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.