Finished 17th in the male team of three category. Course was tougher than I thought it was going to be, with no real flowy single track descents. Great fun in the dark. Bike developed an awful creak on the second lap, which I think was the Bottom pivot bearings giving up.

Didn’t hang around for all the prize giving, would have if there was an award for “best comedy bike dismount in the transition area”, I would have won that hands down.

Dunno how I feel about this event. On the one hand it was a great riders course and kept you working all the way around. And on the other the event itself wa just meh! Kids race on the Saturday afternoon when most hadnt arrived yet ? Quite/solo camping area was full of teams and one genie running for hours into the night. One running water tap miles away from from most of the campsite. Just meh…. :/

To be fair, gorrick do say there’s no mains water on site so you need to bring your own. There’s only so much they can do.

Course was similar to the year before, it’s always a hard course there, just because there is no decent descents to rest on, but it’s the roughness that beats it out of you eventually, pleased with 4th fat bike, I had a shocking lap, which would have looked like I had forgotten how to ride, handlebar barged a hanging branch, on the floor, target fixated on a tree, rode completely upto it, slipped on a root and shoulder barged a tree, it got better after that, a stern talking to myself and bike and we cracked on. My silliest mistake was preriding the course, then altering my tyre pressures, adding extra pressure was not a good idea, 6 1/2 psi was great, 8 psi just made it harsh and jarring with less grip. Some good banter with other racers at points, which is what makes endurance racing all the more fun.

“One running water tap miles away from from most of the campsite”

Actually, there was one tap fixed to a tree, and several basin taps in the shower cubicles……………..

Ah, sorry if i missed the water notes on the site/entry. Ill apologize 🙂

benji
I followed you round for most of the day . White Trek 29er FS , blue stw jersey . You had your amazing dismounts in front of me, at least you cracked on with it.
drafting a fat bike really does work on the fireroads .

What bike was Sam Underhill riding, someone past me on my flux and said nice bike, I thought why would someone say that out of the blue, then remembered Sam had one.

Going pretty slow at that point as my left knee, which has never given me any issues in my 51 years, was giving me loads of gip 🙁

I came up behind a guy on a salsa Fargo and asked ‘salsa Fargo?’, then had a bit off a conversation on my tripster and his tyre choice, and then he lost it on some roots. Later I came up behind him again and was about to say the same, thought it might be amusing in a groundhog day sort of way, but he lost it on the roots before I got to say anything..

Sam was on a blue flux. He was hoping to win the Turner category ;0)

No, not a Flux, the other one, a Czar

PS anyone know who the DJ under the bridge was ? Or way to follow him on soundcloud etc

Oh and how did the driver of the Audi R8 fit their mountain bike in?

That was my son…….remove both wheels/seat post and job done! But it won’t work with a 29er

Sadly my flux died last month. Crash replacement from Turner means it’s now a czar!
Andrew – I don’t remember seeing you / your bike, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t me.

First 12 hr solo for me. I managed 10 laps despite having to get my rear wheel rebuilt mid race! Great course though, technical, twisty and fun!

Small world Singletrackmind, was it you with me from about 7ish?

I thought the route was superb, required lots of pedalling to keep pace up and plenty of tech stuff to keep it interesting. I liked the section on the left after the bridge most, reminded me of a local trail FBM on the north downs. We managed 2nd in male team vets, and 6th overall male team.

the guy who commented was on an on-one hardtail which is another reason I wondered about it.

How’s the czar? They do look bloody good.

The czar is fast! I only wish I could do it justice! Beautifully built, Turner have really upped their game.

Quality event – course held up very well considering the weather we’ve had recently

Real nice feel to the event with lots of friendly banter when passing or being passed

Happy with 6th in the 12h male pairs on our fatbikes

“honk honk”

🙂

Loved the course, bit of climbing, loads of lively roots and it didn’t cut up :o)

the weather gods really do look after Gorrick, maybe some Karma for hard work they put in!

Bit of a strange day for me, gave me some clarity – whilst I loved riding the trails and could have ridden there for hours on end (oh I did) I didn’t really enjoy the racing, despite getting my best ever result for the event – so more trail riding and less racing for me – I may even knock my cross season on the head, any one fancy a TCX Advance in large!!!

I didn’t ride, but our lot got a kids race win, 3rd in 12hr solo female and 3rd in 12hr vet solo female. We were pitched up by Olympic ridge. I got a lap in with my son, and thought the course was great with most of the sections ridden in the best direction.

Good to see lots of kids there and racing too. Good weekend and congrats to Gorrick for another great event.

Bit of a strange day for me, gave me some clarity – whilst I loved riding the trails and could have ridden there for hours on end (oh I did) I didn’t really enjoy the racing, despite getting my best ever result for the event

Does anyone truly enjoys XC racing apart from the first and last laps plus some mental victories in keeping going when your body screams stop? During it I swear never ever again. Then the brain reformats the experience and I start to wonder how I can improve and it starts all over again…….

During it I swear never ever again. Then the brain reformats the experience and I start to wonder how I can improve and it starts all over again…….

🙂

It was you on the singular puffin then Jon. You passed me bimbling along on my specialized fatboy 🙂

Peculiar lap times for the solo winner, anyone know him? Seemed to manage to go faster than virtually any other rider, team or otherwise, at several points during the race!

