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.

Irish National XCO Championships 2012 - Djouce Wood - Sunday

Breakfast time at 8am began with a bowl of fruit, it'd be rude not to. Following that was a bowl of cereal for the same reasons. Then we were presented with the real menu, and it was only politeness to order a ham, cheese and tomato omelette. Some toast was set on the table, probably about 6 slices of that were on my plate at one stage and then mysteriously disappeared. Before I knew it, a fairly sizeable slice of wheaten bread found its way onto my plate and everybody knows a plate cannot be left til it's clean. A good 30mins after we'd began, it was finally over, we'd conquered it. Job done. Many sighs of relief. Chilling out, chatting away, and next thing the B&B owner comes over to the table with a plate of peppers and carrot. The boys had been joking that I wanted some cabbage in my omelette as I usually have a good plate of spinach and beetroot juice with me breakfast. Inspired by this and my lettuce eating acts of the previous day when we had arrived in the car, the B&B owner had no cabbage, but had thrown together the best meal she could in the form of peppers and carrot. Much laughing was done, and then the reality struck that I was gonna have to eat this too. Life's hard at the top. Not one to back away from a food based challenge, I set about the 'icing on the cake' as it was. Solid preparation for a race not too many hours later on in the day, right? This is what Joe (friel) would want.

Wind things on a bit to 1.30pm, as I hopped on the turbo and got the legs spinning to prepare for the battle of epic proportions that loomed ahead like a tropical(e.g places such as Kinallen) storm. Tunes were a blasting on the iPod as I got to work. If I could go back in time right now I'd probably go there and turn the sun down and not have ended up with bib-short tan lines on my back: probably not the best look.

Gave my bottles to Lucy(thanks ever so much, you did an awesome job) and headed off to the start line. Line up behind the mighty Elite force of Irish XC MTB we did, and watch in awe as they tore the start field to bits, McKee's steak from the night before clearly not quite affecting him yet as he took the holeshot. A minute later, or so, "I'm gonna blow the whistle within the next 10seconds" announced the man with the whistle. I guess this meant we were meant to go then.

I think I missed this memo. Everybody took off, I tried to clip in while in the land of fluffy elephants and cows with trunks. Probably y-fronts. I was either in 2nd last or last place as we hit the first corner. Hmmm. Got out of the saddle and sprinted a bit to get a good line into the next corner, but to no avail. Awwwh fork. Tried again before the next corner came, this time I made some ground and got a good line through the corner, slipping into 3rd or 4th as we headed down the hill towards a rough and rooty bit of singletrack. Out of the whole course, I think this was one of the toughest bits, so hard to build or maintain any sort of rhythm over the random roots and holes, although the lads on 29'ers probably just thought they were riding on a bouncy castle as usual.

First real climb of the track was a steep one, attacked on this and didn't look back. Heard tyres behind me for far too long and worried a little bit, but thankfully by the first bit of singletrack I was all on my lonesome. 'Battled with my machine' as Phil Liggett would say, through the veins of the earth, managing to stay upon my bicycle relatively well. Then onto XTC's descent. So, so beautiful. Bump, bump, berm, berm, berm, bump, berm, jump... you get the picture. Probably still losing about 10 seconds a corner to Gareth, but the entire track had a devilish tendency to leave you absolutely kebabed for any of the 'fun' descents. A final berm and bump shot you out onto the fireroad at lightspeed, and it felt only right to try and maintain the pace to the next section of trail and make motorbike noises to yourself. 

A hugely technical but fairly short descent ensued, a proper bike killer: rough, rooty, twisty, slippy. In practice I could hit this sweet as you like, but come race time, on every lap I made some stupid mistakes after leaving all my energy behind on the fireroad to get there. As the gaps between the trees got smaller every lap, my shoulders got more and more battered as I pinballed my way down.

A fun off camber descent, some more bermy corners and a deadly steep climb(there were some shouty people here on my 3rd lap, spectators are awesome!) and then as your memory told you you should be ripping down a super fast straight line descent back to the fireroad, the trail turned up the hill. Here, it seemed no man had boldly stepped before, a small hill for Seymour and a large hill for mankind. I didn't even notice this climb on my first practice lap as I was so preoccupied with trying to stay in a straight line with 40psi in my tyres, but unfortunately, come race time, I had no such luxury. It was tough going, very steep, but also enough roots and technical bits to completely flummox you if you lost even half a degree of concentration.

