5th in the mixed team @ Mountain Mayhem

Despite bad conditions, the Fig Rolls mixed team of Niki, Matthew, Duncan, Joe and Killer managed to bag 5th place out of 144 teams.

At 2pm the course had started damp but 100% rideable. During the afternoon the course was starting to dry out but by 11pm it was starting to rain heavily and continued until about 3am. By this point only about 50% was rideable and lap times had more than doubled...

The course slowly went from thick mud to semi dry and by 10am on Sunday was starting to get fast. Some of the fastest laps were posted at this time.

Unfortunately the wind was getting up and a sudden blast destroyed the Fig Rolls Camp!

Gazebo or no Gazebo the Fig Rolls were not for stopping and despite 6th place getting within 6 mins we held on to the finish.

Next up Sleepless in the Saddle where Matt and Duncan are going solo!

Do Fig Rolls Float?

It looks like we will find out this weekend as the Mountain Mayhem 24 hour race is looking to be a very wet one...

The Rat Race

I (Andrew) couldn't make it... but here's what Paul has to say about the Rat Race at Robert's Creek last weekend, where Fig Rolls were in action:

After all that training (!?) in Penticton, this weekend it was finally time for Fig Rolls Racing Canada to actually go racing. We'll try not to make a habit of it. With Andrew having had to fly back to the UK at short notice, it was left to Jacek and I to fly the flag at the Sunshine Coast Rat Race. This is an enduro-style event, 47km with 1500m of climbing in one big loop.

After the usual (mis)adventures missing ferries and searching for campgrounds in the dark, we finally made it to the event as the day started to really heat up, causing us head for shade and try to stay hydrated whilst we waited for the start:

We started fairly far back in the 300 rider mass start, and didn't see much for dust for a while! After a singletrack climb the race came out onto a fire-road climb and began to spread out. That was the last I saw of Jacek for the next 3 hours.

The race is billed as 50% fire road, 40% doubletrack and 10% singletrack. However, it turns out their definition of doubletrack is a bit warped and it was more like 50% fire road, 50% techical singletrack. By about the 2/3 mark I was really kicking myself for not bringing the full suspension rig. Other than that my race went really well, I paced well and managed to push all race, slowly picking up places all the way through. It was occassionally very obvious that this was not our usual north-shore freeriding crowd as any ladder bridge narrower than about 2 feet had half the racers off and running, causing much amusement among those of us not taking the race too seriously. The course ended with a second run down "The Black Tower" and amazing downhill bermed singletrack that would make a great DH course in some places. I took it on the ragged edge and only just got away with it as my legs were cramping pretty badly by then!

We didn't bring a cheering section, so there are no photos of the race, but the aftermath looked something like this:

We finished 70th and 92nd in 3:08:12 and 3:16:46, 23rd and 29th in our category (Masters! makes me feel old). I was pretty happy with that, and plan to retire from racing until the Triple Crown in July!