The Weekender didn’t start well.
I made a bit of a prat of myself before the event even began, a rather embarrassing little accident.
This resulted in a damaged knee (thanks to the Mountain Rescue guys who were providing the first-aid cover)
It also resulted in a broken frame, but the lovely people over at Cotic sorted me out, and kept me riding for the rest of the weekend, full story here http://andrewhowett.blogspot.co.uk/ To anyone tempted by a Rocket I can say yes, it is as good as the hype suggests.
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Anyway, I really enjoyed the event (with the obvious exception of a brief and painful moment on Saturday morning) and will be back again next year.

full story isn’t in your blog though…. you don’t say how it happened, what you did, or what bike was broken and where.
is disappointed.

OK, Partial story and some pictures of a very nice Cotic Rocket can be found there 🙂
Basically, I had an ‘unclip right foot and try to put left down’ incident somewhere in the vicinity of the seesaw, I hadn’t even got as far as getting onto it! A frame shouldn’t break from a 2mph topple. Only it’s fourth ride too.
I’ll leave the detail about the bike and the damage until I’ve spoken to the warrenty deptartment, seems a silly little accident to do so much damage.
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PS. it wasn’t a Cotic I broke, they were just being helpful. The man from Orbea gave me cake to cheer me up, cake always helps.

My sister in law (short bright red hair – usually accompanied by a mad border collie) is in Rossendale Mountain Rescue.

She reckons the vast majority of accidents they attend at Lee Quarry involve people falling off the seesaw. 😀

I hadn’t even got onto the seesaw 😳
Someone got taken away from the same spot in their Landrover/ambulance about an hour later, anyone know who it was?
Anyone know who got a ride in the helicopter? Was it serious or just a precaution?

I’ll ask her tomorrow.

Glad you were ok.
Another few feet and it could have been much more serious – the seesaw of doom might have claimed another victim 😀

a damaged knee (thanks to the
Mountain Rescue guys)

Did they assault you?

Every cloud, eh?

Did you find out if the Rocket came with a crown race?

I fell off the seesaw but somehow managed to clean it! Result(apart from the grazed knee)

I managed to do it OK on every other attempt. I even caught my duck without getting wet 🙂 (if you weren’t there that would make no sense) but then fell in the duck water on Sunday morning!
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Yes, it did come with a crown race. However, this was only one Rocket, I would assume they all come with one but can’t be certain of this as I’ve not looked at all of them. It is entirely possible of course that the crown race on this one may have been a retro-fitted update. It was called Nuke-Proof and even I failed to break it so we can assume that it is indeed nuke-proof. Do all headsets come with a crown-race? Has anyone ever checked? 😉

Were you the bloke practising on the climb out of the quarry before the trials? He was on a borrowed Rocket. I was on a white ibis also practising. I didn’t make it up the climb but I did the see-saw and the log… confirming that I can cycle in a straight line but not much else…

The air ambulance was what was sent when mountain rescue called for an ambulance. A non-racer did his face quite a bit of damage, not life threatening but needing patching up.

Well done the people who got the ducks!

Could have been me (not too many borrowed Rockets around!)
I didn’t quite make the top in practice, kept losing it on the final turn with about 6ft to go. Got steadily worse the more I practiced and then failed miserably in the event.
However, the Rocket climbed very well in the XC race, think it just needs a good run up at stuff, got it round 3 laps in 1hr and a few seconds. Perfect bike for Saturday.
Love the white Ibis, heard a few pepole comment on that. More akin to my intended bike, which would have been ideal for Sunday. How did the Ibis cope with Saturday? Better than mine obviously, but did it feel solid enough for you to really push on the DH?