Brilliant day. Start super chaotic and cost me several places in the end I reckon but a v.enjoyable day out!
Anybody off here do it? Saw some guys getting sorted by St Johns ambulance at the end – hope they werent too seriously injured.

Do you have a time machine? 😯

8)

Stopped to help a young lad who'd come off big style on an early fire road descent. Looked to have a broken nose, cut and grazes to his face.

Found it hard this year and ultimately DNF'd 🙁

Do you have a time machine?

?

Grand day out – I've only done it once before and it noticably killed me this time round doing two 'laps' – cause you feel yourself slowing so much on the second time up some of those climbs. I clocked over 6,000ft of ascent on the Garmin. 34 miles.

Full report and rather exclusively full results before the official site can be arsed to put them on my blog:
http://www.minnellium.com/grizedale-mountain-bike-challenge-2009

Yes me and my lad did it. Good fun and nice to improve on last year when it was our first ever race
He's 15 and won the U18 in 3.20 and I'm a bit(LOT)older and got round 4 mins behind him.
Course was better than I expected although the push up on that one climb was tough

wish I'd realised it was this weekend and not next weekend like I thought 🙁 could have done it then 🙁

looks quite a different course compared with last year…

Pics will be around in a day or two.
HERE

Dave went along had had some fun taking pics, while I was in Exeter;0)

First time I've done this. Really good I thought, although harder than I expected. I thought I was going well (for me) until my legs died with about 3-4 miles to go and I lost a lot of time crawling up the final climbs in the granny ring. I was also surprised at the number of people falling off on the fire roads.

I went for a quick blast round grizedale after work on friday and some of the fire roads were pretty sketchy I thought. Having 50 psi in my tires may not have helped but the gravel was really dry and loose

Good event again but I preffered the old course with the big climb at the begining ,anybody stay for the prize presentation ?just wondered what the winner got this year

Ay Ups were the prizes for first

Yep, a good day and fantastic weather. Bike played up though, which was both unusual and annoying – two punctures, brake lever issues etc.

Course was good – hard work and a good mix of stuff I think. DHs were good fun but there wasn't much that was really challenging I thought, other than the length of it!

They needed more than one drink stop though.

Third time for me, although it was 3 years since the last one. I found it extremely tough with lots of climbing on the fire tracks. I thought the down hill sections where fantastic 😛 especially the second time round when there was no one in front to slow us down. There was however a very fast section of fire road that caught me out first time around 😕 it had a very tight R/H corner which I had to take wide as there was already someone on the deck, luckily there was a very narrow stretch of grass which acted as a run off 🙂 .
I would say that the hardest section was the push up the very steep Rocky/Grassy ascent it was a calf killer 😥
But that said it was a great day with fantastic weather and to get into the top 300 with over 600 riders taking part without really going for it was very satisfying.

I was at the St John ambulance begind the young lad. His face was swallen, lips torn, teeth missing and his hands were quite badly cut n grazed as well. Poor lad was suffering :cry:.
I had crashed out as well, approx 15 miles in. Did something really stupid through a watersplash just before a singletrack down through the trees. Limped back the 1.5+miles to the end of lap 1 to retire, the 1st one ive ever DNF 😡 Shame really cause i was quite well up and going well 🙄
I`m off work today as the impact on my right a*!e cheek was clearly more than i realised at the time. The entire buttock all the way up to the ribs is swallen….recon the camel back saved me a bit!
Saw the winner come in and shook his hand etc, asking him if he was human….I mean 2 3/4 hours ❗ and his reply was
"Only the bits that are necessary" 😉

Lovely Day though.

Anybody know why they didnt use Grizdale visitors centre as the H.Q ? always used there and parking has never been a problem

I love Grizedale, did the Northface trail in August, wish I lived in Cumbria,have such a great time mtbing everytime we go visit the parents. The kids love Grizedale too, sounds like a great day!

A few months ago the Grizedale visitor centre was one large building site,a new centre was being built over the road from the old one.
Perhaps it's still that way?
I stand to be corrected though!

anybody know why the course was changed?did it last year and thought it was great

adt – I imagine with the sheer volumes of riders as well as general public it would get a bit frantic round the visitors centre! there were LOADS of bikers when I did it last year.. and a lot of people in the visitor centre area.

What fantastic weather we had this year.
Were there really 600 entries?
I don't feel too bad now about my 97th place overall and maybe a bit higher for my age (Vet). Next year tho', deffo gonna' try to get near the front for the start – the first lap was just a procession! 🙂

Yeah, definitely better starting at the centre so the long first climb can spread the field out a bit more. The parking was a bit bonkers as well. Still really enjoyed it, the weather helped, 2nd lap was knackering though…