 To prove this point, obviously just for your benefit, on my 3rd lap I lost my concentration for a second. It came back relatively quickly as my rear end slipped out on a root. Brain says dab left foot - foot follows suit - brain did not calculate the steepness of the hill we were riding on the side of and the fact that the ground below my left shoe was a good 30cm below where it should be - eject. So as I rolled down the hill mostly on my face I just hoped that there was nobody close behind me that I'd be stuck behind for the rest of the climb. More important was probably getting back to my bike, easier said than done when lying in the opposite direction you would like to be on the side of a huge hill. With an allmighty pressup I pushed the earth down and myself up, and slipped my way up the hill back to my bike. Getting started again was 'interesting', and once you'd lost your rhythm, it was extremely tough going on the climb that I hadn't noticed the day before.

Final lap, mostly having fun smashing turns out behind the people I was lapping, then back to the sufferfest once I got round them. It finally struck me that I had won as I hit the last bit of singletrack coming back into the start field, so I threw the best whip that my lack of energy could do, and stood up and got on the pedals to push it in to the line and clear a bit more room for post-race binging. Coming through the start field was awesome with all the tech/feed zone crew cheering and the finish flag just around the next corner. Popped an absolutely horrific wheelie as I crossed the line and that was it for another year. Irish Junior XC Champion. 

A huge sigh of relief as the entire year's being a bumder, missing loads of parties, not really leaving the house, spending every last penny on my bicycle, training all on my own, going to bed early etc. was completely worth it as I crossed the line with another 9 minutes passing before 2nd place came home.

Thanks to all the family members, friends, accomplices and sponsors behind the scenes that make it possible! As always, rocking Green Oil's fine products on my bike, and Rynopower in my belly.

Monty, over and out.

(Ps to anybody wondering how I can win an XC National Championships, but not ride a local road race, my knee is still giving me loads of trouble, and flares up really badly if I'm on the bike for more than 2hrs. Mtb races are 1h-1h30, while road races are 2/3/4h, I'd love to be racing them, but I physically can't at the minute)

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.

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?

Giving 110%

Have always thought the expression to 'give 110%' was a beautiful expression to highlight the simplicity of those who speak without thinking. 110% like? If you were to give 100% I'm pretty sure you'd die, as all of your body would be committed to whatever it would be you'd be giving 100% to, so you'd have no percents left to use for general survival (well, unless you were giving 100% to just surviving). Feel free to argue with me if you think otherwise. Maybe if you're on drugs its possible, as proved by Tom Simpson there. Amazing story if you've the time to read it.
Relating to Tom Simpson, who died while on his way to winning a Tour De France stage due to exhaustion, I was looking at all the people who've died in the Tour De France. Some crazy deaths ranging from drowning in a riveria on rest days, to highsiding a corner and plunging down a ravine, to just plain old impact upon crashing on a descent. Crazy, crazy men.



Saw this the other day, thought it was pretty cool -

What Makes 100%?

What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%.

How about achieving 103%?

What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 =98%

And

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But ,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 =100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 =103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that while Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, its the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top.
Now you know why some people are where they are!

Dangermen and Women of The Future & Whatever Else I Can Think Of

Lately I've just been trying to get my legs to sort themselves out. It's a bit of a drainer, as I enjoy riding my mountain-bike in forests and on mountains, not lying in my room stretching a couple of times a day, and rolling about on a foam roller. Guess you sometimes gotta do stuff you don't like to be able to be better at stuff you do like!

Hadn't been out on the MTB in a very, very long time but heard that Richie Byrne was organising a bit of a spin up in Djouce. Legs/knees still aren't working too well for me, but was getting tremendously bored of riding the turbo day in day out, so thought I'd see what sort of shape the lower limbs were in and if there would be any sense in heading down to Djouce. Stuck the slickest tyre I could find onto the bike and found the wettest field for a bit of sideways craic/serious leg testing.. To you that don't ride bicycles, yes, you unfortunate folk wasting your life away, you probably wont understand the entertainment that can be had from getting a bike sideways, but I'm afraid that's entirely your fault, so I'll not bother explaining what it's like. But basically, it's pure lethal.
Going up hills was like being on nature's very own turbo-trainer, just sitting there, pedalling like a loon, but still not going anywhere.. Only it's definitely a lot harder to fall off a turbo trainer. Definitely had some embarrasing trying to cycle up a hill in 3 inches of mud, coming to a stop and trying to spin out of it, then just falling over moments. This photo you see on your left, that was me trying to pedal up a hill, in a straight line. You can see how slick the field was from the marks in the ground, little dry tyre just wasn't for digging in. #easilyamused . Going downhill was obviously more craic. Good straight sideways moments, didn't take any photos as firstly I was otherwise occupied and secondly I'm sure you've all seen a field before, and if you haven't, there's two photos up above for your pleasure, I can send you some copies if you like.
Legs felt allright after that ride, so decided it'd be worth it to drive the 2 odd
hours down to Djouce and get a good spin in there. Djouce is an incredible place if you've never been there. I've only been there twice, but on the two occasions the sun's been beaming and it's been like I'm in France or something; the views are mad, along with the trails. The below photo'l hopefully be a bit more exciting than the above two, was really scraping the barrel for them..



