
Decision - How long til I recover enough for wash no. 2?.. or more to the point: can I survive another night on these bed sheets? Is 3 weeks too long to wear the same tracksuit bottoms? When does cost of air-freshener outweigh washing smelly clothes? Is there even £2.50 in my wallet?
Integration - Well I guess I do get a good sniff of the washing powder every time. Having a full drawer of clean underwear is certainly less stress. Ohhhh the warmth of the tumble drier. I am so renewed. I could conquer the world right now.

Currently in the denial stage with regard to the length of my hair. Stay tuned.

Anyway, I got the chance to get back to Northern Ireland over the weekend past. Sister Alice is also living in Loughborough currently, so her boyfriend was awfully kind to leave us over to East Midlands airport. Things were going swimmingly, I'd smuggled a box of salad from the canteen at dinner and grabbed my last avocado from the fridge; proper preparation prevents poor peregrination. Got to the airport in good time, had already checked in online so walked on in. Got to security, walked through the magical arch with no beeps, WIN. But then, as my jacket was coming through, there was commotion. I knew I had my glasses in there, but the last time I checked they weren't a weapon of mass destruction. Further commotion ensued as they stroked my jacket and felt around the pockets. The woman looked up at me with disbelief in her eyes while I poised myself, ready to defend my lack of sight and plead innocence. "You haven't a knife and fork in there, do you!?".... oh. oh crap. I'd kind of forgotten about those. Whooops. "There's a spoon too", was the first thing to come out of my mouth. Smooth Dave.
Overcoming this slight mishap, I persuaded her I had no intentions to eat my way through the plane, and she let me keep my spoon. Great success. All the tastier when you've had to fight for it.

Got back late Thursday night, had a lovely wedding on Friday, stayed over Friday night and then travelled back home on Saturday. With 3 weeks of duty done, I'd already had my dose of 'Freshers Flu'. Little did I know it's a needy old brute and would come back for more so soon. Saturday morning I woke up feeling pretty rough. Had a shower, dried myself off.. then managed to soak the towel almost right through again with the dreaded sweats. Lovely eh. Anyway, feeling super tired but thought I best turn the legs over a bit after no exercise the day before. Was dark by the time I got home, but thankfully I'd ordered a new light a while back and hadn't got it sent over to England yet, so I was able to head out. Being the first time I'd used the light, I didn't know if it was charged or not, but when I plugged her all together, the green light came up and all systems were go. I'd no rear lights, but some old wheel reflectors stuffed into my helmet would surely suffice.
30 mins in, the inevitable happened and the light suddenly became not so light. So much for it being charged! I stood at the Gall Bog crossroads for a while wondering what to do; trying my best to look as if all was normal as a couple of cars pulled up to the junction. Lols. 'Don't mind me. I intended to be standing here in the middle of no-where, in the darkness, with a bike. Swear.' I managed to slip up the road when the cars had cleared off, and somehow kept it upright through the stones and branches that line Tullyglush's finest tarmac. Tragedy averted.

Race day came about on Sunday morning, as I woke up feeling no better than the day before. I'd said I wanted to race earlier in the week, which was slightly impractical with all my bikes in England. But, Lakeland Bikes had done me the massive favour of lending me a bike for the occasion, so the least I could do was turn up! Beecham's Cold & Flu is a good buzz.
Barry Kellett of Team Maxbo fame was kind enough to give me a lift up, so after a quick check in to McDonalds at Sprucefield, we got going to Dungannon. Peter Jones from Lakeland Bikes had a lovely Felt CX bike waiting for me when I arrived. Mother nature, on the other hand, had much rain waiting for me, and with a MTB support race and B CX race before we would get a go, the track was sure to be a slop.
Credit to Island Wheelers, it was a super little course, with a good mix of open grass, treey'y singletrack, tarmac and gravel. Well, it would've been a good mix of these things had it not been so wet. Instead it was kind of just all brown custard.


