Oktoberfest

The dust at Ashton Court settled a long time ago and the pain in my wrists, knees, feet, neck and back has faded with time, but the memory of the effort is still inprinted in my muscles.

Ashton Court's Oktoberfest took place on Saturday 15th October, giving me a return to mountain biking racing after a two year hiatus. Somewhat foolishly, and perhaps because most of my mountain biking friends weren't interested in the competition, I decided to enter the solo category: eight hours of laps around a 6 mile course.

I'm not a regular mountain biker, much to the disappointment of my Kona One20 hanging in the garage, but I'd been putting in the odd off-road session over the summer to get some practice in. The most I'd managed was three and a half hours, less than half the racing time of the competition and nothing like the preparation I do for road events, yet still I lined up with several hundred other competitors on a sunny October morning in a meadow in Ashton Court a few minutes before 9am.

My bike, along with everyone else's, was an uphill sprint away at the top of the hill. The infamous Le Mans starts at Bikefest and Oktoberfest are designed to separate the riders before the first narrow singletrack sessions.

The countdown from 10 had barely reached five before the mass charge began. I made a good start, despite the food in my jersey pockets threatening to leap out, finding my bike quickly and getting on the trail towards the front of the pack.

As soon my Kona hit the grass its dual suspension seemed to act like a sponge, sapping my speed and allowing other riders to charge past. Still, knowing the twists and turns of the trail allowed me to pick up speed throughout other sections of the course, powering up the hill sections and picking the right lines through the berms.

Several laps in and I was enjoying the race (despite finding out that Wales lost in the Rugby World Cup semi-final), seeing some friendly faces on the sidelines and enjoying that dog-eat-dog attitude that racing brings.

I covered three and a half hours before my first food stop, which I now know was too long to wait. As soon as I'd eaten I felt so sluggish. Another two laps down and I had to stop again for more food and to ease the pain in my wrists and back.

This time I sat in my van necking Red Bull, eating pasta and sweets and feeling sorry for myself. I must have stopped for 45 minutes before I convinced myself 'just one more lap'.

Jumping back on the bike reminded me just how mountain biking differs from road biking. My undercarriage had taken quite a battering and even just sitting on the saddle was painful!

That first lap after lunch was tough and I almost threw in the towel but seeing the clock at 2pm reminded me that there were only three hours left. I'd raced three hours in the morning without too much trouble. I reasoned with myself that if I could just keep going at a slow pace I could be proud that I'd made it to the finish.

Another two slow laps ticked by, battling for space on the singletrack sections, not caring about being overtaken and barely able to race the singlespeed riders up hill. Who cared whether I was racing people in teams of four or two, or those doing one of the four hour races. I stopped glancing at the category each rider was in when the passed me. I rode my own race from this point and stopped chasing down anything in front of me.

Every time I passed the start/finish line I'd see support teams lined up handing their rider a banana, an energy bar or even paracetmols. I had a few crumbs of fruit cake and an energy gel left in my pocket. With a little over an hour to go I necked both, washed down with a healthy swig of Powerade. Two laps in one hour five minutes was more than possible at the start of the race. Now I wasn't so sure. It was now or never.

I used my usual tactic. Go hard at the start and hang on at the end. I raced the first lap hard, nipping past slower riders where there was barely room, hammering the hills and forcing my body out of the saddle as the gradient increased. Whenever I felt my speed slow I'd check my clock and try and do the maths. The notion of setting out on my second lap only to miss the cut off time was worse than the pain of racing.

You could sense the urgency all around now. Riders were sprinting where otherwise they'd have coasted. Corners were cut and risks were taken to gain a few extra seconds. My back wheel slipped on a couple of occasions but I stayed upright and made it to the start/finish lap with 32 minutes to spare. Then I caught site of a familiar face.  Pete had come to cheer me on. "Yeah, go Hillsdon!" I heard.

I had one more fast lap to finish by 5pm. From racing this event in previous years I remembered how that final lap is always one of the fastest. Give it everything you have. Ignore the cramp and the battered muscles. Never mind that your gears aren't shifting properly. Don't worry that you've run out of water, it'll weigh you down anyway!

I crossed the finish line with about two minutes to spare, recording my third fastest lap of the day. I climbed off my bike very gingerly, bowed my head to my handlebars as if I was praying, and composed myself for a few minutes.

By the time Pete and Catriona found me they didn't like the look of my pale complexion and sunken eyes. Another Powerade and a chocolate bar later I was back on form and enjoying celebrating finishing with friends and work colleagues.

