National Championships 2014 - Fossa Wood, Killarney

The boat was late. Almost 45mins. Somebody tell me how an 8hr boat can be late? Surely you could speed it up like 0.5mph or something to get there on time? After being 48hrs late myself, I didn't exactly have time to throw away, this wasn't great.

Nonetheless, when we finally got docked, opening the door into Norn' Irish air was a pretty dreamy feeling after the last 2 days. Fortunately, the Leon started, and I was finally off on the last leg of my journey, into a beautiful Belfast sunset. Seeing a sunrise and sunset in the same day in the middle of Summer isn't something I'd want to be at all to regularly though! Big fan of sleep!

Home!

I knew Sunday's National Champs were in Killarney. I knew Killarney was down south, but til this point (Thursday night, 22:30, leaving in 9hrs) I hadn't checked how far down South it was. I kind of guessed it wouldn't be pleasant news, so was in no rush to find out, but eventually I thought I better check. I took a deep breath and loaded Google maps up on Drumaghadone Rd's finest 0.5mb/sec broadband. About a 5hr drive. Savage -ly horrific.

Thankfully Cameron McIntyre's dad, Graham had offered to give me a lift, not having to drive down myself was epic! We arrived on Friday afternoon at about 1.30pm and met up with James & Simon Curry who were already there to get a tour of the course.

Man. Sherwood Pines it was not! My first lap was an absolute shambles. Coming from racing Sherwood Pines the week before; 14mph avg. proper flat out grassy field, no hills so no descents kind of stuff, I'd completely forgotten how to ride a bike on Irish uppy-downy tight twisty technical stuff... so I just sat around and complained about my tyre choice. :)

In all fairness though, I had a Bontrager 29-0 on the front and Schwalbe Thunderburt on the back. And it was a little damp.

Anyway, lap 2 was better once I roughly knew what to expect, but we decided that was plenty and finished up for the day. I went off and got my Racing Ralph on the front for Saturday's practice.

Things had dried up on Saturday, and after a bit of a lie in and a nice late breakfast I headed out on course for some more practice. I knew I'd plenty of time, so just tried to treat it like a DH race from the good old days and take it bit by bit, finding the 'best' lines and riding them on repeat til I couldn't do them wrong. Whether they were the best lines or not I don't really know. Gareth Mckee could have probably came down and taken one look around and knocked about 30seconds off a lap, but I was content; just knowing where I'm going is half the battle and would hopefully prevent me doing stupid stuff mid-race.

Myself and Matt Adair had taken a run down to Lidl on Friday night to get some food for the weekend. I'd had my hands on the pasta, the usual cyclist go-to for getting the carbs in, but then noticed that I could get twice the amount of rice for the same price. So 1kg of rice I bought, for about £1.50, and set myself the challenge of trying to get through a family's feeding for a week, in 2 days. Sure why not have 750g carbs in ya. So back from Saturday practice, it was rice time... as was basically every time other than sleep time and bike riding time.

Some heavy rain came early Saturday evening, and this would effect the course massively. I didn't reckon it would be any disadvantage to me as I can handle a bicycle ok, but sunshine & no muddy bikes, kit or eyes is always welcome! There were some support races on on Saturday evening, and the rain had just about stopped again, so I took a dander up to check the state of the course and see how messy bikes were getting. Sure enough it was pretty darn muddy! Bikes and riders coming back plastered in mud. Hopefully the rain would stay away, and the ridiculous heat would come in useful to dry the place out a bit... or everyone who'd done their practice on Saturday afternoon on dusty trails in bright sunshine would be a bit nervous on the start!

Sunday morning rice-time came, so I got that down me and headed up to the course to see what was happening. Things had dried out well overnight, and with our race not until 2pm and no rain forecast, conditions looked like they were going to be pretty similar to Saturday afternoon. 

But first, more rice. Lol. Staying at the hostel just a 2min walk from the course made life very easy.

I pulled the fine purple skinsuit on, and got on the bike for a bit of a warmup around 1.30, and soon enough we were being called to the line for gridding. With not doing many Irish NPS rounds this year I was 2nd last on the grid... but with 6 starters and 5 people per row, we managed to fit in all 6 so all was good for everyone. In fact Matt, who was gridded #1, was the furthest from the first corner, I didn't quite understand that one, but I was 2nd closest, so didn't really mind!

