Velo29 Cycling Team

Selkirk MTB Marathon

MikeC — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:20:37 +0000

Two years ago a Scottish friend encouraged me to ride a mountain bike marathon event in the Scottish Borders, roughly an 85km route with some serious amounts of height gain. It was rather wet and muddy, I snapped a chain and went the wrong way twice (don’t ask) so I had a personal score to settle with this course. Last year was a no starter for my racing so I entered the 2010 event on the back of some good form and results. It’s a 5 round series and the Selkirk course is regarded as the best of the series, lots of moorland single and bouble-track, rock and root infested descents, 30 minute climbs up to 400m above sea level and a final descent where you can literally scare yourself silly………which I did.

Me, Tom and Nick arrived at Kev’s house on the Saturday afternoon where we met Neal and Jo who were also staying over for the event. We headed out for an easy mountain bike ride on the sweet, tree lined, snaking singletrack before ordering a curry and a few beers to finish off the evening and relax the nerves. The marathon series attracts a wide variety of mountain biker from serious (leg shaving) racer to the chilled out, relaxed weekend riders there for the fun and social aspect, giving the event a really great atmosphere. The extra bonus was the weather behaving itself giving us perfect riding conditions. After the nuetralised start a group of about 10 riders formed at the front pushing the pace and I let myself drift off not wanting to go too hard early on and blow after 40k. After the first descent I caught a Pedal Power rider (James Fraser-Moodie I’m told) and we worked together for about 60k, James pulling away on the climbs and me catching on the descents. We caught a Belgian rider who had legs the size of tree trunks (literally) and we worked together going through-and-off on the road sections. We were in 5th, 6th and 7th position. Me and James dropped the Belgian on the descent at Innerleithen and James attacked on the climb to Minch moor, an attack I couldn’t respond to. I was really pleased with my ride so far but I had made my mistake 2 hours before the start when I decided to use the energy drink at the feed stations instead of a camelbak. An important rule of thumb when racing is never try an energy product in a race when you haven’t tried it in training. This resulted in some quite bad cramps over the last 15km forcing me to stop a couple of times and stretch my muscles out. After dropping 5-10 minutes and 4 places I was able to continue at a slower pace. Luckily I was close to the final descent and tried to make up for lost time by braking as little as possible and scaring myself silly in the process. I finished 10th in a time of 4 hours 15 minutes, 30 minutes off the winner Nick Craig, a (super fast) legend in our sport. Tom claimed 3rd in the middle Marathon and Nick finished the big one in a personal best time. I think many riders will agree that the Selkirk Marathon is one of the best events on the mtb calendar and I will certainly be returning next year.

Radar Ride 2010

KOL — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:24:48 +0000

The 2010 Radar Ride. It was truly an ‘epic’. We arrived at Wanlockhead at about 8.15 am. Driving up the M74 from Brampton it went from grey to dark grey to light black with the camper van being buffeted by the wind. There were three of us in Andy’s camper van and conversation was subdued. I’d wished I’d had a few drinks the night before, at least then I’d have an excuse for feeling crap. Wanlockhead could be a one-horse town if it had a horse! We rolled out at about 9.20 in driving wind and heavy rain with poor visibility, the group didn’t so much split up as was blown apart! I don’t remember too much about the first few miles other than avoiding potholes and compensating for gusts of wind. We got to the first pass, ‘Dalveen’, not so steep, stayed in the big ring. Andy wasn’t feeling well and decided to drop out so we parted company on the descent. I joined up with a guy from Teesdale CC and continued toward Moffat on a fast descent with heavy rain and a tail wind, made the feed station at 66km and decided to put my waterproof on. It was shortly after this I joined up with a couple of lads to form a mini group that would stay together for the rest of the ride. Climbed up the Devils Beeftub (bit like the Hole of Horcum) and raced down to Talla Reservoir, still in the rain and still at this point with a tail wind. Every now and then the road twisted into the wind and we were reminded that for every kilometre with the wind behind us was another to fight on the way back. We were joined at this point by a guy from Dumfries who new all about road racing and advised on the next section which was about 20%. I really needed a pee break and stopped at the bottom of the 20% Wall of Talla, it was a good group and I thought if I climbed well and didn’t lose to much ground I could catch them on the descent, the plan worked and we joined up again. Long fast downhill on a narrow windy road to Meggat Reservoir. There was a rider down being tended to, one of two needing hospital treatment. Still fast down to St Mary’s Loch, and then turned back into the wind. It was gusting to about 45mph, we worked really well as a group with everyone taking a turn on the front although, despite waiting, we dropped a couple of riders, including the road racer from Dumfries. We crested the climb up The Grey Mares Tail and if anything had to work harder on the way down, picking up a couple of more riders, still in the rain which by this time was starting to ease although the wind had increased. We made it to the next and last feed station stopping for long enough to top up with water and grab another banana. By this time we were an established group and set off together without having to agree and slotted back into the chain gang. We passed riders who tried to stay on, it’s not that we were going fast, we weren’t, we just had a good rhythm and kept it going. After about 50k of this we finally turned back onto the road leading up to Wanlockhead with 16K of up to 15% left to go to the finish, (the final section up to the radar station had been closed due to severe gales!), and crossed the line together. I came in at 6:30:4, 48th out of 127 finishers after 106 miles of exhilarating hard riding.