In the above picture we'd actually just descended the waterfall you see there. Hardcore XC to the max. That's me in the fluorescent jersey, mummy told me to wear one in case I got lost. And it's waterproof, so it made riding down the waterfall a bit cosier. Big shout out to Green Oil for supplying all my chain lube and bike wash and stuff, it's all environmentally, made from coconut oil and nice things you'd normally put in your dinner, so all the fish in the waterfall weren't poisoned.

I've always fancied myself as a Dangerwoman of The Future so Richie's 'Dangermen and Women of The Future' spin seemed like fate itself was calling, so I jumped at the opportunity. The trails in Djouce are special. I'm not sure if it's because I just haven't got used to them yet so there's still a huge novelty factor, or if they are just genuinely amazing. They're not just plain old ride up a fireroad for hours, blast down a straight line downhill trail type jobs, they're proper xc twisty switchbacky pumpy jumpy floaty ones, you know what I mean? Definitely want to get down there a few more times this year, have a few technical skills I need to brush up on and that's definitely the place.

Spin was intended for U12s to U16s I think, so thought it'd be a good outing as I've currently only got the legs of an U12 rider. And I don't even say that as a joke, they were absolutely flying on the day! Some crazy talent we've got, elites is going to get packed pretty soon! There's a wee group photo down below for you.


Great day was had, some good craic with Conor Lavelle and Aaron McCann, and good to see everyone else, it gets wild lonely stuck at home on the turbo! Good to ride with Joe McCall too, man has some experience. Got a puncture, but that was the only bad part of the day, really must go tubeless. Rest of the day was sweet; good sunshine, good trails, good craic. Even managed to stay on two wheels all day which is a pretty big thing. Cheers Richie Byrne and all who turned up.



Plans for the next couple of days/weeks are just to keep at trying to get my knees fixed and start some training! Have a few 2020 dates and maybe a couple of other things, so will keep you's informed.
Monty, out.

Ps. If you're bored give Rynopower extreme sports monster making edible & drinkable stuff a look, oh and unless you're me mummy or daddy, follow me on twitter @davemont

Green Oil Kit Has Arrived

It may have taken a while to get this length, but to be fair to Mr Green Oil he's been on BBC News with this stuff lately so I guess he had more important things on his mind than getting my kit in the post!

Today the Parcelfarce van rolled up the drive and a fairly shabby looking box landed in through the door. Looked a bit like they couldn't find a football for their tea-break and booted this around instead. Cheers boys.
Once I had completed the completely pointless exercise of trying to fit something that looks even remotely like your own signature into the handheld computer thing the postymen have, I got my hands on the box. I ended up sending the postman away with a scribble that not even a dyslexic one year old fish would be proud of, although I'd answered the door with only one holey(not holy..) sock on as I was in the middle of putting me socks on when the doorbell rang, so I'd imagine with the overall appearance I was going for, he wasn't terribly surprised with my attempt at a signature. Art, I shall call it...


Got the box opened and this was what was inside. Looks pretty sick it's gotta be said.



Huge thanks to Green Oil for supporting me this year, looking forward to working with them.
Take a look at their website - http://www.green-oil.net/

Monty.

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.

Screw the 'only write about interesting things' idea, here's a true ramble if a ramble ever was rambled

Ok, so it's been a month or two since I last updated the blog. This is partly due to my internet taking a huff, and partly down to me doing nothing interesting in the last month or two, not gonna lie. I know I said that I'd only write things when I did something interesting, and not try and make glaringly uninteresting stuff interesting, but screw that, I've nothing better to do right at this point, and I guess you're already a couple of lines into this post, so you must be sort of interested in this bull excrement?