Man every time I write a blog I get to this stage and try to remember what was used to start the race. Whistle? Gun? Shout?.. every time I can't remember. I'll leave that to your imagination, rubber duck or something. Anyway, the race was underway. I got clipped in, but not before Sean Feeney and Gavin O'Connell were halfway up the field already. Got chasing and was a comfortable 3rd through the first few downhill corners. The course then looped through the field a bit so I was able to get around everybody on the next uphill.

A good start was crucial as once out of the field it was into tight twisty singletrack with no passing places, you'd be stuck there basically til the course came back into the field again halfway through the lap. 

Once out front, I pushed on, not flat out, but at good pace to try and get the gap to 2nd place growing as rapidly as possible. Out of sight out of mind 'n all that. As U23, we'd started off 1min 20 behind the elites, so by the end of the first lap I was already about halfway through the elite field and had over 1min gap to 2nd place U23. Good times! Kept the pace up, trying to pick off all the elites. Graham Boyd, in 4th was next, then had a bit of a boring lap out on my own, but then caught sight of Sean Prendiville and Ray O'Shaunassey battling it out for 2nd & 3rd elite spot and got chasing. Lost a little time on this lap (4/5) getting held up behind back markers on such a tight track, but imagined I had a good lead in the U23 so tried to give people a bit of time to get out of the road.

Got by Sean & Ray towards the end of lap 4, then it was the final lap, 1st U23 and only 19 times National XC Champion Robin Seymour up ahead in the elite race. Sean stuck with me for the first half of the lap, so it was pretty nice to have someone on my tail to keep me pushing on. Coming through the field halfway through the lap I heard Martin Grimley over on the speakers at the start/finish saying that Matt Adair (2nd U23) was just coming through, so I knew I had half a lap - a good 9mins advantage by this stage - this was a pretty nice feeling to say the least! All was left was to cross the line.

As I came into the field for the final time, I'd done it. No more roots or U-turns to navigate, no more drops or jumps, just a ride up a grass hill and turn into the finish straight. STOKED.

U23 Irish XC Champion by almost 10mins, Irish champ for the 4th year in a row, and 35secs faster over the 5 laps than Elite Champ Robin Seymour. Job's a good'un!

Was only left with about 100g of rice in the end.

Massive thanks to Graham McIntyre for the lift and doing my bottles.

Thanks to Sean Rowe for the use of his great photos!

Next up I'll be travelling back over to England for the last British XC round mid August. With 40 UCI points from the champs I'll hopefully get a more reasonable gridding position and should be able to get a decent race done!

Had planned to stay on in England for Uni in October. But now that I'm in Ireland I realise that another 2 months in England is a bloody long time... so might just come back here after BXC 5, which would allow me to do the Ulster XC Champs at the fantastic venue of Castlewellan. If finances allow!

Monty, out.

Car-nage

As I sit on the Stena Merseyside; or whatever she’s called; we’re not on best terms, I guess I could fit a blog post into the 8hr sailing while I wait for thismorning’s Strava file to upload on the boat’s out of this world WiFi. As in, the satellite must be lost. How often does it take longer to upload the ride than actually do the ride? Think I could get a world first? 30mins in. 10miles in. The race is on.

Yes. 20mph. On me mtb. Years of training culminating in a race to my car. Unfortunately within the first 30mins I’d already taken a wrong turn, or rather not taken the turn at all. It’s like Loughborough just couldn’t bear me leaving. But alas, I was up for a fight, foggy dual carriageway at 5am or not, I’ll just keep going straight and see what happens. Turning back kills ego. Murder is best avoided.

Darn, the ride is uploaded. Beaten. Such has been the pattern for the last 2 days. Get a boat home. Ride some bikes. Enjoy some Northern Irish Summer... or not. Why would the life of Mont ever be that simple? Haha. I was down at the first hurdle. After a quick run into Loughborough to pick up some boxes from Alice, it was home, James, home; for all of 2 miles before one of the Mighty Leon’s dials died, and red lights started flashing. I say the ‘Mighty Leon’, because until it hit English air, we’d owned it for 4 years and it had given no trouble whatsoever. You potentially have to see Mum’s gear changes (or lack thereof) for yourself to understand the achievement of the little motor. Mum & Dad were awesome enough to let myself and sister Alice bring it to Loughborough, so I drove it over at Easter.

And within 2 weeks we had problems, Houston. Dead battery, stuck on a layby on the main road into Loughborough. Great. Safe spot. Tried jumping it, unfortunately this didn’t work. Firmly in battery heaven. Better still, in the process of attempted jumping, bumping, and everything else we could think of, we’d opened the passenger door. Harmless, you’d assume? Ass; u, me. Only the driver door has an outside lock, everything else is electric. Electrics require batteries. Situation update: dead battery, stuck on a layby on the main road into Loughborough, passenger door unlocked, about 10.30pm.