Ten times 2

MikeC — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:20:35 +0000

My bike racing this year has been approached from a slightly different angle to previous years, for a start I’m a lot more relaxed and have more fun and as I love all areas of cycling I try to ride a wide variety of events, from flat crit races, to hilly road races, to short xc races, to cross races, to endurance mtb races. The 2 ten hour endurance mtb races that I’ve done are part of the ‘10 series’ organised by no fuss events. The main goal is for everyone to have fun and there is a category to suit almost every type of rider. The format follows a common theme, pick a team of 1, 2, 3 or for and do as many laps as possible in ten hours……..simples. As I’ve yet to convince my Velo 29 team mates of the immense fun you can have on fat tyres off-road my good friend and mtb training partner Jason Hynd stepped in to pair up with me for ’10 at Kiroughtree’. Having raced the event 2 years ago Jason knew what he was letting himself in for.

We arrived on the Friday to heavy rain and set up camp with local North East riders and good friends ‘Treadhunters’. A course pre-ride revealed an 8.5 mile course with 1200ft of climbing, steep, muddy descents with off-camber roots, fast, snaking, rocky, super fun singletrack pieced together with short fireroad sections. A good challenging course made more technical by the rain and mud. After sign-on we all settled down in our mini-race village for tea and a chat about the event to come. As the rain came down on the Saturday morning I decided on a fairly short warm-up before sneaking in behind the lead-out car. I knew that getting into the singletrack near the front was important to avoid the bottlenecks, so I latched onto Ian Nimmos wheel and stayed there. I knew there was a potential to ride 6 laps each so I chose a pace that would allow me to do just that. I came into transition 1 minute behind the leader, whipped the transponder off my ankle and onto Jason’s for him to head out. Our friend Kev had come over from Selkirk to help us out which made a hugh difference. Kev would clean and lube the bike whilst we got clean, changed, fed and stretched ready to go out again. This was the set-up for ten hours of racing. The rain fell for most of the day making the course very muddy while we focussed on riding consistent laps and not making mistakes. Our mini-race village was great as there was always someone to talk to between laps. I must say that Clair’s banana bread is one of the best pick-me-ups for a long race, I will be putting an order in for more when I’m heading to a long race. I decided not to check the leader board when I heard the mc announce that we were in the lead by some 12 minutes. When I asked Kev he was rather sheepish and came out with his trademark saying for the weekend ‘anything can happen’. After hearing about his experiences and misfortunes (broken bikes, snapped seatposts, dead night lights, unreliable team-mates) in long endurance races I would definitely say that I agree. After my 5^th lap I was especially tired and heard the news that due to the conditions of the course and the fading light the event was being shortened by 1 hour. Relief flooded through me and then I realised that if Jason had no problems on his final lap we would win. We headed over to greet him joking that we might strap my head with a bandage and send him out on another lap…….evil I know J Like a deer in the headlights he didn’t know what was going on, looking around confused before we could get the message across that it was all over. The prize presentation was completed after some ‘music artist’ had destroyed some well-liked songs. We stoked up the bbq and sat under the e-z-up sheltering from the wind and rain and downed a few well deserved beers.