I really enjoyed it. I hadn’t ridden my bike much in the 3-4 weeks leading up to the race, so was just doing it for a bit of fun. After a pre-ride on Tuesday I was slightly concerned it could be a repeat of the BM race earlier in the year which was pretty tough. In the end the dry course was great fun to ride, and nice to ride sections in a different order. I finished 8th in the Vets 6hr, which I was pleased with given how unseriously I took the whole thing. With hindsight I went out a bit too easy, but wasn’t sure how my legs would cope later in the race.

Packing up the tent on Monday morning was a bit of experience!

Peculiar lap times for the solo winner, anyone know him?

He rides for the Army Cycling Union so is known by them, and probably by the organisers. Does Strava have the answers? Maybe long pitstops followed by smashing out super super quick laps.

Peculiar lap times for the solo winner, anyone know him? Seemed to manage to go faster than virtually any other rider, team or otherwise, at several points during the race!

Single speed too – 16 laps. I’d need to look at the data but I could see where it would be easy – out of the bit where you dove into a drop after crossing a fire road into up onto the big grassy downhill slope before the “corkscrew” – you could ride 50m across the top,of the field and join at the top,of the climb out, missing out about 10 mins of lap, if you looked across before you went down e big grassy slope.

Only he wasn’t on a Single Speed!?
Race number 114, riding a Whyte with gears.
Look through the photos and you’ll see him.
He spent a couple of minutes chatting to one of my teammates whilst taking a break, that would have been bang on his 9th lap. So that explains that one 🙄
Also being in the Army and being good at a sport pretty much guarantees you’ll do a lot of it.

benji
Yep, around 7ish . I went out without lights so used yours in places, May have mentioned your tyre was nearly as fat as your waist !

Think we swapped places a couple of times as our lap times are within a minute or so each lap.

Still trying to extract the saddle from my lower regions , got some serious chaffing despite a dollop of chammy cream on the pad.

^^^ Amended post – Kryton why on earth would you start saying that – plain wrong in my opinion

Only he wasn’t on a Single Speed!?
Race number 114, riding a Whyte with gears.
Look through the photos and you’ll see him.
He spent a couple of minutes chatting to one of my teammates whilst taking a break, that would have been bang on his 9th lap. So that explains that one

Was curiousity on my part rather than anything else, but ‘being in the army’ is rarely enough to mean you’ll beat a few known elite racers. Sure there’s nowt in it, it just stands out because he was literally among the fastest people there on several laps, but 10 minutes slower on the others. It’s just an unusual tactic, usually the winners are fairly consistent.

Like I say, sure it’s genuine, just interesting. Goes against the “keep on plodding” philosophy by smashing out some incredible laps, then easing off.

adsh – Member
^^^ Amended post – Kryton why on earth would you start saying that – plain wrong in my opinion

Sorry what’s wrong? I genuinely thought the winner was riding SS and won the SS and Solo medals. I was sitting next to the podium, and at one point standing on it, but it was getting on for 2am and I was tired so I may have been mistaken?

Re that opportunity to cut the lap short? I’m not accusing anyone I just pointed out that I could see it was there.

Sorry to offend on either point

Solo Vets winner was riding SS.

I assume it’s the assertions of cheating he meant though.

It is weird. If you ignore the first lap when (I presume?) they missed out the first bit of singletrack he actually put in the fastest and second fastest laps of the entire race, across all categories.

I would say njee if you look at my data, our pairs laps are almost reflective of the same discrepancy, if you were knocking out doubles we both found the second lap quite hard with a 3-4 min difference between the second and the first of a stint.

If I were doing that solo I would imagine that discrepancy getting bigger over the course of the race.

It doesn’t for anyone else though, and the fast laps are insanely fast. I’ve been sad enough to copy the lap times of the top 5 into a graph and it looks very strange. Wonder if it’s a Timelaps problem, presumably no one else noticed their lap times varying?

We could just give the poor chap credit for being very fast and winning the thing?

Just looked, agree it does look odd, around 40min or less for 3 of the night laps too, incredibly fast after 10hrs of racing.

Is it a regular rider? Not a name I recognise

Apologies and kudos if legit. And wow. I need to train harder.

It is a very unusual set of lap times. The usual pattern is a gradual decay of a few seconds per lap, this really is the standard pattern across all events and represents the slow reduction of aerobic power available to the athlete over time.
The winners pattern represents the ability to absolutely smash the lap at will and then decide to play around for a bit or have a rest. Is he an elite rider in another disipline?

Wonder if it’s a Timelaps problem, presumably no one else noticed their lap times varying?

I’d imagine this is the case.

Steve Day who won the Vet 12h said that his Garmin and his wife’s notes both show him having done 16 laps but the results are showing him having only rode 15 so I’d guess there’s a problem with Timelaps.

Also, our pair disappeared off the list until I pointed it out to Timelaps, who then fixed it so clearly there was some issues. I was told by the Timelaps chap my race number was affiliated to a different non existent team name. It was sorted later.

Steve is evil fast on a single speed, he won mayhem solo cat ,rigid and ss by 2 laps over the next solo and that was with breaking his bike. He’s also a serious contender for the ss cat in the WEMBO this year. Cant see him pulling a cheat somehow..its not his style