It was bound to get broken into. But at least it wouldn’t be going far without a battery. I visualized Christmas coming early to some Leon fancying opportunist, and then them trying to start it and nothing happening. Someone to share the feels with at least.

As always, if all else fails; cable ties and duct tape. Wrapped around the passenger seat headrest down to the door handle, you’d have to rip the door panel off to open it any more than a centimetre. A couple of bike locks and a duvet cover to cover the DIY door lock and I headed to bed at about 1am with all body parts crossed. This is the first time my parents will hear this. Haha. You chose to read it.

Fort Knox

Somehow it didn’t get broken into, although one night when I went up to check, the road-side chip portakabin thing right beside had been. Butt clenching times. Eventually was able to get a new battery up to it and fitted, and we were Mighty again. Then it needed MOT’d and taxed, In the middle of exams too. Try taxing a NI registered car in England. Or don’t; much better better idea! Trying to get a MOT with no documents was also an ‘experience’. And then it failed MOT. Rear left brake caliper sticking. Bam, more money, less mighty.

For a while we were all good again and I treated it to a few nice trips to races.
Had it died on the way to a race, this obviously wouldn’t be great, but having to miss a race wasn’t really the end of the world. Nah, it would have to die on my way home for Summer, driving to the boat. This was much closer to the world ending. In fact, it kind of did. 48hrs have passed and I’m still where I should’ve been 48hrs ago. Time travel for dummies. Patented.

As I came to the Loughborough/M1 roundabout, about 100m after passing the spot where the battery died, the dial with the funny thermometer looking thing dropped to the bottom, and red lights started flashing. Mothertrucker. With my boat leaving in 2h 30 and a 2h 20 drive ahead, my options were severely limited. Nonetheless, I did a lap of the roundabout and pulled over to have a quick look under the bonnet. Nothing was missing, nothing was on fire, and nothing smelled; nothing was wrong. Simples.

Boat leaving in 2h 20. 2h 20 drive ahead. Sounding more like a Monty day out already. Nothing the Mighty Leon can’t handle, eh.

You’d never realise how busy the A50 outside Blythe Bridge is until you exit the roundabout and your car loses power. But at that point, it will hit you... certainly figuratively, and probably literally. Carrying about 30mph through the roundabout, so I’m not going to get very far on zero power. And there’s no hard shoulder or even grass verge. Faaaack. Fasten your seatbelts.

As I tried to put my foot through the clutch to keep rolling, with massive lorries thundering around me, it was only a matter of time before something came out of the roundabout and inserted itself in my rear end. Clench. But fortunately for me, and in an unfortunate anti-climax for you, an entrance came into sight and managed to roll halfway into it. With a bit of a push I was safe for the time being. Boat leaving in 1h 10, 1h drive, car not starting... Hmmm. Starting to look like a bit more than the Leon can handle.

Pull out the HTC fresh from the 1900’s, but it’s actually semi working today for a change: mild relief. Google > “What to do when your car breaks down”. Search results: contact your breakdown cover provider. The Mighty Leon has never broken down (you know, ignoring the above mishaps..), why would I have that? . “What to do when your car breaks down no breakdown cover” . Search results: you’re fecked; to summarize. A call to Dad just to confirm that we definitely had no breakdown cover... only Mum & Dad are on holidays in goodness knows where. Poland or something the last time I heard. No dial tone to Dad’s phone. Haha. Gooood.

The little HTC has lost about 25% battery in the excitement, not ideal. Hang in there bud. Google maps > “breakdown recovery”. Ok, somewhere 2.8miles away. Wait, where the fudge am I? More Google mapping. Other apps are available. A50, outside Blythe Bridge. “Hey mister, I’ve just broken down, any chance you could come out and take a look?”. “Busy.” ”We don’t do recovery.” “Maybe in a few hours.” “We only do commercial recovery.”, F-A-B. Somewhere 7 miles away could come out for £80. 7 miles. 15mins. Boat leaving in 50mins, 1hr drive.

Down and out.

Time for some breakfast.

A sensory evaluation of what lay under the bonnet revealed too much heat, too much smell, and after a bit more looking; the realisation that there was a container type thing with the same symbol as the dead dash gauge, lying empty, with a ‘MIN’ marking about halfway; nothing more than some gritty residue lying at the bottom. ‘G12 only’it said. Google > G12 = Coolant. Bugger, thought so.

Then Dad rang back. I went for it, “Soz to disturb your holiday, but bad news..”.