With 13 laps complete I was some way off the front runners who notched up a superhuman 16 laps, a good hour and a half faster than me. I later found out that I came 19th out of 59, which I was pretty pleased with. Next year, paracetemols!

Hacksaws

Saturday 5th November was the third Hacksaws fixed gear race from Bristol to Bath and back and what great event it was, I'm still on a high from it.

I set out for the event with Pete, not really knowing what to expect. Do they wear lycra or baggies? Will my Bob Jackson Vigorelli be up to the task?

The first chap we saw was dressed in tracksuit bottoms and asked if there was a smokers' category, which gave me the impression this might be a low-key event. How wrong I was! Soon the top riders and their bikes started rolling in, complete with tri-bars and deep set aero wheels. I went to a cafe for a double-shot cappuccino and a huge cake as if to compensate for my inadequate bike.

Here's me and Pete (fourth and third from the left) at the start line. I've shamelessly stolen the pic from http://traumradfahren.wordpress.com/ - sorry!

From the Le Mans-style start on the Harbourside, thirty-five of us chose any path we could, racing past surprised looking shoppers and diners at the water front, in the direction of Temple Meads.

I really don't condone racing in shared pavement areas (and I think the organiser could look at changing the start/finish location in future) but this was a race and there were prizes to be had so I traversed the walkers as politely as I could (!) and made it to Temple Meads without incident. Behind me I could hear car horns beeping as riders jumped lights and took risks through the evening traffic. Lucky for me, green lights seemed to be in my favour.

The first hill came at Brislington where my small gear saw me dropping riders, only to be reeled back in on flat or downhill sections, where I was spinning furiously as my fixed gear gave my legs no freewheeling option.

Out along the A4 the drop in temperature was noticeable. It was a beautifully clear and dry night, and with a few fireworks going off in the distance it provided a great racing backdrop. The flashing tail lights in front of me started to move clear at this point. I caught my breath for the first time and, without the dangling carrot of a rider in front, I eased off the pace just a little, saving energy for the return.

The exertion was causing some pain in my right shoulder and I remembered how people who have heart attacks often complain of a pain in their arm. Putting that out of my mind I noticed that luck seemed to be with me at every roundabout and traffic light. The streets were quiet and my path was clear coming in to Bath. Then, about a mile from the check-point the first place rider came back in the other direction, followed by a few others. I started counting riders, about tenth place I thought. Could I hold it?

The slight rise up to Queen Square in Bath reminded my legs about the lack of gear choices. It wouldn't be the last time that I reached for an imaginary gear lever only to remember that there was only one option: pain!

I lost a few seconds at the checkpoint as I took the pavement instead of the road, then hit the northerly headwind on the return leg, slowing me down some more. I was out of the saddle though, throwing Bob Jackson from side to side underneath me, the tiny frame of the bike making it perfect for out-of-the-saddle power.

Back out through Bath and I just made an amber light as I turned onto the A4. Ten seconds later and out of nowhere came a guy tucked into his tri-bars. He must have jumped the light, bastard! Luckily though, he gave me some shelter from the wind on the exposed A road. He made the roundabout before me and cut through a gap between two cars, forcing me to come to a standstill. I lost him here but soon gained another rider on the long straight to Saltford. I noticed that he was riding a massive gear. With my bike suited to climbing and his suited to sprinting, I suspected that we'd play cat and mouse all the way back to Bristol. I tried to lose him on the climbs and he tried to lose me on the flat but we were pretty evenly matched.

By the time we got back into Bristol the number of pedestrians had thinned considerably but it was still a nerve-jangling sprint through Millennium Square. The rider in front gave me a great line to follow and in the end I rolled in just behind him in 13th place.

We shook hands and congratulated each other on coming away unscathed. Then it took a good ten minutes for me to stop coughing and the sick feeling in my stomach didn't leave for quite some time - probably until the first after-party beer in the Grain Barge.

By the time I got round to checking my phone I saw that Pete didn't get on so well. He punctured and got lost in Bath, so caught the train home, making it just in time for the prize-giving.

This is pretty much the last bike race I'll do in Bristol as I'm moving to Nottingham in a couple of weeks. Between the fireworks, the scenery and the exhilaration of racing, this was a fitting finale to six years of cycling in and around Bristol. I've gone from hesitant commuter to dare-devil racer during that time. I'm still not shaving my legs though!