Big thanks to no fuss for an excellent course and event, a great ride from my team-mate Jason and flawless support from Big Kev (he’s 6 foot 7).

Dobson Memorial Series

Dan — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:11:37 +0000

Only 2 weeks to go before the Velo29 Martyn Dobson Memorial Series kicks off at Croft… I hope you will all turn up to ride or to cheer on your buddies. First race is on Thursday 29th July. Here’s the race flyer to remind you of all the important details!

A bad race and 25% training

MikeC — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:28:40 +0000

Not long after the dust had settled from round 2 of the Nutcracker race and it was all go again from Round 3 at Dalby forest on the weekend of my 29th birthday. The Dalby XC course is fantastic and has been designed to test the worlds best, the whole course it technically demanding with some killer climbs and sketchy descents, XC mountain bike racing at it’s best. The rain was coming down hard as we drove over, a big contrast to the heat of the previous round. I was soon lining up with the biggest expert turn out of the series, 7 riders! I started well leading into the first section of singletrack and opening a gap on the technical descents to be caught on the climbs by guys who weighed about 15kgs less than me. Come the long climb on the back of the course I mentally popped, not able to hold my pace. I rode the rest of the lap at a steady pace and tried to pick it up again but I just couldn’t hold the speed so decided to call it a day. My friend in the master category had a bad mechanical 2 miles in with Jason the only one of my friends finishing, he claimed 6th in the veterans category.

The title might suggest that I’ve only been training at 25% but this isn’t the case. A lot of my training has been in the North York Moors over the last few weeks and I’ve lost count of the amount of 25% gradient signs I’ve seen. Last week was a 50 mile Mountain Bike epic out to Blakey Ridge and back via Danby and Commondale. You may think that 50 miles isn’t very far, but off road with 6800 feet of climbing is certainly enough for an all day ride. I’ve done this route several times and it’s a cracker, the singletrack is sublime! The week after I opted for the road bike and headed out to Rosedale then onto Goathland (yes, that’s where they filmed heartbeat). It was this route where the hills really started to bite, climbing these hills on mountain bike gearing is a lot easier than using road bike gearing. With an mtb you can set a fair tempo and tap it out, on a road bike with 39×25 you have to push hard. Some of the descents were great fun but the grin was soon wiped from my face when I realised I had to gain the height back. Goathland was a welcome sight and a quick re-fuelling of cake and coffee and I was on my way again. Lythe bank was on the list of hills to climb but my legs had other ideas so I opted for the A171 back to Guisborough. I certainly wont be forgetting that route in a hurry.

Training, waiting and racing

MikeC — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:24:18 +0000

It’s been a couple of weeks since my win at Richmond, the weather has been quite kind so I’ve been doing a fair bit of bike riding. With the Arthur Caygill road race cancelled the bank holiday weekend was an excellent invite to do lots of peddling. To compensate for the cancelled hilly road race Rob Wheeler (aka Badger) and myself decided to have a run out into the North Yorkshire hills to seek out some steep climbs. The first was the climb out of Swainby up to Cod Beck then out to tackle the beast of Boltby bank. I had heard quite bad things about this climb and was eager to tame the beast. The climb soon ramps to a steady 15-20%, quickly steepens to 25%, goes around a corner and it’s all over, granted I was breathing very very hard but it wasn’t half as bad as I had expected and no where near as hard a blakey bank. We then looped to Hawnby, over the moor road towards Osmotherly into a strong head-wind and by this point Rob had blown quite badly…….poor lad. It was mostly downhill to Swainby then flat roads home. On the Monday I showed Niall around the best mtb trails in Guisborough woods and the local moor. A slippy off camber corner caught me out and I went sliding along the track laughing and cursing at the same time much to Niall’s amusement. He’s a Scottish lad so is used to technical trails and was quite impressed with our local stomping ground.

