Wow – what an event! Great course, amazing atmosphere, the friendliest riders all of whom offered encouragement to soloists after dark which was a tremendous boost. If I ride a bike again I’ll return!

Great event as always. Well done Gorrick for pulling a great course together. Rode there back in April after the tree felling and storms and it really was devastated so pretty impressive course considering.

Everyone was so friendly on the course as well. Riding a fatbike I was passed continuously and always politely. And loved the comments about the blue on silver reflecto rims in the dark 😀 .

And for those who thought it too dusty, I’m just glad it wasn’t 24hrs later.

Muke; pm about the photos.

Yep, great fun, such a loamy course, but great to see they’ve done so much trail building after losing a lot of the old stuff. Really dodged a bullet with the weather certainly!

Great to get the win in the 3 man teams too.

Great event, well done Gorrick! Such a fast course even with the dust and loam. The glow sticks marking parts of the course were a nice touch!

NJee which outfit were you riding for?

Great event as always – kudos to whoever booked the weather! 😉

My first solo 12hr and managed 10 laps, and boy do I know it today!

NJee which outfit were you riding for?

We were a mix – Beyond/Activ/Salsa – I was the Beyond rider – black/yellow kit.

Had a really good time mostly. Team of 3 with the Fareham Wheelers mtb division.
We had a plan , Your 3rd and 4th laps should be faster than your 1st and 2nd. As with all plans they are only effective if your team mates stick to the same plan.
The course almost demanded that you attacked it constantly, either on the sponge climb or through the tight twisty bits. Winding in ones neck was necessary to stick to said plan.
We were 19th at the 6hr point, and crept up to 14th at the end.
Nice friendly atmosphere , some very , very talented riders and some just out for fun. Some laps had minutes of having no – one around which was different.
Well done to the Muddy@rse girls , 2nd in female pairs . Congrats.
Good to see alot of familiar faces out and about .
Only gripe , minimal / zero marshals out on course,but thats only neccessary if you have a serious incident i suppose.

The Spongebob climb was utterly horrific! Felt like one should be riding at least twice as fast!

That was the only bit of the cousre I had to drop to granny ring , mostly because I have the legs of a baby robin. The amount of power required to maintain momentum was horrific.
I enjoyed the night lap i did as well, OK so 49 mins isnt setting any records but seeing all the dust we must have been hoovering up in your light beams was worrying. That cant be good for you . I might go cough up a house brick later . Its still coming out of my eyes now.
Didnt see you Nick, got shouted at by Gee for taking my hands of the bars though.

No I didn’t see you either Rob! Always the way isn’t it, if you don’t cross in transition or on course then you miss folk.

I thought everyone was extremely courteous with being overtaken actually, one of the best I’ve done, people offering lines and things without provocation. Always welcome in the long bits of singletrack!

I had a terrible race yesterday, really didn’t enjoy it at all.

I preferred the courses from the past couple of years but from what I’ve heard they were pretty much wrecked by the forestry work, which is a shame. There was some pretty fast riders out there yesterday and it was a hell of a ride by the winner of the 12h vet solo who won his race by 24 minutes riding singlespeed and managed two laps more than the winner of the 12h solo category!

The spongebob climb killed me, I reckon I would’ve been quicker getting off and pushing up there 😆

Agree that the previous courses were better, but they’d certainly done extremely well with what they had. Those grassy sections would’ve been horrific in the wet!

Fab job on the course, like Andy said, being a local I’ve seen what the area was like after the logging, and there’s a heck of a load of work been done to uncover the legacy trails and cut some new ones. Which if we keep riding, will in no time become packed down like the old favourites.

Which we will, won’t we? (That was me on behalf of TAG at the start of the rider briefing. Please have a look at the TAG website and attend the public meeting if you can……)

Great event with a great bunch of people

The dust was crazy – been blowing my nose today and it’s like i spent the last week down a coal mine! 🙂

Big respect to the Gorrick team for making such a challenging course – as JonV & Andy said above, the place has been trashed over the last 12 months

I was part of a 3 man Fatbike team – still not sure if the big tyres helped in the loam – but really good fun 🙂

Great event, interesting course, managed 7 laps before it shook me to bits, was in for a 12hr solo, rode it on a rigid singlespeed pace. Spongebob climb was different, it was odd following people to see the ground under their wheels springing about. Endurance events always seem to attract the right friendly crowd, no problem with passing or being passed, always polite. Woke to rain on my tent, and was so pleased we had raced the day before, all the exposed roots would have been lethal wet.

