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.

Change Pt.II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Wish me luck!
Monty.

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

Change Pt. I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monty x


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