UXC 2 - Ballykelly Forest

Coming into this race I was pretty worried about my back to say the least. Having to pull out of a race last weekend wasn't fun.

After upping my core training and almost a month of only riding the mtb, with some xc race simulation sessions, I had really thought that everything was a-ok and I was 'race ready'; back concerns hadn't even crossed my mind! Ideally I would've got at least one XC race done before the 1st British round, but with a lack of transport this proved impossible, so I did what I could and headed down to Essex with best intentions... and ended up in the back of an ambulance for about an hour after my race with crippling back pain. With one lap to go.

Everyone needs more purple skinsuit in their life, whether they know it or not.

Fast forward 6 days, a couple of trains, a plane and a country, I was on the start line of the Beggs & McGreevy Memorial road race in Dromore. I'd just picked up a Cervelo from Lakeland bikes earlier in the week, so had been focussed on getting it set up and ensuring it was 100% before my first road race of the season, not leaving me any time to try and figure out the cause of the back problems on the mtb. Fortunately all was grand on Saturday, back wasn't under much stress on the roady, and managed to sprint to 6th from an 80 man starting field. Was happy enough with that after some major tactical struggles in the race and pretty much towing everyone round the last lap while trying to get away #onemanband

Sunday morning 8am. Well. 8.06am to be specific; 'every second counts' as Lance said, my alarm went off and another day's push bike pedalling began. The second round of the Ulster XC series was being held at Ballykelly Forest, which I'd raced last year and was a brilliant course, so was super keen to do this year. Matt Adair was kind enough to give me a lift, and the Fiesta was lowered about 5 inches and on the road sometime around 9.

With a decent bit of water falling out of the sky this last few days, and more on Sunday morning as we drove up, things were pretty wet in practice. There's a steep old chute off a fireroad in Ballykelly, bit like the big dipper at Barry's #getherdipped.

Picture from last year - like I said it was pretty muddy this year. But after riding it multiple times in my race last year I thought it should be grand. Had a quick glance at it to make sure there were no surprises, and then dropped in. The bike was steering itself down it, and I had my head up, looking where I wanted to go; in control as much I could be given I was going down a massive muddy slide on 2 wheels. The bike started going a bit to the left, when I wanted to be a bit more right due to a bit of a hole and a tree; good line choice generally doesn't involve riding into these things. Nonetheless, I was still going in the general direction I intended, and the dip looked rideable if I missed the tree, and I was kind of running out of other options.

Into the dip and out of it on my face about 10ft down the track. Nice. WTF happened there?

Go back to fetch my bike and see this. Flat tyre ffs.

Walked back as many kids (and Barry Kellett) laughed and pointed. Them and their 16" bulletproof wheels. Buggers. Due to the Fiesta being pretty packed with our 2 bikes and kit, I hadn't taken spare wheels... and had forgotten my spoke key, of all days eh!

Massive thanks to Ciaran O'Hagan for the lend of his spare for the race. Hero!

Didn't get time to warm up, so some jumping around on the line had to do.

The start was epic. Albeit not in the traditional sense. With 5 laps to go, nobody was in that much of a rush,so myself and Matt Adair came to the front for a chat. Due to somemore crashes on the chute(which was the first bit of trail after the start fireroad), it was closed for the race, and we were sent down the B-line instead. After realising that neither of us had ridden the B-line in practice, we had a quick ask round to see if anyone else had; but no-one came forward. Adair went first and I followed... not quite as steep as the A line, but more twisty and technical, and still very wet. All was good until he went through 2 trees that my super wide bars were never going to manage, and being right on his tail there were no other lines left. I tried to slow down, but the tree got there first, and for the second time of the day I was getting a good Ballykelly soil sample. Straight over the bars, with a stem to the kneecap and bars to the groin. Probably should've been a gymnast.

Back up and going, turned out my front brake and shifter had twisted round so could no longer reach them; not ideal when trying to catch up to Matt again! A quick stop to knock them into place and relative composure was regained. As I noticed a decent slap of blood on my arm. ffs #notpro.

Caught up to Matt and we resumed our chat. Graham Boyd wasn't far behind us in 3rd, so coming into lap 2 I was keen to push on a bit. Not before falling off down the B-line again though. Re-caught Matt and then

attacked a little while later.