This past weekend was my first real opportunity to ride the Dalby World Cup XC course ahead of Nutcracker round 3 this coming weekend. I hadn’t ridden the course since last May so I was keen to get a couple of laps in. I met Niall there and we set off for some fun mountain biking. The course had changed slightly for the World Cup back in April and we had to stop and ride some sections a few time to get the correct lines dialled in. At race pace it’s going to be a very physical course. We lapped the course twice then continued onto the 24 mile red route, stopping for a coffee to perk us up. It was a hot day and we ended with 4 hours in the saddle. Not perfect preparation for the road race on Sunday.

With the weather forecast not favouring us, me, Rob W and Chris W headed to Northumberland expecting a wet race but didn’t see a spot of rain until 15 minutes into the journey home………bonus! The race was for 4th cat’s only and had a big field of 70 riders on the undulating Scot’s gap course. With 3 laps to complete it wasn’t a long race but one I felt a break could work. I made two big attacks on the first lap but had no-one for company so sat up. The pace was quite brisk and I policed any attack by going with them. By the end of lap 2 it was obvious that it was going to be decided on the final climb of Middleton bank. At the bottom of the climb I was in the wrong position and soon realised my legs didn’t want to play anymore so tried to gauge my effort to the finish line. Chris W was well placed at the start of the climb and went with the lead group to finish 7th making that his best result ever! Excellent work my friend! Saying that he did bugger all during the race so I’m not surprised he felt quite fresh…..good race tactics if you want a result.

It’s Nutcracker 3 at Dalby this Sunday and I’m looking forward to riding one of my favourite xc race courses as fast as I possibly can.

2 weeks and 2 very different races

MikeC — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:51:32 +0000

Cross country Mountain Bike racing is really picking up steam across the whole UK, after quite a few years of low interest and limited events to take part in. This past weekend saw 4 regional races taking place and it’s been a long, long time since that happened. With road racing struggling for events to keep running and an increasing demand for races it would seem that fat tyre racing is the way to go (Dan, Mike, Chris, Rob etc etc :☺). Even Catherine was at the Nutcracker Race this weekend for her first venture into the world of Mountain Biking.

Last week I ventured up to Fort William for a 13 hour round trip to a 10 hour Mountain Bike Race by the name of 10 Under the Ben. I was a guest rider for a local Mountain Bike Team and we entered in the Senior Male Trio Category with Richard and Nick as my team mates. Simple format, 10 hours, the team that rides the most laps in 10 hours wins. A Le Mans start was used to thin the field out and I was given the task of first lap and soon found myself in a group of 4 at the front of the race. We hammered round as fast as we could to hand the timing chip onto our team mates. 5 minutes before the end of my lap the heavens opened and Nick was out next, not looking too happy I might ad. The race went without too many hitches apart from my rear suspension feeling rather loose with the rear triangle nearly falling off my bike. Richard was nice enough to let me use his bike for my last lap but it was a little bit small and cramps soon started to tell me to stop pedalling. In the end we finished 2nd in our category and celebrated with a few beers before falling asleep completely spent! Credit to the organisers as it is definitely one of the best events I have ever done, the atmosphere was great and everyone was having a really good time.

