I was planning on doing a daily post to a thread on my trip to Poland to take part in the Beskidy MTB Trophy, but…

I set off from the IOM on the Tuesday evening to Gatwick on EasyJet, then the Premier Inn for the night. The next morning I was on the EasyJet flight to Krakow. Everything went perfectly, flights on time, no issues. It wouldn’t last. I landed in Krakow and headed to the shop to get a sim card, turned my phone off, put in the card and, nothing. The phone started up, but nothing on the screen. Turns out the screen chose that exact point in time to break. So no maps, time, alarm clock, email, phone etc. All the things you would expect to use on a trip.
Luckily the car rental place had satnav’s available to hire, so an additional expense. I then headed into Krakow to try find somewhere to fix my phone, with no luck. So instead of a nice relaxing drive to Istebna, I was rushing around, rushing to drive out there and having a late supper and build my bike up.

After a bad nights sleep waking up checking the time regularly on my Kindle, I was up and ready for riding.

Day 1
The weather was beautiful and dry, and not too hot, about 22*C. This was the shortest day (60km, 2500m climbing), and made out to be the easy stage. It wasn’t easy. Most of the climbs were steep, with one very steep, long section of pushing. The descents were rough and really hard work, no relaxing and cruising. There were 2 short sections that were very steep and rocky, and I was very happy I decided to take a dropper post with me as it made the descents that little bit easier. The problem was it wasn’t going back up again properly. The only mercy was it is a specialized dropper, so I could manually pull it up and click it into place.

Day 2
Another bad nights sleep checking the time, and waking up to rain on the window. It wasn’t a bad day weather wise, for most of the ride. This day was the longest day (79.2km, 2700m climbing) and overall was not too bad. There were some tricky singletrack sections, some steep climbs, one steep, rooty descent, and one not pleasant single track traverse along a very steep hill that felt like you were going to get spat off into the abyss at any time. Towards the end though, the weather changed into a lovely thunderstorm, with wind, rain, hail and lightning making the final sections interesting.

Day 3
More bad sleep, waking up to rain. Today was scheduled to be 69km, but due to the weather we were told to do the shorter course option, which was 45km and 1700m climbing. This excluded some sections which were described in the road book as “technical descents requiring utmost concentration”, which I was quite happy to miss in those conditions. It was cold (5*C at the finish) and wet. The descents were interesting in the slimy mud, but at least it wasn’t grinding paste destroying your bike and pads.

Day 4
Today was misty, warming up as the day went on, but obviously still very muddy. The first descent would have been tricky in the dry, it was a walk down in these conditions and that early in the stage. Another long stage at 74km, 3300m climbing, this was the toughest stage. Lots of steep ups, tricky, muddy, steep downs and a long time on the bike. On the 2nd to last descent my front brake started pulling a long way before biting, so I took it easy on the final downs, which were luckily not too bad.

Summary
Overall, I did enjoy the event. The weather made it tougher than it already is. I wouldn’t recommend this if you are not a confident descender.
I needed lower gearing than 32-46. My tyre choice was not too bad for the changable conditions (Schwalbe Rocket Ron / Racing Ralph), and wouldn’t go any less even if the whole event was bone dry. If there was more rain forecast, a NN/RoRo combo might be called for.
The event is quite back country riding. There are no catch nets, hand holding or massive number of marshals. The course is exceptionally well marked making the riding easy, but you do need to be comfortable riding risky terrain.
The descents were much more technical than expected, and I was very happy to have a dropper which makes those a lot more comfortable.
I’m still undecided if I will go back for another shot at this, but maybe it would be good to go do it with a bit more knowledge of what to expect, see more of the country side, and get some pictures of my trip.