Reality Check

Friday arrived and it was time to load up the van, say goodbye to the cat and head on up to the Eastern Express (via the best part of a day’s work). Picked KC and Big Gav up along the way, then over the hills we went. Saturday dawned with no sign of the threatened rain… and brought a cool diversion by the campsite’s pet rabbit, who lollopped over to say hello and pose for KC to take a couple of photos before realizing we weren’t going to feed it & moving on! Off to the race venue (compulsory coffee stop along the way) – parked the van in a shady corner, unloaded our gear… then the nerves that I’d been trying to ignore finally took over! I knew that this would be a long and hard day for me… With this being the first event that I’d ever done without having pre-ridden at least half of the course I was pretty nervous about what I was going to find out on the course and how I was going to deal with it.

I was at the back of the field for briefing, so I didn’t hear that or the “Go” to start the race. I just made like a sheep and followed the rest of the pack along and up the hill! This was more of a training day than anything else for me, so I hung at the back of the field to let the real mtb’ers into the singletrack first. Well – I got in there and the first two trails were among the hardest of the day. I was DFL, although I had a couple of the slower guys in sight. My chain started skipping – (very rarely do I have shifting problems of any kind) – and then decided it needed a wee lie-down on the trail with me to keep it company! The joining link had failed – so there was me with a broken bike, no tools and a not too happy mood. I said some not-so-nice words about the situation, then turned around and headed back the way I’d come. To cut a long story short, I eventually found a marshal on the road who had a joining link. Much fluffing about (and, as it turned out, an incorrectly re-fitted chain) later I scrambled back up the hill to re-ride the trail. Yes, I hated the course at this point, and this would have been an easy out. I had a choice – DNF or DFL!! The whole process had taken about 30 minutes, so no way was I going to catch up to even the slower riders now. Grit teeth, down some HTFU pills and carry on! By this time the 20km riders were coming through, so I hopped off and climbed up/down the bank at regular intervals to get out of their way.

There were some absolutely fantastic trails in the course – most of which I didn’t appreciate as I slowly picked my way among the tree roots, steep climbs and even steeper descents, wondering just WFT I was doing out here, who was I trying to kid, and what was I thinking entering NI Cup events… in other words, a pretty bad head-space. My riding slowly improved as the day went on – I relaxed and started to trust my bike over the roots and bumps. Lots of friendly marshals said ‘gidday and ‘keep going’ – then I spent a fair bit of time alone, even stopping to look at my map at one point to see if I was ever going to get to the finish! I stopped again at the 2.5 hour mark (by my timer) for a chocolate gel and to get my head together… not long after this I was caught by the reluctant tail-end Charlie (who hadn’t planned on doing the whole course, but was roped in to it to follow me home!). Now I was horribly embarrassed as well as feeling like a muppet! Plodded along until I saw Shane at about 5km to go… slowed down (yes I could go even slower!!) to tell him about my chain etc and he replied with “well, don’t stop now!!” I finally made it to the gravel road and along to the finish line – where most of the competitors were assembled ready for prize-giving! Ditched my timing tag & bolted for the van. I was physically tired (it was a reasonably tough course) but mentally and emotionally exhausted. Shane left me alone (wise choice) for a while to have a wee howl then collect my thoughts, get changed and reflect on the day. It was a serious reality check in that I can see how far my skills and confidence need to progress before I consider myself any sort of XC rider. There were a couple of positives to come out of the event – that I didn’t give up when I had the chance and that I am now a lot more confident riding tree roots. If I do this event next year you can bet I’ll be spending some time pre-riding before I think about entering!!