This past weekend was Round 2 of the North East Nutcraker MTB XC series near Richmond. Saturdays temperatures reached about 24 degrees and Sunday dawned much the same. I must admit I’m a lover of the nice warm weather so me Nick and Jason headed over early in anticipation. A practice lap highlighted a course that was half farmland and half woodland singletrack, not fantastic considering the riding we have in the area but ok. I caught up with a few friends milling around the event and got ready for my race. The Elite/Expert/Junior and Sport categories were rather small and we set off at a good pace headed by the Elite Hope rider Paul Oldham. Myself, Niall (another expert) and Jo (Junior) managed to hold onto the pace before the steep hill when the elite’s rode away. Niall and myself raced together for 4 and a half laps taking turns leading at the front of the expert race. At the start of the last lap I decided to just push as hard as I could and see what happened. I knew Niall was really strong as he took 2nd in a National Points expert race a couple of weeks previously. I managed to open a gap on the second section of singletrack and kept pushing to open it further to take the win by a margin of about 30 seconds. It felt great to take my first expert win and to be on the podium for the second week in a row. I had some great support from my friends with encouragement around the whole course. In the afternoon race Jason took 4th (again) in the veteran’s race just missing out on a podium. It’s great to have cross-country racing back on the North East calendar and I look forward to the next round at Dalby Forest on the World Cup course. Now that the Arthur Caygill Road race at Richmond has been cancelled I need to find another race to do.

Early season race roundup

Dan — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:52:41 +0000

The quality of results this year definitely deserves a quick write up. With the signing of 3 new Rob’s (Wheeler, Graham & Carter) to the team over the off-season and also to U16 Alex Hopper things are really picking up.

Seniors
Croft Circuit: 3rd Dan Smith, 8th Rob Graham
Wansbeck RR: 4th Rob Carter, 6th Dan Smith
Chapters RR: 3rd Rob Carter, 10th Dan Smith
Tour of the Border St1: 5th Dan Smith, 15th Rob Graham. St2: 11th Dan Smith, 12th Rob Carter
Tour of the Border OA: 4th Dan Smith, 17th Rob Carter
Phil Russell RR: 6th Rob Carter
Bridlington CC Spring RR: 1st Dan Smith
Croft TLI Round 1: 4th Dan Smith

Youths:
Riverside Crits: 1st Charlie Tanfield (U14), 1st Alex Hopper (U16)
Yarborough Crits: 1st Charlie Tanfield (U14)
Dolan Youth Series 1: 1st Charlie Tanfield
Dolan Youth Series 2: 2nd Charlie Tanfield
Manchester Track League (Fri Night): Numerous wins for Harry Tanfield!

Well done to everyone in the results and apologies to anyone missed out! Good luck to all of the V29ers for the rest of the season.

My final weeks in shorts!!

catherine williamson — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:05:14 +0000

Am currently on my way home having being promised that spring is on the way and England is out of the horrendous winter I’ve managed to miss. The last two weeks have been 2 of the best probably which, considering I’ve had a great time since I arrived, has being the icing on the cake (which is all too often missing on Nicolene’s fab cup cakes!)
The weekend 13th and 14th of March saw the two most important events on the calendar, my birthday and the Cape Argus Pick and Pay race! We had travelled down on the Wednesday, had had a lovely ride round the course, had had a terrifying ride on the highway, and with my parents over on holiday I’d even managed a boat trip round the harbour. My birthday itself was very non eventful, nothing worse than having a big race post birthday. My romantic husband had sent a book (which actually was one I’d been after for ages) and my folks left a huge chocolate cake in my room just to torment me! The girls were great, knocking on my door at 6.30 and making me extra late for our group ride by giving me loads of goodies and a lovely card signed by them all which I’ll treasure!!! The ride was all part of the Argus experience with thousands out on the beach front even that time of morning. The rest of the day was spent in the hotel, resting and watching TV which isn’t hard when the hotel is so nice.
On race day the wind had really picked up and getting to the start in the dark was a mission in itself. Though not a patch on the hurricanes of last year it all added to the nerves as we waited in the pens and once going you had to be constantly aware of where the next gusts were coming from. The wind was a headwind on the way out which made sitting in the bunch fairly easy. I was ready for the attacks up Boyes Drive and stayed near the front though with the wind back in our faces it soon bunched up. Eventually as we turned to the right up the next climb the wind pushed from behind and suddenly the bunch was lined out. Over the top the speed was pretty high and my bike with carbon wheels along with the uneven road was so frisky at one point I’m sure the whole bike and me were side on! I stayed near the front out of trouble and followed the attacks up and over the pass. With a number of guys chasing 3 men who had got away I didn’t see the use in attacking alone, theres no way I’d stay away if I had got a gap especially as we turned back into the wind. The finish wasn’t as crazy as I’d imagined as most of the men let the woman sprint it out since 3 men stayed up the road. I got slightly boxed in and missed grabbing the wheel of guys who looked like they were leading some of the woman out. I realised I was in 4th and made a last minute desperate attempt to come through. I knew I was either 3rd or 4th but as I’m always 4th got the knives out ready for my wrists! I was pretty chuffed then to hear I was 3rd and proceeded to treat myself for the rest of the day on kooksisters (terrible spelling I’m sure, but the best thing to come out of SA!!), and of course chocolate cake while laying on the grass watching some of the thousands finish. Being Mother’s Day the podium was a nice present to my mam, which was a good job as I’d left her pressie in Bloem!

