Douglas F Shearer

BMBS XC 2010 Round 1 - Sherwood Pines

Sherwood Pines once again hosted the first round of the BMBS, and being the second closest round this year, it’s likely to be one of only two I’ll ride this year. It’s five hours each way in the car, not terribly pleasant or relaxing.

The course was described as an ‘evolution of the popular 2009 course’, and it certainly was. Sections that had some technical edge to them had been added, meaning that physical endurance rather than outright speed was what was needed. It still feels a bit like a cyclocross course, with flat out sections separated by what are best described as obstacles, but it was good fun to race on. I rode the big ring for all but one 30s section on each lap, so you get an idea how much climbing there was.

I was gridded on the front row, and had decided to make sure I was still near the front into the first singletrack. A chicane section near the start meant I could use tight lines to hold my position, rather than suffering at the hands of the roadie masses as on the previous year’s straight-out approach. I got into the singletrack in about sixth or seventh, and was instantly held up. I just had to be patient and wait for people to calm down after the craziness of the first lap.

Into the second lap I was immediately passing people, including a group, containing Ryan Bevis, whose members were obviously just looking at each other and figuring out who would chase the leaders. I went straight past the whole group on one section of doubletrack, and didn’t see them again. I soon caught the second place rider, and was just left to chase Giles Drake (again!). He was hovering at about 30s ahead of me after getting a great start, and I just couldn’t close that gap.

I heard 24 hour legend Matt Page was coming up behind, and he was slowly catching me a few seconds at a time on each lap. On the only steep climb I saw he was about 10s behind, so I put the gas down in the last 3km to keep him at bay. I cramped on the second last corner, but had enough time to come in for second place, 33s behind Giles and 17s ahead of Matt.

I’m really pleased with a podium place, bettering my 4th place best result of previous. Other Scot’s had good results too, with Paul ‘Elvis’ Newnham (honourary Scot) and Alex Glasgow standing on the podium in Masters and Veterens respectively. Rab Wardell had an awesome result to score ninth in his return to Elite level cross country, his best ever BMBS result.

Thanks to Becks for doing my bottles, and Paul Newnham for getting a bottle to me in the second feedzone when I fumbled the first going into the second lap. Also thanks to Steve at MSC, and all the folks who shouted encouragement round the course.

Other stuff:

Giles Drake and Matt Page are both on Twitter, and Matt wrote about his race on the Wiggle Blog. Rab has his report on his Kinesis Morvelo Blog.

SXC 2010 Round 1 - Kirroughtree

The SXC kicked off at Kirroughtree for the second year running. Given my poor result at Kirroughtree last year, I wasn’t expecting anything great from it this year, especially as it was to be my first race of the season. The course had been greatly improved, with the long fire road sections broken up with challenging natural singletrack, and some of the fine rocky trails that were missed out on the last visit. There was even a few super steep loamy climbs to contend with, just my cup of tea.

The field was just as glittering as the year before, with Paul Oldham making the trip up for some early season action. At the start I knew Paul was right behind me, so I took it easy till he came past then jumped on his wheel. I couldn’t hold him for long, but got into the first singletrack in about fifth place. By the end of the first lap I was in sixth, and would remain so for the remainder of the race. I could see Giles Drake of MSC up ahead almost all the time, and closed within fifteen seconds of him going into the last lap, but was unable to catch him as little hydration meant I was suffering cramp pretty bad on the steep climbs. Luckily I had enough in the tank to hold off Alex Glasgow who had punctured earlier in the race.

I’m pretty chuffed with sixth place in the first race of the season, the preparation and training is definitely starting to pay off. Thanks to Steve and Linda at the Cairnholy Old Farmhouse for the fantastic accommodation for the weekend.

Training Camp: Lanjaron 2010

I’ve not been partial to the idea of killing myself on the bike for a week then sharing a plane back with lots of ill people in a state of reduced immune. This year I decided to break with that tradition for the chance to go to Spain with some of Scotland’s Elite XCers: Andy Barlow, Dave Henderson, and Paul C Smith. We headed to Lanjaron, just north of Motril on the southern Spanish coast, and were staying with Freeride Spain for the week in one of their rented villas.