At 2pm'ish, as the rain continued and while most were on the way to Noah's Ark, we, instead, got the A race underway. With not getting to the first 2 Ulster CX rounds due to slight transport complications.. a sea to get across.. I had no gridding. Thankfully, the start line was about 20 people wide, so I managed to get on the 2nd row! Looking back at my HR data, it's at 145bpm before we even started. Keen!(.. or ill!). We got off to a pretty rapid start, with Jason Henry getting the holeshot. I stuck to CX master Roger Aiken's wheel, as the laws of probability told me this was a pretty good place to be. Soon enough, it was just Jason, Glenn Kinning, Roger and myself. I was comfy enough at this stage, and was sitting at the back having good old fun. I made a pass on Roger for the sheer craic of it, and sat third wheel for a bit. Sure enough, this backfired as Roger then came by us all, and there wasn't enough room for me to follow. From practice, I knew a little passing spot coming up soon, so didn't rush to try and get past Jason & Glenn. As we got to the spot where it was all meant to happen, Roger took the line that I was going to pass everybody on.. kind of screwing my plan just a little!! Roger then started to make some ground as I was still trying to get round. Balls.

After all the craic of change, one thing that hasn't changed is the man winning UCX rounds. Really, that was the race over. Roger got about 15secs and I tried to bridge the gap, but ended up making some silly mistakes and doing the opposite. Within the first few laps he'd pulled 40 secs out of me, and when it's someone of Roger's calibre, I knew today wasn't going to be the day. I rode to conserve 2nd place, enjoyed getting a bit loose on the last couple of laps, and crossed the line 2mins behind Roger.

All in all, it was lovely to get home for a bit, massive thanks to Lakeland Bikes for allowing me to race, I'm indebted to you guys! Can't imagine I'll be home before we get off for Christmas in mid December, but there'll hopefully still be a few more CX races left in the season by that stage. Ultimately my goals for the Winter lie in the National CX champs; my first National Champs as a senior! Exciting stuff, eh! In the meantime, I'll be training away back here in England in preparation for them and for next season.

Wish me luck!
Monty.

(and on the subject of change, if you've any loose change and wan't to sponsor me, that's a great idea ;) No but seriously; If you own a business or something and are in any way interested in some publicity and advertisement around the country(s), get in contact, details on 'Contact' page up above)

Change Pt. I

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are" - Bertolt Brecht

or as Bob Dylan would tell it, "The times they are-a changin'".

But hey, less of that, I'm a Sports Scientist not an English Literaturist.

This year has been pretty good. It's tough to quantify goodness, but ~500hrs on bikes so far this year is as relevant a statistic as I can find. After last Winter's work on knee injury alleviation, plus managing not to break any bones this time round, things were off to a fine start. A couple of team camps with the CI development team were good in terms of both education and craic. For example, I learnt that it's possible to 'cook' spaghetti to the point it turns to solid, chip like structures. More learning came on our Majorca training camp in February, with topics such as 'how to put bike boxes on an escalator' and 'driving lessons with Frank'. Savage banter was had altogether and good preparation for the coming season.

The 'coming season' was rounded off about a month ago with at least 1 win in Enduro, XC, CX and Road disciplines. Highlights included Matt Adair lending me his TT bike for a couple of weeks and me getting totally anal about preparing for the national TT champs.. Lowlights included getting a puncture 10miles in on race day.

Some other nice bits of the year were when I finally got stopped for a wee in the Road Race champs, KOM slaughtering in Rostrevor, and getting a new flask at the national XC champs. Having the bike in the boot of the car when sister Alice (sibling, not nun) got us stranded on the Motorway due to the classic case of invisible fuel light syndrome was also a bit of a bonus. Cycling back with 5L diesel in one hand and Google Maps up on my phone in the other hand is firmly ticked off the bucket list.
Less enjoyable bits of the year mostly consisted of uncooperative body parts amongst other things, but I'll not bore you with details. I must admit getting beaten on the line from small breakaways in 6 road races wasn't exactly my plan, but I'll get the hang of it yet.