Google > Where to buy G12 coolant. There was a Halfords 7 miles away. Always good to have a bike in the car when feceas meets fan. But stuck on a ridiculously busy dual carriageway, with lorries often coming past side by side in both lanes, I was somewhat apprehensive. Probably better to have breakdown cover.
More Google mapping showed if I went the opposite direction I could maybe get onto some back roads quite quickly. What other options did I have? Bike out of car and assembled, Garmin primed to record my fate.

Just about got crossed the carriageway, and got headed the other direction in search of some rideable roads. Coming into Blythe Bridge Dad rings again. Stopped in a filling station forecourt. He was talking to a mechanic back home and I don’t need any magic G12 jungle juice; she’ll run with water - but the coolant shouldn’t just have disappeared. Savage. Have 3L of water in the car, balls was I for buying any on the boat, will go back and throw that in and see what happens.

First up, 2L from an old milk bottle. Straight through, none of it staying in the reservoir. The mechanic did say it could take 5L, so maybe she just needs some more. 600ml water bottle. Straight through. Nah, this couldn’t be right. Indeed a closer look in the engine revealed it pissing right back out again. Boat sailed. Cute.

Updated father. What next? It looked like the balance had finally tipped in Mr ‘pick your car up for £80’s favour. Moneyyyyy.
But then I remembered that the fuel station forecourt I’d stopped in earlier had a sign for a MOT garage up on its side. Worth a try! 

“Hey mister, I’ve just broken down, any chance you could come out and take a look?”. After some more explaining I think he understood how non-existent my other options were and took pity. He didn’t have a recovery vehicle, but said he’d a van at home and he might be able to tow it in, but he’d brought the car into work today so would have to go home to get the van so it would take an hour or two. With the night’s boat not leaving to 22.30, I had time to spare...and well, no alternatives!

On Monday evening, in the last 10mins before the uni library closed, when I was supposed to be meeting Alice to pick up some stuff, amongst a million other ‘need to get out of the way before I go home tomorrow’ jobs, I’d nipped in and grabbed a few books. This proved a worthwhile excursion, because even after 6hrs of sitting around John Rice Motors, the less than mighty Leon was no closer to going anywhere. Evening boat wasn’t looing promising.

The water pump had died, blowing some seals in the engine cooling system, so all the coolant was back on Loughborough tarmac while the engine had been overheating the whole 90mins to her final resting place. Not good. Water pump and timing belt needing replaced, engine potentially damaged from overheating.
Moneyyyy.

Anyway, it wasn’t going to be finished within the day. So I headed home. The wrong home. Loughborough home. FFS. Fortunately there was a nearby train station, so was able to get back to Loughborough relatively handy. Made it through the door at 6.45. Exactly 12hrs after leaving. Should’ve arrived in me proper home in Banbridge at a similar time. Sat down to binge on ice-cream and watch Le Tour highlights to try and find some form of respite.

It was a rest day.

Hahaha. Buggers.

trying to get home. throwing money at trains

Day 2 involved more ice cream and waiting for the phone to ring to see if the water pump had cured it, or if the engine was screwed also. The call came and it seemed that the engine was ok. Which was good to say the least.

The morning boat left at 1030, so I guessed that I would just about be able to make it if I picked the car up at opening at 0900 the morning of Day 3. Then I remembered you have to be there an hour before sailing. Balllls. Rang John to see if the car would be ready to get Day 2 evening boat(+£70!). But it turned out he got to work at 0730 and opened at 0800. Hero!

It couldn’t be that easy though. There were no trains over before 0920.

4am alarm. 4.30am depart upon my one remaining bicycle, the mtb (gathered the willpower to go and do some intervals last night on the road bike. Then at 135rpm, 43mph, in bottom sprocket, chain jumps into frame and rips mech & hanger off. Nice. Much luck), 55miles out to the garage to pick up the car at 7.30-8am and try and make the 9.30 am boat.

Arrived at 9.45 after crazy traffic. Got a bit of a scolding but they let me on. 

And here I am +2300 words -£500 odd quid.
Fingers crossed we get the Leon off the boat in the Belfast air.

Off to stretch my legs but a report of British XC Rd 5 at Sherwood pines Sunday past may be on its way before the boat docks.

Next up is National Champs in Killarney on Sunday. Moar travel! Had a real solid race last weekend though so it should go well! (if I make it!)

Monty, out

(sitrep: made it to Killarney. Yeo! Only getting this posted now. Had all of 11hrs in my house before having to get on the road again!)