We rode for six days out of the seven we were there, covering about 500 km and 16,000m of climbing. The rain was non-stop for the most part, but at least it was 10C warmer than the freezing temperatures at home. Spain isn’t really made for the rain, what with exposed electrics on the buildings and road cuttings through sediment that collapsed and created some nice landslides for us to wade through.

The training value was fantastic and apart from the first day, where a 30mile spin turned into a 80mile epic, I felt I managed well, even competing for some of the sprints at the end of the six mile climb home. My results this year have already shown benefit of the extra training both at home and on the trip, so I’ll definitely be considering similar next year.

You can find more pictures of the trip on Flickr, and Paul’s own report on his blog.

Mountain Mayhem 2009

The first in a series of ‘better late than never’ postings.

The Glencroft Rabble invited me to ride the 2009 Mountain Mayhem with them, a race I had never done before, and indeed my first 24hour since I swore off them after bad experiences in 2006. Queue a road trip with the boys down to deepest England in Gav’s Dad’s ridiculously powerful VW van. We entered the event arena with the ceilidh music blaring, much to our own amusement. After a few rude folk insisting their barbeque would take up five tent spaces, we settled next to some of the army crowd.

For some reason I was volunteered to do the Le Mans style start. This was pretty brutal, as running on hard ground in race shoes is not something super comfortable. After finding my bike I pushed on to pass loads of folk and eventually come in 16th or so after the first lap. The course was pretty awesome, though as we later found out, the chicken run on one steep descent was about 30s faster.

Geoff broke his mech on his first lap, resulting in him losing a few minutes. This was OK, but it resulted in me being a few minutes late to meet him after his next lap as I didn’t adjust his lap time for the mechanicals. My fault, but luckily it was one of only a few minor troubles we had.

During my first night lap it rained, which turned the dry dusty ground into an icerink due to the putty-like clay on top. We were all running dry-tyres, but were managing to ride everything with ease, only losing a few minutes a lap compared to the dry times. Gav did have a bit of a mega crash on a cattle grid on his wet lap, but being the legend he is he got straight back up to finish his lap then report to the first aid tent.

The weather turned nice again, and the course soon dried up as a result. This didn’t stop the organisers taping out one fun part of the course as someone had broken their pelvis. Shame, as I was loving the roots and mud on that section.

Someone told me we were in third in expert and fifth overall before my 6am lap. This was the boost I needed to crack on with the rest of my laps. I passed George Budd from Team Salsa, who were in second at that point, on the steep forestry road climb. I said hi, and kept the pressure on for the rest of the lap. The rest of the guys did the same for our remaining laps.

In the end we were fourth overall, and the second expert male team. Great performance all round.

On the way home we were pretty sleep-deprived. Geoff and I amused ourselves by texting BBC Radio One’s “The Surgery” with our own definition of ‘success’. Well, they did ask.

About a week after the event, I discovered that I had the fourth fastest climb time for the steep forestry road I mentioned above. Not bad since this was just the place on the course I was using to make up time, rather than specifically targeting it.

Thanks to Geoff, Gav and Jack for the brilliant weekend. Also thanks to Andrea for the cups of tea and food between laps and afterwards.

Kona Kula Deluxe 2008 Dropout

Last night I snapped the replaceable deraileur hanger on my 2008 Kula Deluxe, and was looking for a replacement.

Kona don’t list it in the technical guides on their website, and the hanger is merely marked with ‘S9’ or ‘6S’ depending on which way you hold the hanger. Thankfully after a bit of looking around, I discovered what I wanted in the form of a BETD 197 hanger.

Phew, now I can be riding in two days, while my dealer-ordered one can be a spare.

SXC Round 4 2009 Fort William

The fourth round of the SXC was also the Scottish Champs. I was hoping to reasonably well, maybe get myself a top five. This didn’t happen for me, as on the day my legs were not enjoying the three big-ring flat sections, and I lagged quite a bit towards the end, eventually ending up in eleventh place.