Off season abruptly began with a boat trip too early in the morning to remember. I could've probably bought the dang boat with the money I'm about to lose in the next couple of years, but for whatever reason, further education seemed a better idea at the time. I'm starting to regret that decision after the recent weather.

Dad was driving me over to Loughborough, where I'll spending most of the next 3 or 4 years of my existence. A truckin' we did go, and after a final night's civilisation in a nearby B&B, Dad and I pulled up the Passat CC to Loughborough University. Some keen 'fresher helpers' swarmed round to assist us in unpacking. Keenness lessened as they opened the boot to see three bikes peeking out. Heh.

4 weeks in I've got a few road routes sorted, met a few nice folk in the cycling club, and managed the timely snapping of the rear dérailleur cable on both my CX and Road bike on group rides; making quality first impressions I'm sure. We have lecturers and things too, believe it or not. I've heard this is the biggest campus on the UK; I'm not sure, but I am sure it's a 10-25min walk depending on where you're going! Walking and cyclists is always a recipe for disaster but I think I'm starting to get better at it now. Another steadfast ingredient in my personal disaster cake is ball games, it's going to take me a bit longer to master them  (mastering being occasionally making contact with said ball in attempts to kick, throw or catch). With our Teaching & Coaching practical module almost solely based on these, I can only hope they have alternative criteria for us people just good at turning our feet in circles. Or I find a twin. Come to think of it, I could probably kick a ball better whilst on my bike.

Little did I know my mind's earlier maritime meandering would be so relevant, with investing in the steamboat being a daily activity over here. Boats 'n hoes, boats n' hoes. Pilgrimages between the magical tree of disposable income and the off-licence are the reason for mosts' existence. When not otherwise occupied, they're playing music at full volume, or having heated debates over Fifa, no matter what time of day; or rather night/morning. Alas, I'm just 18 going on 80, I can't complain, they're all sound fellas in my block and are just getting their kicks as I do mine on me bicycle. Captain kill the craic here just has other ideas of ideals. Enjoying sleep and stuff like the weirdo I am.

Anyway, I'm just back from pumping the 'ron here and everybody in the block seems to have gone out on the town, so I'll hopefully get a few hours sleep now before they get back! YOLO
And I've just got a wee surprise email from my awesome Da to say he's ordered me a kettle for the room. I'm away under the covers with a smile on me face and green tea in me brain.

Monty x


(I intended to write a report of the weekend past; back at home getting a CX race done, but got a bit carried away in the introduction. Whoops. In Pt II I'll hopefully get some more race reporty reporting in)

NPS 4 - Lady Dixon

In stark contrast to the last proper report I did; starting off with my alarm going crazy at some ridiculous time of the morning, there was no alarm thismorning. With today's fourth round of the Cross-Country National Points Series in Belfast, at Lady Dixon Park, it wasn't going to take me more than 35mins to get there, and my race wasn't until 2pm... I was bound to wake up before 1.25pm on my own accord :)

Your car's ok ma, he's wearing tracksuit bottoms

It's been dry for XMTB's Lady Dixon NPS round for the last 4 years or something, and yet again, the week leading up to it had been a scorcher (in Northern Irish terms - generally above about 8 degrees celcius), with hardly a drop of rain, and Sunday didn't disappoint; a positively tropical 16 degrees said the car, and nice and sunny said my eyes. With a final check to make sure I'd got all my kit in my bags and drinks mixed up, I threw some sun-cream and a rain-coat in the car just to be sure to be sure. Bringing out the sun-cream generally results in a massive rain shower about 10 minutes afterwards so you've got to be prepared. Got in the car, Tifosi sunglasses on, and headed down the road...
for the best part of half a mile before I remembered I'd left the turbo trainer and wheel in the house. Classic.

Practice lap was grand, with a couple of new bits added to the course from last year to keep us on our toes, thanks to the hard work of the trail fairies from XMTB. Nothing really technical to worry about, and it was all nice and dry, so got round it pretty quick and didn't need to stop to look at anything, happy days. The Giant was all Fenwicks'ed up and running sweet, so it was back to the car to fuel up with some Torq.