Really enjoyed it. I did the 6 hour race for a change, it was nice to finish and not to be totally broken like I normally am after 12 hours.

Also suffered with the dust, I have been coughing all day.

The amount of loose loamy stuff on the ground in some places was crazy, the ground at Minley does seem to be a bit strange and new trails always take a few races/years to properly bed in. – next year those bits will probably really quick.

Totally agree about how friendly the race was.

Looking forward to next year’s race already.

Loved the event (at least in hindsight). I honestly don’t think I’ve ridden in that much dust before. The first lap was crazy, charging through clouds of the stuff. All felt a bit Paris-Roubaix.

I’ve never ridden at Minley before, but thought the course was excellent. Took a fair bit of effort to get the most out of it. Back and wrists are feeling pretty sore today. Just thankful we were racing in yesterday’s sunshine rather than today’s heavy rain.

Lots of very friendly people out on course. Special thanks to the chap who donated a gas cartridge to me on my final lap. Bike had a full-on clown-car style mechanical collapse… spoke snapped, which lead to tubeless seal getting broken. My CO2 valve then broke :-/ and to make matters worse my light battery died way earlier than I was expecting, meaning most of the lap was done via helmet light only (probably because it was the first bit of night riding I’ve done for a few months. Should have charged and discharged the battery a couple of times). Ah well, all the drama meant I didn’t have to go out and do another lap!

Anyone else now stuck on the sofa willing themselves to get off their arse & empty the car of soggy camping gear ? 🙂

stanleigh – Member
Anyone else now stuck on the sofa willing themselves to get off their arse & empty the car of soggy camping gear ?

Yep. I’ve got a tent that needs taking out and drying, but given the amount of effort it took to get the bastard thing in there, I feel like it should spent more than a few hours in the bag.

Anyone else now stuck on the sofa willing themselves to get off their arse & empty the car of soggy camping gear ?

Nope, made the wise decision to bail last night after I finished, everything just got shoved in the car then slung in the direction of the garage when we got home!
Not looking forward to having to sort my way through it tomorrow though 😯

I’m sitting in the sofa now waiting for the nice man from the takeaway to arrive with a carrier bag full of curry to help with ‘recovery’

Oh arse. Stan, I should have found you again after 9 to assist you in not having as much to unpack! But frankly, I was so bushed after my last lap I was wandering about aimlessly and it slipped my mind totally!

Will message you through the tht site to arrange collection.

JV

Can’t eat much as I still feel sick rather like having a hangover. First 12hr solo. Raced throughout as opposed to just getting round and managed 14 laps for 8th in the Vets.

Course was physically a lot harder than last year, mainly I think due to the softness of the loamy bits. That was my impression from yesterday, and having downloaded stats from the HRM, pretty much backed up.

If I take last year’s 12 laps of data and average that to a single lap; each lap of 12.8km with 150m of total climb took 56 mins. Of that, 55% was at <75% of max heart rate; 38% was at 75-85% effort and 7% was at hard effort, with virtually nothing at ‘balls out’.

Yesterday’s 4 laps averaged: each lap was 12.6km / 165m climb, took 49 mins and was 3% at less that 75% effort; 17% at 75-85%; and 80% at hard including 6% of maxed out effort.

So granted, I was lapping faster but by heck, I was also working a load harder, which is why I feel worse in the legs today than i did a year ago!

It was harder this year but I found on my big wig 29er helped to smooth it out abit . Well done to gorrick for the coarse 🙂

I thought the course was great, more fun and slightly faster than last year (although I was in much worse shape and eventually conked out around 10:30pm).

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to get the race on, and all the racers who were so polite, I didn’t hear a single angry word all race.