The course was awesome though, with the super steep start section, then some of the climb from 10 Under the Ben two weeks before. Then into an awesome natural descent, full of stumps and dropoffs to catch out the unwary. I honestly wonder what it would have been like had it rained for several days before the event.

Muchos respect to Andy Barlow for finally adding the Scottish Champs to his Palmares.

The SXC site has results, and images are available from Colin Robinson.

10 Under the Ben 2009

No Fuss yet again put on a sterling event for the 2009 edition of 10 Under the Ben at Fort William. And they got the weather right, with 30C heat beating down on the riders in the middle of the day.

I was riding with Allan ‘The Love Machine’ Love, taking it easy, and generally having some fun. This didn’t stop me having a go at the fastest lap. I thought I had it in the bag, even though on my first and fastest lap my front mech cable slipped leaving me unable to get into the big ring. No worries really, it possibly stopped me from pushing to big a gear. It looked to be in the bag, until Mr Andy Barlow popped in to do solo, and pushed out some of the quickest laps of the day, beating my times be a few minutes. Not to worry, it’s all a bit of fun.

Like last year I felt the event was slightly over-subscribed, with far too many people on the course at any one time. Despite the good humour of those I passed, I did have one crash when someone stopped right in front of me at a water trough. I expect a little inexperience from people, but it was so busy it was feeling almost dangerous at points.

The course was a cracker though, definitely the best so far, with some of the World Champs descent used as a climb, and lots of nice natural stuff thrown in.

I wasn’t on my own for the weekend; Emma came up for a mini-holiday, along with Magnus (who got lost briefly when he went to insect the sausages cooking across the carpark). Murray and Vo were riding solo, with Dawn and Tracey supporting them respectively. Murray did six laps, which was mightily impressive since he underwent brain surgery less than a year ago. Vo beasted it up for eight laps, resplendent in his Molteni top.

Photos from the weekend can be seen on Flickr.

SXC Round 3 2009 Laggan

Laggan is not usually one of my favourite races, the big-ring climb straight up a forestry road with a man-made descent straight back down is usually pretty unexciting. But for 2009, a few hundred meters of natural singletrack had been added to the climb, making things a lot more interesting, and leaving a few people like myself on the ground.

First lap was straight up the forestry road, with the singletrack climb only being ridden for the remaining laps. Thankfully everyone kept their heads on at this point, and we cruised up before having a bit of a sprint in the final few hundred meters for the holeshot into the descent. I got into fifth position, which I held all the way to the bottom.

Onto the climb again there was a little group of five of us, with four riders up ahead. I blew apart the group I was in with a big effort on the steep part, so as I could be first into the singletrack. This worked well, and only Jack Richards and Bruce McLeary were able to come with me. Jack had a little tumble on the exit to the forestry road, leaving Bruce and I to our personal battles.

On each of the remaining laps Bruce would gain about five seconds at the top of the climb, and I’d take it back on the bottom of the next climb. This continued until the last lap where I caught and passed him before the singletrack. Unfortunately I followed Jack’s example, and went over my bars on the exit, meaning Bruce could put a couple of seconds into me.

Bruce ended up taking 4th place by the misfortune of James Fraser-Moodie who had a puncture. I rolled in in 6th place overall, first Expert.

The SXC site has results, and images are available from Colin Robinson.

BMBS XC 2009 Round 2 - Dalby Forest

The second round of the BMBS was held at Dalby Forest, a venue that shall host the first round of the 2010 World Cup. After my top 10 result at the first round, I was hoping to have a similarly good result. Dalby forest is an off place to get to, the last quarter of the journey takes half the time, due to a combination of rural roads and a massively long forest drive to finish.

The course was a good one, steep climbs, with similarly steep descents. Much was made of the steep drop at Worry Gill, with queues of people watching as I rode down it without even looking. Some people even went home on the Saturday, so unsettled by the course were they.