He's probably beaten you too

With the main man Robin Seymour (Olympian, Irish Cross Country Champ 20 odd times, Irish Cyclocross Champ 20 odd times etc.) signed up to race, I was looking forward to trying to catch him. As a Junior, we generally start about a minute behind the S1/Elite category, but Martin Grimley (he basically runs Irish mountain-bike racing) is a bit of a hero in letting us off a little early sometimes, which gives me a bit more of a chance of getting up to play with the big boys.

Clutching her

2pm came about and I went off to get lined up to be gridded. With the blowing of a whistle and the mashing of pedals, I got off to a relatively decent start, 2nd wheel behind Max Van Der Lee for the first couple of corners. Got by Max and set about bridging up to the rear end of the S1 race. Was making a grand old job of this; sitting about 7th S1 halfway into lap 1. As I passed good friend and S1 racer Simon Curry, he told me to keep it steady and smooth. This seemed a logical approach, and I returned gestures of agreement... So it was kind of awkward a couple of minutes later, when he came back past me as I was picking myself off the ground. Whoops.
All had been going well til I got behind a S1 rider just before probably the most technical and fast bit of the track; a thin, twisty downhill ledge. I wanted to get past before this section as I knew I'd be stuck once we got into it - there was only room for one bike - but I couldn't get round, so I had to settle behind him and make the most of a bit of recovery time. Unfortunately I turned the recovery dial a bit too far, fell asleep, caught something in the ground and high-sided straight through a pretty fast corner. This was quite a substantial knock, and the old 'screw it, I'm still 1st junior; forget about catching Seymour and just ride round' mindset crept up on me for a brief moment, but thankfully, after a bit of searching, I found the button to re-engage beast mode, and we were off again.

Naps are an essential component of high performance. The remnants of  my earlier nap visible on  my shoulder and knee

So back to 15th S1, I had a bit of catching up to do, but it was actually quite nice. In most of the races this year I've got through the rear end of S1 within the first lap, then spend the next 3 or 4 laps pretty lonely, occasionally catching a glimpse of the first couple of riders. This time, it took me the whole way back to the start/finish to get back to the same S1 rider I fell off behind, so I still had good company and a few S1s to catch for the next lap, chasing down S1 team-mates Graham Boyd and Matt Adair.

Munching some air

By the end of lap 3, as I came into the start/finish area I could see 1st and 2nd S1, Seymour and McKee, about 30 seconds up the road, so I knew I was making good time on them and was in with a chance. Seymour put a brave kick into McKee, trying to get away for the win, so this upped the pace a bit which wasn't very thoughtful :) I gave her all the stacks that I had and tried my best to make ground on them, and as we came into the 2nd half of the course I could see I was only about 20 seconds behind now.

Boo!

I caught McKee at the bottom of the final climb, but Seymour had made a bit of ground on him by this stage, so I still had a bit to go. Smashing through the last couple of turns through the trees and back out into the finish area, I could see Seymour just up ahead; I probably put a year's wear into the chain in the space of 200m as I put the last effort in.

You've got to make it at least look like you're trying

Taking care not to fall around the final feed-zone corner (I'd already been round it on my bottom at the end of lap 2; flat grass turns are endless fun), I crossed the line to the chequered flag somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds down on Seymour. Hello anti-climax. Ah well, there's always next time eh. 1st Junior by 9 minutes, with 12minutes back to 3rd, happy enough.

McKee put in a deadly lap 5 (S1s did another lap over Juniors) and held the gap on Seymour, but yet again it was to be the King, Robin Seymour (WORC) taking the S1 win, with Gareth McKee (CRC/Vitus) in 2nd and Graham Boyd (XMTB McConvey Cycles) in 3rd.

Nonetheless, a super day's racing and it was awesome to see everyone out in the sun riding their bikes and smiling. No mechanicals and generally a pretty smooth and steady race after my eagerness was knocked out of me at the start.