In my months of uninterestingness, the cyclocross sensation Jeremy Powers, has rekindled my flame for finding the ultimate beats: those mad remixes that you hear one time and your water breaks, but then never hear them again, and like a forgotten sandwich in your schoolbag, they become a distant memory until one day, while looking for something else, they knock you out. I've found a couple of those tunes, and they say to share is to care, so obviously imma show you all how much I care about you and share this toonage with you guysss: these will make your balls drop.
(These are all ravey beat type numbers, I do have a fairly extension of acoustic and metally songs if you're interested though? Leave a comment or g'is a shout through some sort of internet communication medium)(If they're pulled down by the powers that be before you get to see them, your bad, visit my blog more often and don't miss stuff)

Avicii - Levels (Flo-rida Remix)


Dune - Heiress Of Valentina (Alesso Remix)


Example - Kickstarts (Afrojack Remix) (Takes a while to start, skip her to 1:15 and you're sorted)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPJHdbbkPLg

Labrith ft. Tinie Tempah - Earthquake


Nadia Ali, Starkillers & Alex Kenji - Pressure (Alesso Remix)


Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets (Star Slinger Remix)


Tara McDonald vs Sidney Samson - Dynamite (Nicky Romero Remix)


This one isn't a 'tune' as such, but they take a Maybach, stick the grille where the boot should be and the boot where the grille should be, give it wider wheelarches and stick a dragon inside the exhausts, so it suffices for a listen/watch in my humble opinion?
Kanye West ft. Jay-Z - Otis


In other news, I remembered about this blog today http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ . And what a blog it is.

Heading down to Dublin tomorrow with Ciara MacManus and Robby Deegdawg for some strength and conditioning day organised by Cycling Ireland, looking forward to that, has been much to long since I've chatted to the lads and had a solid training sesh with them!

Currently, bike-wise I'm not really upto much. Left knee is a little on the sore side so I've just been stretching the bit out and doing super gentle miles(not Myles..) most days on the mountain-bike to ensure it doesn't get any worse! 7.5mph average yehhh buddy. Hopefully the old patella shall be feeling fly like a g6 come November time; the Rynopower downed; chain Green-oiled up; and training will begin! BOOM. Hitting the gym once a week at the minute with Elite NPS no.1 hero Gareth Mckee, and had the pleasure of seeing Sir Simon Curry, James Curry, Matty Teggart, Gareth Hillen and Josh Daly all down pumping the 'ron the other night. Basically Banbridge Cycling Club took over the JIM. Ever done 100s?! The whole gym could probably hear me about to take a stroke, terrible craic. But then again it's so enjoyable? There must most certainly a couple of wires touching in my cranium.

Got onto the Irish Youth Talent Team 2020 - http://cyclingulster.com/?thenewsid=5122&newstable=news - so if all goes to plan you can see me at the Olympics in 2020! Stick it in your phone as a reminder. Be cool to look back and see the good old days right here, the times of yore and all that. Definitely buzzin' to get some real training done, can see 2012 being a very good year!

That's all for now. Got some www.rynopower.com in the post there today, but, delivery companies, do they not realise that most of us have jobs/school at mid-day? Don't think I've ever gotten a package on time. Instead of them coming at a reasonable time or leaving the package somewhere handy, I'm gonna have to ring ma boys DHL Express and inform them of my whereabouts over the next couple of days so I can sort a time to get my RYNOPOWER!! Going to tip the gym like, can't wait.

But for now I'm away to pack my bags for tomorrow coz' I'm an organised kid like that. Over and OUT. Thanks for reading!

"I think Joey's ok"

Got a link to this on Faceyb today, couldn't have you's missing out on it! You could honestly watch this 50 times and still laugh every time. Oh Joey you've made my day. Enjoy!

UK School Games Day 1

You know the way you need the right kind of music to do certain things, well I began writing this about 2 hours ago, and then decided it would be good to stick some tooones on. That resulted on sticking Spotify on, realising that most of the songs I want to listen to 'have already been played 5 times' so can't play them again. Ever. Ah maybe someday I'll be able to afford a Premium account. Finally I think I've found something that'll do for now, got Nero's new album - Welcome Reality, so here goes naathin!

Sainsbury's UK School Games was probably the biggest event of the season for me.. so obviously with my luck everything began to go wrong just before-hand!

Left knee is still pretty goosed from January this year. Trying to get a physio who knows what's going on is like finding a haystack in a coal mine, only about 20 times as expensive. If anybody's reading this and rates themselves as a physio or sells legs, gimme an email at davidmmonteeATaolDOTcom (if you're selling viagra or offering me a saudi arabian bank account please don't). Right knee was grand, was getting through the season pretty decently with a leg and a half, but then I fell off in Dromore park of all places, a month and a bit ago, so it's now screwed too. Mad pain in behind the kneecap. I'm meant to be going to Plymouth for the final British NPS next Friday, so if you could get those legs to me ASAP that'd be great. Cheers.