Great piece of speaking about TAG JV – please everyone get behind TAG and involved in the future of MTBing locally 🙂

theotherjonv – Member
Course was physically a lot harder than last year, mainly I think due to the softness of the loamy bits. That was my impression from yesterday, and having downloaded stats from the HRM, pretty much backed up.

If I take last year’s 12 laps of data and average that to a single lap; each lap of 12.8km with 150m of total climb took 56 mins. Of that, 55% was at <75% of max heart rate; 38% was at 75-85% effort and 7% was at hard effort, with virtually nothing at ‘balls out’.

Yesterday’s 4 laps averaged: each lap was 12.6km / 165m climb, took 49 mins and was 3% at less that 75% effort; 17% at 75-85%; and 80% at hard including 6% of maxed out effort.

So granted, I was lapping faster but by heck, I was also working a load harder, which is why I feel worse in the legs today than i did a year ago!

Thanks for the science Jon , that’s making me feel better.

Here’s me thinking it was my piss poor condition making me 20 minutes slower over 7 laps than last year ! 😉

Course was physically a lot harder than last year, mainly I think due to the softness of the loamy bits. That was my impression from yesterday, and having downloaded stats from the HRM, pretty much backed up.

If I take last year’s 12 laps of data and average that to a single lap; each lap of 12.8km with 150m of total climb took 56 mins. Of that, 55% was at <75% of max heart rate; 38% was at 75-85% effort and 7% was at hard effort, with virtually nothing at ‘balls out’.

Yesterday’s 4 laps averaged: each lap was 12.6km / 165m climb, took 49 mins and was 3% at less that 75% effort; 17% at 75-85%; and 80% at hard including 6% of maxed out effort.

So granted, I was lapping faster but by heck, I was also working a load harder, which is why I feel worse in the legs today than i did a year ago

Thanks for he Science Jon , that’s making me feel better.

Here’s me thinking it was my piss poor condition making me 20 minutes slower over 7 laps than last year ! 😉

Here’s me thinking it was my piss poor condition making me 20 minutes slower over 7 laps than last year !

You even had gears on!

You were carrying a lot more beard this year Stan – ruined your otherwise perfectly aerodynamic form 😀

Course was physically a lot harder than last year, mainly I think due to the softness of the loamy bits. That was my impression from yesterday, and having downloaded stats from the HRM, pretty much backed up.

But you did 12 laps last year, and 4 this year? No wonder you were pushing harder… Averages when one comparator is three times the length of the other are pretty meaningless surely? 😕

bit like saying an XC race is harder than a Sunday spin.

Accepted, it’s not a direct comparison.

But – lap length and climbing were pretty much the same; the amount of singletrack to fireroad was pretty equivalent; it was only the firmness or otherwise of the ground under the wheels that was IMHO substantially different.

Hence why it seemed I had to work a heck of a load harder to manage to only save a few minutes per lap; the increase in effort didn’t seem to be rewarded by an equivalent reduction in lap time.

That said, to try to normalise it I’ve just looked at equivalent times between riders doing the same events both times. Mt Trax won the M4 category both times, both with 20 laps, average lap time maybe a minute different. Same in the F-solo category, Amanda Brooks both times with same number of laps and same average lap time give or take. I’d say a fair assumption that they worked as hard both times, so that standardises that side, and got basically the same result.

So maybe I’m wrong (although i am convinced soft / muddy courses penalise big boned riders more because we sink in further 😉 ) – and the actual truth is that to go 12-15% faster takes far more than 12-15% more effort.

You were carrying a lot more beard this year Stan – ruined your otherwise perfectly aerodynamic form

Hell Yeah , thanks for not mentioning the extra lard !! 🙂

more pics – ok, limited numbers of riders as most were taken of friends or people we met there
https://www.flickr.com/photos/imnotthealien/

What a great event. Amazingly it was too dry for a change! Was very happy it wasn’t on Monday though… Urgh.

Superb team mates, superb BBQ and a great race against other teams made up of friends.

Happy times

GB

Great event, raced it as teams the last 2 years but went solo this time…. That sponge climb became a bit of a mission as the race went on. Great support from the faster riders who were cuirtious in their requests to pass a dilapidated solo. Also great to see a good friend win the solo vet category on his single speed. Chapeau Steve Day.