As usual, McConveys Cycles are a big help, with an extensive range of bicycle bits and clothes. It kills me to have lost the mighty Pisspot of grand Bulletman/Bomberboy fame; it was a super little helmet and I've pretty much kickstarted a worldwide trend if you look at any of the boys winning Grand Tour stages or CX races.

RIP old pal

My Specialized S-works Prevail made the transition a little easier, as it's a class helmet, although this whole helmet hair business is a bit new for me. Specialized S-works shoes are also fantastic. The soles are almighty stiff so you can feel everything and can put the power down anywhere. They're also kind of snazzy looking. Fenwick's sprayey stuff does what it says on the tin, and has been essential in keeping the bikes ticking over after all the stinking races we've done so far. Their Disc Brake Cleaner will take any kind of dirt off anything. Torq's gels, bars and drinks taste great and there's some good science behind them so you can be confident they're helping you out. Banoffee and Rhubarb and Custard gels have to be tasted to be believed! Tifosi's glasses are comfy and light and do a grand job of keeping the sun out of your eyes and making you look rad. The Giant XTC 29er bus is fit for anything from black DH trails to pump tracks and all out XC racing, I've tried it on all of them! It's also pretty good for hanging your wet kit over and it fits in the back of my mum's Seat Leon, what more could you ask for. Also, thanks to Belfast City Council for allowing us into the beautiful Lady Dixon park, it's such an awesome venue for fast racing and us mountain-bikers are awfully appreciative of your continued support.

http://elitetiming.co.uk/Results/NPS_R4_Class.pdf - Results

That's all for now. Got some A-Levels or something I'm told.
Monty, out.

2013 So Far

It's been a while! With trying to train, race and go to school, along with other extravagances like sleeping and eating, there really hasn't been much time to sit down and write, and I apologise for that!

2013's racing season, with my new team for this year, XMTB McConvey Cycles Dev. Squad, began with the first round of the Ulster XC Series, at Ballykelly forest. I could write you a book of highs and lows from between then to now, and it'd probably be class; but we'd be here all week, so I'll keep it brief and picturey. There could well be a bit of craic lacking, but fret not, now that school's out, I'll have some time to get decent post-race reports done, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of disasters to keep you amused.

UXC 1 - Ballykelly Forest - 1st Junior

I genuinely had no idea how this was going to go. First race of the season, first race on the new 29'er bike, and first race with the new team set-up. Thankfully after all the changes, the result stayed the same - where I finished off last year - and I got the biggest box to stand on at the end of the day. The course was absolutely awesome, flat out everywhere. After starting a minute behind S1/Elite, I'd passed Roger Aiken and all the other S1's he'd left in his wake by halfway through my last lap, so I backed off a bit and rode it steady to the line, thinking that was all the S1's behind me. Turned out fellow XMTB'er Matt Adair was riding an absolute stormer and was in fact infront of Roger, so I only got caught up to 2nd S1 in the end. Fair play!

Ciclisport GP - East Tyrone - Top 10 somewhere

Check out how clean we are

Check out how clean we aren't

After being plagued with knee problems for the last two years, things finally came good and I was able to road race again. Previously, my knee would just blow up after about 90mins riding, so I could last for the 60mins'ish of a MTB race, but couldn't do any road racing, which was kind of crap to say the least! So after my last, and first open race being two years ago; at U16 level, I was going into this one pretty blind. I came out of it pretty blind too, as you can see, the weather was a bit of a disaster. My eyes are useless at the best of times, and I've only one pair of prescription sunnies and they're really, really dark, so I dumped them off early in the race and spent the next couple of hours squinting through Moneymore's finest road spray. After getting in a couple of breaks, Angus Fyffe went for one and I followed. We 2up'ed for about half a lap and then a group of 10 or so bridged across. Myself and Angus went for it again with a lap to go, and again were on our own for half a lap, but then were caught and the results were going to be between the 10 of us. Long story short, I spent most of the last 10mins on the front and then everybody rode round me at the line. Schooled.