A fast start was required to make sure that there wasn’t many riders holding me up in the singletrack. This didn’t all go to plan, as starting from the right side of the front row, with a long left hander right of the start line, meant I got into the first section in about tenth. Patience was the key at this point, as I slowly worked through the riders over the first few sections. This wasn’t enough though, as several hesitant riders allowed the first few riders to get away while i was stuck behind. This is nicely evidenced on Vimeo starting at 9:54. The top three can also be seen running away in this video as several riders wuss out on the drop in front of me.

Going into the last lap I heard the announcer say I was in 5th, so I put the hammer down for the last lap. About 3/4 of the way round I could see the rider in fourth place ahead of me. I caught and passed him on the last steep climb, he was unable to respond to the pace I was setting. So I finished in fourth place, definitely an improvement on the last round.

Results can be seen over at Timelaps.

Drumlanrig Tearfund Challenge 2009

The Drumlanrig Tearfund Challenge is a road sportive based at the wonderful Drumlanrig Castle. The entry is very limited, and unlike other sportives, you don’t pay to enter, you make a donation to Tearfund. With an entry of 300 the event feels very low key and friendly, and everyone seemed to be keen to chat and swap stories before, during and after.

A unique feature of this sportive is the un-timed rest-stop in the middle. Here you can eat cakes to your hearts content, or at least until the final departure time, without this affecting your overall time.

As per Team Macchiato directives, I was there with Vo, resplendent in our matching (well, not so much these days) Bianchis. I was also wearing an Innerleithen MTB Racing top, just so people would know what to expect when we came to the climbs.

The first half was expected to be the hardest, with a big climb up to the UK’s highest village, Wanlockhead, followed by a section back into a headwind. Up the climb I left the group Vo and I had started with behind, and chatted to the Team Colnago team manager, who was wearing a peaked helmet in an effort to show off his roots. Up over the top of the climb I was on my own down the first descent to Elvanfoot. On this descent I was caught by Vo who unfortunately punctured as soon as we turned into the headwind.

The headwind was a bit of a nightmare for me, as I couldn’t see any groups coming up behind, and all the small fragmented groups of riders I caught up with were going slower than me, so much so they couldn’t hold my wheel when I went to the front. After another descent a fast group came past, mostly made up of Ayrodynamic members. I latched onto this group and we chainganged it back to the castle. I was surprised by some of the big guys missing turns at the front, but maybe they were saving themselves for the second half. Vo appeared about 10 minutes later, having been lucky enough to meet a fast group just as he finished fixing his puncture.

After the cake stop, Vo and I set off again. Two of the riders in our group were riding rather pimped-out Storck bikes, carbon spokes, the works. Both guys evidently were aware of the fragility of their steeds, as rough sections were approached at a far slower pace than what I would call normal. At one cattle grid I almost became a human suppository, as both riders on the front failed to warn those behind, and braked rather suddenly and excessively. On the first climb I was glad to leave them behind, with the sound of crumpling carbon and swearing as poor gear adjustment on one of said bikes left the rider to walk back with broken spokes, mech hanger and seatstay.

The second half was a different beast to the first. Wind played little part, and steep climbs (one was 25% for some considerable distance, and resulted in lots of people walking) were followed by rough gravelly descents. Just my cup of tea. I was on my own for the first twenty miles or so, but in the second half I joined up with a lad of similar age and build to myself who superbly fast on the flats. We worked together for the remaining twenty miles, taking turns on the front on the flatter sections, and me driving the pace on the front up the climbs. Having someone to work with made the pain of pushing so hard a lot easier.

I rolled in at four hours and eighteen minutes, I thought comfortably within the ‘gold standard’ time. Unfortunately the event was slightly shorter than last week, and the correction the the times was not made until after the event. I missed out by a minute, but that’s always something to go for next year.

Without a doubt the Tearfund Challenge is an awesome event, and to make it even better you receive a ‘virtual goody bag’ at the end, being a record of all the things your donation will provide for those in need. I was most glad to see that they will be receiving t-shirts with the image of Che Guevara as a badger, definitely something everyone needs. I wonder how early I can enter next year…