At the weekend I was down in the Lakes for the Penrith Merida with the EUCC guys and gals.

We stayed at Tim’s parent’s house on the saturday, and enjoyed some wonderful home cooking and hospitality.

The Merida itself was a tough one, 83km, and 2400m of climbing, some of which involved some hike-a-bike. Once I got over the start line (2.5mins, must be on the front line next time) and passed a few hundred people I started to settle in. On the first climb I ended up with a group of fairly fast guys who I was near for most of the race.

Towards the end I started to get cramp, annoyingly while sprinting downhill a few km from the finish, so that slowed me down a bit there. I finished in 4 hours and 38 minutes, 39 minutes behind winner Nick Craig, and somewhere in the top 30 (Someone else calculated top 10). The results they give out aren’t terribly accurate and don’t separate the different distances.

It is definitely the toughest race I have done in a while, I’ve had to spend all this week resting so I can recover in time for the Fort William SXC this weekend.

On a side note, I got a pair of Marzocchi Corsa SL WC forks last week, Out of the box they weren’t very smooth, and it wasn’t till I took the remote lockout off I realised they were never fully unlocked. Some lube in the lockout pulley the cable runs round soon sorted that out, and they now work perfectly.