Mountain Mayhem 2007 - Eastnor Park - UK

An now, in complete contrast to the Canadian sun and dust, Figrolls Racing (UK) attended the 10th Mountain Mayhem 24 Hour race at Eastnor Deer park, Malvern Hills....

Killer rode solo and Duncan, Joe, Niki, Matthew and newcomer Steve rode as a mixed 5.

After getting there early we managed to bag a camping spot next to the course, handy for quick pit stops. Killer arrived with promised marquee which when combined with mats gazebo made for a great base. It was soon filled with junk (sorry Killer - spare parts/incomplete bikes)

Duncan soon arrived and began the last minute process of building his bike while the rest of us ate loads of pasta and watched the fireworks.


Breakfast Duncan style - something to do with sardines containing lots of salt to stop cramp... sounds fishy to me



In the race Steve got us off to a great one in the Le mans style start and the team settled in to the regular routine of taking turns at the laps. Some fast laps were got in and Killer was doing well (up to the top 20/ 130) but then the rain set in... The course soon deteriorated into a mud bath in places but despite the rain was fun to ride apart from the monster Kenda climb.



Come morning the rain had dried out but the mud had become stickier and by now the lap times had increased from 45 mins to over an hour.



By the end the mixed team had come 18th out of 127 teams and Killer was 13th!



All in all, very tiring... but great fun!

Ride the Whitehorse

At the weekend Paul and I flew up to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory to race bikes in 24 daylight... sounds pretty good eh? First, I need to thank some people. Dave - who took all the photos, Andrea - who not only raced but let us mess up her house and eat all her food for four days, Mike - who joined a team for a 24 hour race with two wierdo English guys from Vancouver who he'd never met and wanted to call the team "Fig Rolls Racing", Robin and everyone else who played a part in looking after us on race day.

So, mountain bike racing in the Canadian Arctic... that's got to be a bad idea, right? You'd be surprised how much of a good idea it really is. First, forget the polar bears and the icebergs. It's summer time so were're talking dry, dusty trails and sunshine to midnight. It got a bit gloomy for a couple of hours from about 3am, but lights are banned anyway... so who cares? When I came out to start my 2am lap there was a pretty enthusiastic party in full swing in the timing area with lycra-clad XC racers dancing around. You really can't argue with that.

Racing machinery ranged from boutique singlespeed 29ers (brought in by Alaskans mainly) to a guy on a Specialized Demo 9... which I imagine would have been lucky to weigh in at much under 50 pounds. The best bike was the organiser-provided "Vomit Comet", a pink spray painted Miyata shopping bike, converted to singlespeed with an inflatable man attached to the back. The privilege for piloting this vehicle around the 17km course was each lap counting double. I got chased by it on the singletrack for a while, there's not much better motivation than that to pedal harder.

Lap times ranged from 36 minutes for the XC superheroes to 1 hour plus, the course gave plenty of opportunities for big-ring enthusiasts to blast along fire road and equally a long stretch of twisty-turny singletrack that was honestly more fun than should be allowed. Mechanicals were few, Mike got a puncture and I had a comedy crash overcooking a dusty berm... but otherwise the gear and the bodies all held together.

The rules for finishing were a little different to the UK events like Sleepless... if you didn't make it back through the line by 24:00, you lap didn't count. The guy who came through at 24:00:46 could have been said to be a little disappointed... but he got a big cheer at least.

We got a total of 26 laps, putting us 4 laps behind the winners of the (surprisingly competitive) mixed 4 person team category. We would have got a better overall position if we had entered the 8 person team category (with just the 4 of us). Them's the breaks I guess. The winning team of 8 guys got something ridiculous like 34 laps but 26 was just fine for us.

Results will allegedly be published on the icycle sport website at some point. You can read about the event on the 24 hours of light website. If you happen to be swinging by Canada's great white north around solstice time next year, I recommend you check it out.

Toonie Race #3 - Buntzen Lake

Here's something a little different. As Figrolls' "Man in Canada" this is my first report of the Vancouver XC racing scene. The intention was to ride in the whole Toonie Race series throughout the summer and trasform myself into a racing beast in time for the 24 Hours of Light which is now coming up all too soon. So, what's gone wrong so far? Race 1 started off well, I got there, the rain stopped, I registered (It's $2 to race, that's what toonie means here in Canada, eh). I had a little time so I went to pre-ride the course and pretty quickly destroyed my rear mech.... not ideal. Race 2 didn't go so well either in that I didn't bother going, whoops.

So, Race 3 - Buntzen Lake... picturesque venue for drunken barbecues and rowdy teenagers, and in this case a bike race. The course was rated as 3/5 for technicality, which here in BC means that 50% of the climbs will be ridable and there will be only limited opportunity for death and dismemberment. My favourite obstacle was a floating wooden causeway across one end of the lake where apparently 8 riders punctured last year. Amusing stuff. The course was dry and fast, except the climbs, which were steep and loose and full of roots and fist sized rocks, steps, and people falling off. One guy broke his chain at the top of a fast descent and was last seen pushing his bike back up from the bottom to find it. I had a race long rivalry with an Aussie guy, who then convincingly destroyed me on the logging road to the finish, along with about 3 other people who I had got well past in the trees. Oh well. Results? err, I didn't come last and it was fun. The numbers will appear on the Toonie website some time I expect, but don't be anticipating anything impressive. In 2 weeks time there's another race, let's hope I can make that strike 2.

Trek XC NPS Sherwood

John was the only member of Fig Rolls Racing to attend the Trek XC NPS Round 2 at Sherwood. He finished 19th in the Grand Vets out of 23.



Results

Although not strictly riding for Fig Rolls, Greg Warby was also in attendence and finished 3rd in the Masters. That means the series points are level with 3 people sharing the top position, couldn't be closer!

Joe has finished his new kitchen so is looking forward to getting out on his new road bike, Niki is eager to start Triathlon training, Duncan is busy making dirty videos for YouTube at Wharncliffe and Killer and Matt are back on the wagon after knee opps. Look out Mountain Mayhem - here we come!

Three Peaks Cyclo Cross

Now that I have finally worked out how to post on the website, here are a couple of photos from my epic 5 hour, 59 mins and 11 seconds of three peaks cyclo cross...

I though that a couple of enduros, a long weekend of mtb touring in the lakes and a bit of road racing would help prepare me for this. I was wrong.

Training for fell running would have been much more useful.
I have never experienced cramp like I suffered in this event.

I managed the course in just under 6 hours, the winner did it in just over 3. How fast is he?

Fig Rolls hit the Road

On 18th April Matthew represented Fig Rolls Racing (although in VC Lincoln colours) in the first Lincolnshire League Road Race of the season.

It was his first competetive outing following a knee arthroscopy in January.

The course was a fairly flat 8 mile loop around near Long Bennington, near to the A1, and Matthew managed to hold onto the bunch for 2.5 laps, only losing touch with the main group when the faster riders caught up and started to string out the group during the hard accelerations out of the tight bends that were a feature of this course.

Expect more comedy road racing results over the coming months, as well as google earth routes from Matthews new GPS bike computer...