Irish XC NPS 1 - Slade Valley, Saggart, Dublin

Home from uni for Easter for pretty much all of April. Deadly!

Week/weekend plans:
Race. Train. Race. Train. Race. Train. Race. Recover. Smash BXC 2 at the start of May.
Really looking forward to some good time at home with real food and real mtb trails.

How it actually went:
Race first weekend, sustain injury during race. Can't ride for 2 weeks. Another week with only being able to ride every other day (letting the knee swelling go down again in-between), wondering if I could maybe still ride the 1st NPS before I went back to Loughborough. Missing my first stage race and multiple other deadly days bicycle riding. Absolute bummer.
Probably the 2 sunniest weeks of the year and I was stuck in the house. Thank me at any stage you wish.

So 3rd time back on the bike in 3 weeks: in Mary Peters on Thursday trying to get some race-pace MTB efforts done to test the old body out, seeing if I could chance NPS 1 on Sunday... all was going relatively well. Had planned 2 timed laps at the end, nailed the first one, was 6secs up 6mins into the second one... 23mph* off a fireroad into a little twisty bit of trail. Mary Peters is notorious for tight trees and trail furniture in dubious places, so I was being pretty cautious. Coming around a left hander with a tree on the apex, so running a little wide to the right, my front wheel clipped a log lying on the ground. Yes; after missing all the bloody trees and massive rocks I clip a bit of a dead tree lying randomly on the ground.

Straight over the bars. Perfect parabola. 23mph to 0 in less than a second using mostly my head. Flipping massive crash. Land a bit sideways on my head and my back twists and knocks all the wind out of me. HUUUHHH HUHHHH. You know those winded moans. Thought I'd done proper damage to my back (already in not so great condition if you remember back to BXC 1) so just lay there for a while wondering if I indeed was the biggest goober on the planet right now.
After some old lady had heard my moaning and came over to check up on me I finally got up off the ground to check the rest of the body and bike. Right knee also not great, big impact to quad, shin, shoulder fecked, big old gash in my seatpost and some rips in my grips.
Race prep: nailed it.



Friday came about. Couldn't really move my neck. Couldn't really move my back. Both knees now sore.
Saturday came about. Even less ROM in my neck. Back feeling a little better though. Feck it it'll all loosen up in the race..

At least the bike was in reasonable shape. It had already cost me enough this month! Cyclofudge buddy Luke Ireland of Belfast Bike Repair had been rebuilding my front wheel after the Ballykelly disaster and offered me a lift down to Slade Valley.

We got there in reasonable time and set out for a practice lap. I had a nice slick tyre on the front and semi slick on the back. It'd been sunny for the last month, I refused to believe the photos that IMBRC (race organisers) had put up the day before of lots of rain. Sure enough, it was in fact a bit wet. Masses of slippery roots upwards and downwards with wet dirt between. Sure enough, we had no tyre levers between us and the tyres weren't coming off without them. Ah sure it'll be grand.

Race was to start at 2 so about 1.45pm we headed up to the START/finish. I went for a quick portaloo visit, then chatted a while longer; waiting for the prize presentation for the earlier races to finish and our race to start. Or so I thought.
The prize presentation was coming to a close, and it was still pretty much only myself and Luke standing on the line. A little confused, I went for a look and spotted some people further down the fireroad... and as I got closer realised that it was everyone. All 160 odd entrants of the afternoon race lined up. Well, 160 - 2. Fudddge.

In rows of 3 that's about 53 rows. "Sorry. Can I get through. Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry. Can I squeeze past there. Sorry." for what seemed like an eternity before I finally found the rear end of S1. And about 10secs after I'd managed to squeeze in, Commissaire Martin Grimley told us we'd be starting in 30secs. Nice. #ontime

The race got off to a pretty hectic start. With Robin Seymour and Gareth Mckee, the two main men, on the front row, I had some serious ground to make and wanted to get it done quick. Every second counts when up against riders of that quality. Thankfully there was a decent bit of fireroad at the start and I was within reach of the top 5 before long after starting at the back of the massive 30+ man elite field. After a bit of a chuckle as I looked up and saw 2 time Olympian, >15 time Irish XC champion Seymour on me mate Barry Kellett's wheel, I was able to relax a bit and settle in. Mckee was away like a rocket but everyone else was riding quite steady.

After a bit of a mishap coming through the start/finish, I'd a bit of chasing to do again to get back to Seymour and Kellett. Onto Seymour's wheel, off the fireroad into some singletrack. Accidentally clipped out of my light weight not suitable for slippy conditions fudger pedals and couldn't for the life of me get clipped back in. Seymour = gone. Back out onto the fireroad, caught up to him again, but then ended up losing the pedal again and he was gone for good this time. Barry Kellett came past, and Graham Boyd wasn't far behind. At this stage my head was an absolute mess as I was about 2mins behind where I wanted to be. This led to some mental first class Fred moments, going straight on in corners when I must've had my eyes closed or something; completely off track and having to find my way back, sliding out on roots, more clipping out, realising how much my back wasn't 'loosening up'.

Matt Slattery came by, Graham came by, my head went by, I was left on my own in 6th re-evaluating life. Finally realised trying to go fast wasn't exactly working, so went for the 'just keep moving forward' alternative. At this stage I was just gonna be happy if I finished.

I ended up back with Graham, and stuck with him as he rode back to Matt and Barry. Although my back was completely fecked, knee was starting to get a bit sore, and arms were cramping from trying to pull brakes that weren't in the right place from earlier tumbles, Barry was making moves and I wasn't for letting him away when I'd made it this far!

Barry and I got away, and although we got stuck behind some pretty ignorant traffic in some of the singletrack, allowing Graham to catch us again, I was pretty sure the race for 3rd was going to be between us two.
On the penultimate climb Barry launched an attack. This was into the massively rooty 'rabbit ride' climb that I'd been struggling with all day on me slicks, and he got a bit of a gap, but back onto the fireroad, onto the last climb now, I came back alongside him. With only a big descent left to the finish, I made my move and got a gap into the descent, then attacked it to make some more ground. Then got stuck behind some S3 traffic, but thankfully like the majority of them, he politely allowed me through when he'd the chance, and fortunately Barry wasn't close enough behind to get through aswell.
Into the final couple of turns now and I could see Barry was a safe distance behind, so with some more S3s up ahead I wasn't going to get any further. Just stayed upright and made the finish.

As it turned out holeshot-Mckee was only 20secs ahead of me after all that! With Seymour just under 3mins away over the 1h 50min race. Decent enough day out after probably the worst 3 weeks 'training' possible.

Thanks to IMBRC for some brilliant work on the track. It didn't look much different from the 1st lap to the 5th after what, over 500 individual laps? Much appreciated by my slick tyres and questionable line choices.

After that it was back home for dinner and then to the overnight ferry to Liverpool and driving back to Loughborough.
An astoundingly crap Easter all in all, but excuses don't count, results do. Back to trying to get ontop of these injuries and save my season!

Thanks to Graham McIntyre for flawless bottle hand-ups!

Monty, out.

(Thanks to Sean Rowe and Action Pictures Ireland for the photos)

*strava official

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.