And that was that really. Got a good gap, rode steady and smooth; in the muddy conditions I just tried not to make any mistakes rather than go fast as such. Passed poor old Matt again on lap 4, as he'd punctured and was at the side of the trail. Knew at that stage that Graham wasn't close, and with Matt out I really just had to finish... with my cleat in my left shoe loosening itself from mid-lap 2, and my knee starting to seize up after my earlier crash, this wasn't quite as simple as it should've been. #360degreepedalengagement.

Super steep wet climb round the back of the course. Tried to hop off and run up it as I had done in previous laps. Foot just turned on pedal rather than unclipping. Cue standard slow motion clipless pedal rookie capsize. Lay in the mud for a while feeling sorry for myself and trying to get my foot out of the pedal. Finally got unclipped and half heartedly ran up the hill on my increasingly painful knee.

With about 1/2 lap to go I just focussed on trying to not let the cleat loosen too much more, or fall over, or have my knee explode, and eventually made it to the finishing straight, to freewheel down to the line to victory in my first Elite race. Not quite as I had planned, but nice to be fit enough to have it all go wrong and still win by 5mins. Train hard race easy or something :)

trying to look like this

nailed it*

Thanks to Graham McIntyre for doing my bottles. And to mother and father for feeding and watering me while I'm home for the month!

Would've liked to race on the road again this weekend in preparation for the 3 day stage race, Ras Mumhan over Easter weekend, but will probably have to let this knee and groin recover as they're not in great shape. 

Til then, (well, actually, til I get round to finishing off last week's 1st British XC round race report and uploading it)    

Monty :)

*sarcasm. lots of it.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Here Goes..

Follow @DaveMont

It's been too long. I'm completely at fault, I know, and for that I apologise *insert excuse*.
I've found myself heading onto this Blog somedays when slightly bored*, to find no changes. Then it sort of strikes me that it couldn't be updated, because it's me that updates it.. Adur. So here I am, here's an update, ka-boom. Please feel free to pop round and personally give me a kick up the ass if my next update takes this long.

*but not properly bored because only boring people get bored..

I have many stories for you to be honest, so many that I'd need a proper book to fit them all in, I guess this is the problem with no posts within the last month! I'm sorry, ok! Here are some photos and short stories anyway -

This is a photo of Rob Deegan upon a boat. Good times. This was down at the Avon Ri Hotel down in Blessington at an U23/Junior development camp. Had a fairly good time at this, little run on the Saturday, followed by circuits, nutrition talk, ride over to hotel, dinner, training talk. Then came general tippin' the place with Matt Adair and Rob Deegan, general running about the grounds of the hotel place in pitch darkness, active recovery, yeh? Found a zipline, lake with a pier, yachts, canoes, a bar, a playpark etcc. Playpark was a fabulous idea until we bailed down the slides and ended up with soaking bottoms for the rest of the night. Sunday started with porridge for breakfast, this did nothing but reinforce my strong dislike of porridge and leave me feeling pretty dodgy for the rest of the morning, but thankfully the rest of the day was pretty easy going so I'd nothing to worry about... I wish. The next part of the day consisted of a 3hr road spin. Bare in mind at this stage I have not begun any training whatsoever as I'm trying to get these injuries out of the way first.'Fair enough', I thought, a 3hr zone 2 ride should just about leave me standing afterwards. About 20mins into the ride, we're going about 25mph and I realise this is going to be no easy spin. It only got worse, worse and worse after this. So I tried having a little fun. We were doing hill intervals on a hill with those big old 10ft long speedbumps, so coming back down the hill I was grabbing as much air as possible. Banter was being had, until about the 3rd time I came down the hill, you know how it is, you can't resist descending a little faster every time, trying to get as much air as possible.. fabulous idea this was, right up until I was cruising through the air, looking down and seeing the backside of the speedramp passing by under me. Then the nose starting dipping and I really started getting scared. Ended up overjumping one of the babies by a good couple of feet. Flat landing the road bike after being in the air for over 10ft, not good by any stretch of the imagination. Must practise road bike scrubbing. Or not trying to jump in the first place... there's an idea! But yes, on with the torture that was the 3hr spin. We were pedalling at 24mph into a headwind on an incline at one stage? Well, I say 'we', by this I mean everybody else, as I just had to sandbag for the last hour. Someday I shall post on the concept of sandbagging, as it really isn't as easy going as it appears! It was a strange experience for the last hour of the ride. My legs should have been absolutely screaming their little heart out at me, but it was raining heavily, about 1 degree centigrade(which is about -50 when riding at 20mph into a headwind) and pretty windy. So rather than being able to feel my legs burning, I couldn't feel them at all, and please believe me, that feeling was no more desirable. Overall a pretty terrible ride, but it was worth it to hear the training talks and general craic that was had in the hotel. Oh, and to see this class statue on the right. Please leave a comment with your ideas of what on earth the kid is doing..