Irish XC NPS Round 1 - Cong - 1st Junior

First round of the National XC Series, had been looking forward to this one for a while. I hadn't been looking forward to the 6hr drive to Cong so much, but the team haven't sorted out the private jets yet, so Matt Adair's Nissan Micra was the next best thing. After being sunny all week, the weekend came and the skies let it all out. Every last drop. What I'm sure would've been a class, fast track in the dry became the mess that you see above; with even some of the fire-roads unrideable, mental. Nonetheless, there was a race to be done, and if you're going to get muddy, you may aswell do it right. Spent 99% of the race sideways on dry tyres, but I guess everyone else spent 100% of the race sideways as I managed to win Juniors with 16mins to spare. Got up to 3rd S1 by the end of my race.

The new Giant has a throttle #givinghersome

Cong had no showers, but there was plenty of water around after the weekend's downpours.

Tour Of Ards - Newtownards - 2nd Junior
We rode round at 25mph for a couple of hours, then got closer to 30 as we neared the finish, and then I was over the line before I knew it! Had never seen the finish before, not even sure I've been to Newtownards before, so circumstances weren't ideal. Could tell we were coming near the finish when everything started getting super-fast. Was in the middle of what was left of the bunch, feeling good, then by the time I saw where the line was, it was too late to do anything, and that was that. Ended up as 2nd Junior and pretty close to the top of A3, so was pleasantly surprised! Nice sunny spin anyway!

Lakeland GP - Enniskillen - 2nd Overall
Here's a link to a report - http://www.stickybottle.com/races-results/conor-mcateer-david-montgomery-outwit-elites-to-share-spoils-at-lakeland-gp/ - told you those glasses were dark!

Davagh Enduro - 1st Junior, 2nd Overall

The new trails up at Davagh had just had the ribbons cut, so there was an Enduro race on to celebrate the grand opening. 5 timed 'downhill' stages, having to pedal from one stage to get to the next, so it wasn't suited to a DH bike, but probably wasn't all that suited to the XC race bike either. Ah well, that was all I had and it'd be good training for XC. Rattled round the course with a couple of mates; had a deadly day's craic and rode some super trails. After having a couple of mechanical issues, and what I think are the standard first time 'Enduro racer' issues (completely forgetting to check in at the timing poles at the end of the stage, riding straight through them, and then having to drop the bike and run back to check in) I was pretty stoked to come home with 1st Junior and 2nd Overall in the bag.

You're still here? Sweet. Thanks for reading. You're probably one of only a few who've made it this far, so for their sake, I'll keep the rest til tomorrow.

Coming up: 
British XC NPS Round 1 - Sherwood Pines
Irish XC NPS 2 - Fossa Wood, Killarney
Ulster XC Round 2 - Rostrevor
Hugo Loughran GP - Coalisland
Rostrevor Gravity Enduro
Scottish XC Round 2 - Cathkin Braes
Ras Loughguile


Big thanks to the XMTB Development Squad and our sponsors for all the help so far -
McConvey Cycles,
Giant,
Specialized,
Torq,
Fenwicks,
Minoura
and Tifosi.

Cheers, Monty

2013 Update

Howwya? Welcome to the new and improved blog.
Since 2013 is gonna be deadly, I thought I'd have to update the blog a little to get it up to speed. Have yourself a look round there, some new pages up across the top there if you're interested.

Otherwise, I've nothing much to say here, I'll have a real blog post for you's very soon.
I had even begun to write one two weeks ago, it was an account of how good Winter had been; that last year's injuries were all gone and training was going great...
Then I tore something in my calf while racing the next day.
Bummer.
That's why I don't generally post about training; always running the risk that you'll say something's going well one day and the next day it'll be bust!

Thankfully the calf is back in business and all systems are go again. 3 weeks to the first round of the British NPS at Sherwood Pines, kind of excited to say the least.

That's all for now, keep an eye, I'll have something more substantial up soon.

Monty, out.