A solid 237th for team Spanner.
I think that’s taught the 3 people who finished behind me a serious lesson:
Preparation is EVERYTHING.
Once more, I’d like to thank Rizla cigarette papers, Findus for the lasagne sponsorship, The Hare & Hounds – Radcliife, Bar-B-Que land kebab house – Bury and Moorhouse’s Brewery.
Without you, non of this would be possible.
Good night in the pub last night too – head now feels like there’s a Frenchman living in it.
Pete, you missed the letter H out of ‘preparation is everything’. Well done everybody. As I said at the start – to me you are all winners… I always was shit at maths.
Particular well done to Jenn Hopkins – 1st Lady. Could she be on for two first places in a week (fell race next Fri night) ?
A pretty solid last place finish for me! I hope that’s a lesson to you all about commitment and dedication! If you’re going to do something, then do it properly. And when it comes to being slow…..
Actually…. I got chatting to a few people while hiding in the woods (so I wouldn’t have to do another lap) then i started heckling everyone else, which turned out to be great fun, and i sort of forgot to finish for a bit. Oh well 😀
In the absence of looking for any evidence to the contrary I’m mugging the non category of 1st old mono cog 😀
(unless no102 beat me in which case I’m ignoring that aswell)
Although I beat you by a whole 16 places h4muf, I wouldn’t recommend the cross bike. It was only an advantage wading through the great bog of pull your shoes off and the little steep bank of um, steep bank ness. I was on it because my back refused to countenance picking up a more comfortable steed and was a bit sad when Trio25 came up behind me going wheeeeee on the berms and whoop di doos. Hey ho, it was still probably as much fun as you can have on ‘crosser 🙂
I came through at the end of my 4th lap at 1hr 55 and they pulled me over so I guess if you weren’t on your 5th by 1hr45 it was 4 Laps for a lot of us.
Like other comments on starting position I think it made a big difference as it took me at least a lap until things thinned out enough to do a reasonable amount of overtaking.
If I’d realised they’d be the bottlenecks I’d have hammered it more on the first climb from the start as I think as long as you maintained your speed your position the top pretty much dictated where you ended up.
sorry NBT I knew Nick was riding a 26er I was just thinking moreso about the large number of cross bikes.
I was really impressed with myself that on the first lap I’d managed to ride all the “rideable” climbs only for Nick to pedal past me as I was dragging my sorry ass & bike up one of the un-rideable ones, ha !!!
Still, it was a nice friendly bunch at the back, couldn’t have asked for a better queue on the 1st lap
Just wait till next year:
I’m bringing cake & Scrabble, and there will be a ‘back of the queue’ bookclub:
The tome to bone up on will be…..
……in honour of Mr Ballantine’s 59th place this year.
(It can’t have been him, can it?)
And if anyone would care to join me in a mid race picnic next year, I’ll bring a cocktail shaker and a jar of maraschino cherries.
No point in letting standards slip, is there?
Finished 145, doing 4 laps in 2 hours and a minute. Trip to minor injuries this morning, then of to A&E to find my crash on the first lap has left me with a fractured elbow 😕 Fortunately the pain in my arm was offset by the stinking hangover I had this morning. Again thanks to those that organised/ marshalled and generally made stuff happen, I had a fantastic day!
Copying out the results to a spreadsheet reveals the laps behind the winner. Looks like nick Craig managed 6 laps as I defo did 4 and from the results was 2 laps off him. Pleased with my placing. Target to beat for next year. 😆
I was 204th and did 4 laps if that helps. Looks like a LOT of people did 4 laps
Of the large number that finished with 4 laps I very much suspect I would have finished toward the back. I did 3 laps, all of which were around the 32 min mark before having a delusional Danny Hart moment on the jumps 😳