As you can see, this is not a good situation to be in. For any of you non-bikers out there, the deelybopper sticking out from the handlebars is in fact my gear cable: it should not be there. Thankfully I've always wanted to own a singlespeed bike, so I wasn't really that annoyed, I just would've rather have had the choice of deciding to buy a singlespeed bike, than being landed with a snapped gear cable 10miles from home!! Luckily, I was about 3miles from a local hardware store at this stage so with the mech stuck in the heaviest gear and some major hills to get over, I gave her stacks. Got to the hardware store and borrowed a screwdriver and rammed the limiter screw on the mech in until the bike was fixed in 3rd gear. Then continued to do about 40miles in 3rd gear.
Suddenly I seem to have gone off the idea of a singlespeed..

Crusing along the road down to Scarva, thought I'd head out Portadown direction on the Towpath. Turns out the towpath was a river.. Even better!! Made a good 3 attempts at cycling through this, but it was just getting ridiculous, it just kept getting
deeper and deeper. Thankfully there was a bit of wind on my back, so when it got so deep that I couldn't pedal without getting a footful of water, I was able to just keep the pedals level and the wind blew me along. But then the water started creeping up to the shoes even when the pedals were level, mostly due to the waves that were forming because of the wind! So with the bike's best interests in mind, I wasn't fond on getting the bottom bracket submerged, we turned back. Turning was much easier said than done, the towpath is only about 6ft wide at the best of times, and there's proper river on either side, but when path is covered by river, you can't see where the edges of the path are, and trying to manoeuvre a road bike through 180 degrees without being able to turn the cranks because of the water, while being blown to bits by the wind, is really quite an experience. I see a new sport evolving? haha. Get the speedos out.


In this photo(apologies for the quality, or lack of it) you'll spot a Jaffa Cake in the most unusual of places. How it managed to end up there, I know not. The other day I was just about to start a turbo session, but was a little peckish. Headed up to the kitchen and there was a glorious box of Jaffa Cakes in the top drawer. Mmmm. I took two, ate one, and set the other one ontop of the headset while I put my shoes on. Absolutely psyched for Jaffa Cake no.2 after eating the first one, looking forward to jumping on the bike and getting it and getting stuck into a good turbo session.. Head over to the bike, could Jaffa Cake no.2 be seen? Defffinitely not. Spent the next 10mins looking for the little piece of Jaffa joy, looking in every corner of the room, under every box and various other junk scattered around the room, telling myself 'it couldn't have rolled this far', but not being one to give up, searching on anyway. Finally, I think, 'screw it, I'll make do with no Jaffa Cake'. Hop onto the bike, look down, and the very bugger itself is sitting pretty balancing between the gear cable and the frame. Can you believe that? Losing Jaffa Cakes #firstworldproblems..

Getting into the Christmas spirit with pro Vitus rider Gareth Mckee, good times. In poundland waiting for mother one day and spotted a load of Christmassy hats, normally I wouldn't be one to spend a penny, but for the sake of putting a few smiles on peoples faces out round the roads with a Santa hat on my helmet, I got myself the biggest looking hat I could find. A bit of insulating tape, some duck tape and a bit of Blue Peter magic and I had myself a new helmet..

I got a laptop for Christmas, cheers Mother and Father. Luckily for you brilliant readers, this, in theory means more updates(Ohhh goody, I know). Mum got a camera that takes HD Video too, so sooner or later I'll get a video up, once my legs begin to work again. Regarding the lack of legs situation, it was getting better, with 45 odd hours of rehab work ontop of a similar amount of swimming and zone 1 cycling I was really giving my legs no excuses to get back into working order. Unfortunately all my muscles are still stupendously tight, and my knees are still fairly banjaxed. But all is better, if only slightly, than October, progress is progress, and we like progress :)

This photo has nothing to do with bicycles, other than you've found it here, on a bicycle Blog. I was just waiting for me Ma the other day, and saw this guy bating it down the main street in this West Coast Customs special. Absolute boss beyond measure. Ridin' solo. Pretty sure that's not legal, but who's gonna catch him when he's upon a powerhouse of a steed like that!

For now, that's all. Phew, says you. If you come back tomorrow there'll be something new though, I promise. Monty, out.