My last week in Bloem was a nice one and it was pretty emotional leaving everyone. Me and Arien were invited to a braai of lobster tails by one of the guys we ride with and my new mates in the bike shop were extra nice to me even though the cake I’d promised to make ended in disaster! (I blamed the altitude). Leaving Betsy and Arien were partially hard, like leaving my second home, I’ll really miss those warm evenings having dinner outside and putting the world to right, meeting each other half asleep at 4.30 to ride in the dark, and I’m not sure how I’ll survive without my weekly dose of Grey’s Anatomy!!

The weekend just gone we raced in Peter’s Bay, North of Durban. I’d travelled from Bloem and spent a night on the sea front in Durban in ‘Faulty Towers’ Hotel. Durban was a whole new experience and culture I found fascinating. I did get a bit lost riding and found myself saying a few prayers as I rode though the taxi ranks but, as everywhere I’ve being, I found the people so friendly. Sitting on the beach recovering from a near drown experience where I lost my goggles, bobble and dignity trying to ’surf’ the mammoth waves, I started chatting to a guy in his 40s who was looking at the sea for the first time in his life! He asked me if you could drink the water and having had half the ocean up my nose and mouth I advised against it!
The race itself was a fast 80km with the men. No one was letting anything get away and even though one of us was either creating attacks or jumping on moves it came down to a technical sprint finish. I narrowly avoided a crash and chased onto 3rd wheel round the last bend just to see another girl flying round the outside and winning the whole thing. I was 2nd, 4th overall. While the girls had a long drive back to J berg I had the treat of joining my parents back in Durban for a few days of holiday: with some painful jogs on the beach replacing the riding, another battering in the sea, and plenty of kooksisters and meaty braais!!

Catherine

Season Opener at Croft

Dan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:12:42 +0000

Last Saturday saw the North East road season opener at Croft Motor Racing Circuit in sunny but cold conditions. Velo29 were represnted in both the 3/4/V/W/J and the E/1/2/3 races. New signings Rob ‘the badger’ Wheeler and first year junior Levi ‘leipheimer’ Lawrence took part in the the first race of the day. Unfortunately things didn’t go quite to plan when the Badger went flying across the tarmac, ripping a hole in his new shorts, puncturing his front tub and scuffing his new saddle… He was however scraped up and put back on his bike so that he could finish the race! Levi did very well to get round with no mishaps in what was his first ever bunched road race. For those of you who take pleasure in other people’s misfortune, have a look on the Velo29 Facebook Page and go to 4mins19 in for the action! I bet you’re the same people that laugh at people getting hurt on You’ve Been Framed!

The E/1/2/3 race was more promising with Dan Smith and yet another new signing Rob Graham taking to the start line. Both riders finished in the top 10 with Rob taking 8th and Dan 3rd. The race was won in style by Jon Sturman from Activ-Cycles in what was an excellent race for his team. With half a dozen riders from Activ-Cycles in the race and their man in the break, the rest of their team rode an almost perfect tactical race that helped their man stay clear of the bunch.

Next race for the Velo29 Cycling Team is the Neil White Memorial Road Race on the 7th March, where the team will be trying to retain the trophy the won in 2009!