Got the overnight boat on Wednesday evening, arriving in Sheffield in the party bus (Shelbourne Motors kindly donated a van to our cause) at about 9am Thursday morning. Just in time for a full fry! Knocked that back, then back to the van and down to Sheffield University, or the Athlete Village. Stood about there for roughly a lifetime, and then finally got some Lipsyl(the first freebee we got like, was wondering if we were at the right place at all..) and our passes and then headed to the rooms. Ohh baby. I'd love to tell you the rooms were amazing, lovely place etc etc. But I think I was too tired to really take in the surroundings by the time we got to our rooms on the FIFTH floor!! Looking back I really should have counted the stairs to make this seem legit. But there were 2 flights for each floor and there must have been a good 10 steps on each flight. First competition of the weekend was getting up them with food, clothes and water!

So yeh, coming into the UKSG with a cold and no knees. Brilliant. Had to lower my expectations of getting at least the 1 win and top 5ing everything else to settling for top 15 in everything, but mostly just making it through every race alive. This worked for all of about 10 minutes, before I was knocked off on the only fireroad part of the course, and subsequently ripped my whole left side to pieces. But more about that later. Back to the 2nd morning..

Left the Village and got on the bus to take us down to Wharncliffe and Wheata Woods. Feeling a bit sick, just the old dose of the nerves I thought. Well, nerves and the fact that I'd had some scrambled eggs and tomatoes thismorning, then some cereal, then some fruit, then a load of water, then some lockets to get my throat working again, then tried to take some painkillers. Lockets and scrambled eggs on their own I'm sure don't mix so good in retrospect, and with everything else packed in there too it didn't look promising. Knowing it wasn't gonna be a good start to the day, I just tried to get on with it, normally feel awful before a race anyway. But then I tried taking the painkillers without any water (for whatever reason like..). This resulted in a nice big gag as the first one didn't go down quite right. Sprinted to the other side of the field for a bit of privacy and I'll save you the detail on the rest. Chundering. Not good.

Sitting top 3 or top 5 in the first event, feeling confident, boom, 13th. Bad just got worse. On the positive at least I could wrap some bandages around it and people would know I'm injured and cut me some slack. Muscular pains are so selfish in that way, nobody else can see them. Haha. Got it sprayed with something and a couple of plasters over it and got back down to the pits to recover for the next heat. Don't even know how I did in it to be honest! Not so good anyway. Managed to end up in the C finals in which I took third. Dirt Crits were basically track racing on mountain-bikes on singletrack. We started at the back of the grid in almost every heat, and getting past 15 other boys on a track wide enough for 1 bike wasn't quite impossible, but pretty darn close. Lesson 1 of the weekend learnt: Starts are everything.

Next up that day was the Team Relay event. By now my good old pisspot had been noticed getting sideways by a couple of guys, mainly the commentator, so the weekend was looking like it wasn't gonna be terribly successful, but tremendously fun styling it up for the crowd. Think we were sitting 2nd last in the Team Relay by the time it came to me as last man, top teams must have been finishing very shortly after I left. Took off in the standard power-wheelie and drifted her round the first corner, commentator going wild. Hell yeh, buzzing. Luckily a lap was sub-10mins so I could just smash it out and not really worry about tiring. Gave it my best, sent the jumps for all they were worth and got my lines sorted for the rest of the races in the weekend.

Passed 2 or 3 people on my way round so we must have ended up at the top end of the bottom 5. Lol. After racing we weren't allowed to take our own transport back, we had to get the bus with all of the other teams. Fair enough for the teams that had 10 or whatever amount in them, but it was a bit of a nightmare for the 4 of us having to pack up super quick, take all the bags we wanted with us and then run up to the bus when the van was sitting about 2 metres outside the tent! On the way out to the Woods it was the same. Packed into the bus like sardines isn't at all desirable when you're feeling like Britney Spears after a night out (luckily I still had my hair though).Day 1 finished up with dinner back at the University, and bed. Only I couldn't get to sleep because I was stuck to the bed with my cuts. By 1.30am, knowing I had to be up in the morning by 5.45am, I was beginning to get slightly worried. Only thing I could think of was wrapping myself in toilet roll, so that's what I did. Seemed to do the trick, managed to get to sleep.

Unfortunately I overslept a little. Hadn't set the alarm as lads said they'd shout and knock for me. Clearly I was sleeping deep when they knocked and shouted, so I woke up and it was 6.15am and everybody was going down to breakfast. Que leaping out of bed shatting myself, realising I've toilet paper stuck to almost every bit of my body and it's on with insulating tape. Classic. Was like trying to pull a snake off myself, wrestled with it for a good 5mins before finally getting it off. Needless to say the floor was white, luckily there was no room service or they'd be wondering where on earth Santa's Grotto had come from.Day 2 shall be in the next post.