Hi all

A bit of a last minute change of plans this weekend… I’d arranged to ride my usual Surrey Hills 100 miles off road loop with Al Fairbairn, but as it was such a nice day forecast I managed to convince Al he wanted to get up at 5.30am on Saturday and go to Margam Park instead to race the Margam Madness 8hr enduro.

The course was advertised as being 10km, technical and with 1500ft of climbing per lap. They weren’t wrong… They’ve been busy at Margam building new sections of black trail to a total of 5km of the 10km lap. These sections were really quite demanding to ride; thank god it wasn’t raining! There were very steep, loose, rocky and in parts very rooty. My favourite Absolutely fantastic, really worth the brutal uphills every lap and a real step up for UK endurance courses. I don’t usually do shameless plugs, but I was so glad to have the new 650b snakeskin Racing Ralphs fitted for this race. 8hrs of riding over those rocks would have trashed the normal ones and a lot of riders suffered with punctures as a result.

The race itself was pretty non-eventful; all the 4hr and 8hr riders started together, I rode round with Phil Morris who was in the 4hr race for the first lap and a bit, then rode off on my own for the rest of the race. I was never too sure how far ahead I was so kept pushing on and kept the lap times consistent between 38-42mins for the whole race, which I was pleased about. I finished 1st overall in the 8hr race, beating all the teams and pairs too. I nearly came a cropper on the final decent on the last lap, I got a bit cocky and tried a little whip off a jump and landed it very sideways, narrowly avoiding being highsided into the rocks! Lesson learnt – don’t try whips after 8hrs of riding…

This event really deserves to be a lot bigger than it is. It’s the most demanding and yet most enjoyable lap I’ve ever ridden, anywhere. The National Series visits Margam in June and will use most of the new trails, plus one new descent we didn’t use in the enduro. It’s going to be extremely demanding to ride those sections at XC race pace, in an enduro you can ease off slightly at the top of the climbs and so arrive at the top of the scary bits a bit less ruined…

Big Al won the 8hr vets race so a great day all round.

GB

i echo the words of george! not many endurance races where feet climbed goes in 5 figures and include 3 black run descents!!!! great event, so glad it was dry! happy with 2nd in 8hour solo, small but class field of racers

http://chris-noble-mtb.blogspot.co.uk

Nice one Gee, that’s an event worth bookmarking.

I had 13,000ft of climbing over 70 miles (11 laps).

For comparison my 100 mile Surrey Hills epic is 10,000ft.

GB

Really enjoyed the event. Bit apprehensive at the start, most of the field looked like proper machines! Anyway me and my team mate dragged ourselves round enjoying the track. Having 160mm travel and a dropper post was handy for the fun black graded downhill section!
Nice atmosphere in the arena too, some interesting tunes being played over the PA ha ha!

Sounds like it was better than last year when locals decided it would be a good idea to move all the course arrows around…

Hello Flaperon, I think there was only one arrow movement last year and it only affected the first lap. Bigger issue was the awful weather, which fortunately we didn’t have this year and would have been less of an issue due to the new hardpack trails.

Here are some pics of Gee, Chris Nobel (c-klein) and Brian Preece on one of the descents.

However, I have to say these local lads on big bikes were the fastest

Was really good to see some quality riders turn out for this event. It is the 3rd time it has run (previous events were end of season in October) and it is slowly growing a good following. There must have been 100 racers this year with many travelling a long way to attend.

I think that lots of little things could be improved but the main elements of a great course and good racing are all there.

Unfortunately I wasn’t riding this year as I’ve managed to get ill.

As usual the Hortons from Fully Sussed did a great job on timekeeping, chunes, and commentary.

Looks fantastic but with a nagging injury I am very glad I didn’t go!

New trails at Margam looking good! Can’t wait for the National Race there, one of my favourite courses when fit.

any more pics, after on of our RDFCC rider Jared Linden, second in the solo 4hr men

I didn’t get many. Best ones above.

Have a look here http://www.everybodysmile.biz/cgi-bin/public.cgi?Id=198904