best bit was seeing faint blue sky after doubling up from 1.30 am till 3.3am cause the rest of my team were dead
worst bit was the my last lap up the climb after leaving the areana….genuinely never suffered so much on a bike.
Bruce

The worst bit was snapping a chap’s rear mech hanger when trying to straighten it.

The best bit was the relief when Back On Track had a replacement one. They got me out of a rather large hole.

Worst bits
1 The f***wit who demanded that I pull over to let him through just as we entered the rooty gully (after the plasticene section on the first half). Absolute knob-jockey of the first order. There was nowhere to go, and if he’s that good he can get past.

2 The catering tent wasn’t fantastic – it’s been better.

Best: pretty much everything else. The climbs were OK, the roots were just as slippery with Trailrakers as ever they are, but bearable. And the weather was as good as you could reasonably hope for.

Best: Riding for Team Bullheart

Worst: Can’t think of anything

Best – Shower at 4am

Worst – Forgetting about that last climb and having ‘Calvin Harris – bounce’ stuck in my head for the full 24 hours.

I love that Nick. Wasn’t there this year, but did it solo in 09 & 10. I’m really slow and just plod round for 24hrs… What I found was that the truly quick people – Matt Page for example are really nice and just see it as an opportunity for a short break if they get stuck behind… they’ll expend the energy when they get past.

It’s the knobs who positively have to get past…

Best: Heading out on the dawn lap as the sun was just coming over the horizon

Worst: Trying to get myself out of my warm sleeping bag to go do my night lap

Best bit, the few minutes I spent riding behind someone wearing Shespoke kit….

sorry, what was the other question?

Best- Seeing the weather forecasts all week for heavy rain

Worst – Not seeing it turn in to the somme

(No i wasn’t riding it this year 🙂 )

i only got over taken by paul oldhamn and roger walder and was so curtious,i heard of people being dick heads but i hoped as i was going past people my light hearted remarks would at least cheer them up abit,after all we’re all in this together sort of thing .
well done to everyone i only met happy souls…even if i did hear the odd “**** me you need to slow down” remark

Worse – my saddle coming off in the narrow singletrack section below the obelisk & it took me 5mins to re-fit it. The last rutted section down towards the arena was rattle-tastic & mad as hell.

Best – the Kenda climb & on the last lap riding behind a guy walking on one of the very steep sections I was determined not to get off & push.

best – dawn and dusk lap, managed to get both and both were sunny 🙂

Worst – my second lap on my double night lap, that was painful

Best bit = Team Bullheart
Worst Bit = Having to ride so I could be part of the team

Worst part was tearing a muscle in left leg in playdoh wood after falling off,best bits were been one of the retrobike massive and the general good vibe of the whole event .
And remember guys “mayhem with out rain is like sex with out nipple clamps”.
Wondering though does matt (of stw mag staff) subscribe to any specialist magazines for those woolen tea cosys he was wearing on his head most of the weekend.

Best
-Having a chat with Guy Martin whilst riding back to the campsite after finishing a lap. Proper sound bloke.
-Getting a sub hour lap on Sunday morning.

Worst
-THAT ****ING RUN at the beginning. Too long.

Worst bit – coming down the rutted descent in the woods in the middle of the night. Keeping to the left nicely then finding a guy running with his bike on left as well. Thought I could pass him on the right in the ruts. I did not make it… He then said to me “that’s why I’m not riding down it”

Also, sliding off on the last corner on damp grass at 4am wasn’t that great.

Best bit – Everyone in my team wanted to do the same number of laps. Trouble was that needed me to do my fastest lap to get in before 12.
All the riders going slow and stopped on the run into the finish all moved over and were cheering as I steamed past. Took 2 minutes off best time and my team mate was last rider to start a final lap. Whole team was chuffed as we moved up onto the podium.

Best bit: Finally getting TimP’s Geax 1.7 Tubeless tyre on the rim after everyone in Bullheart camp having a go. (Took 2 of us in the end)
And my night lap. Actually enjoyed most of it!

Worst bit: Discovering what people meant when they were talking about “Velcro mud”.

Best Bit – Inventing the word Velcro mud when everyone else was calling it plasticine mud 🙂

Worst Bit – Having long enough riding through the damn stuff to get to words beginning with V when trying to describe it

Best bit: Finally getting TimP’s Geax 1.7 Tubeless tyre on the rim after everyone in Bullheart camp having a go. (Took 2 of us in the end)

That’s just a new niche tyre – 25.75″ is the way to go for!

Best bits – lots of them, but the 2 big descents were great fun and I really enjoyed the Kenda climb.

Worst bit – I can’t say there were bits that were really bad, I mean I didn’t like the Plasticine track but I don’t think anyone did. I’d say my worst bit was realising that I wasn’t fit enough to really make the most of the course.

I have a new worst bit, although we weren’t the quickest we have lost 2 laps officially and one of our team members did a 5 hour lap 🙁

I bought a cow bell and rang it for 2hrs whilst encouraging/heckling the riders to pedal up the long climb out onto the second half of the course.

Oh, that was you? Made me smile, that did. I may well have mooooooooooooed at you as I went past in my fetching* Bullheart top.

*Fetching? Made me fetch my dinner up.

Worst bit: first lap running 1.5 mud sharks
Best bit: swapping to 2.4 racing ralphs (wasn’t any quicker but I could enjoy the descents)

Best bits:

A few. Riding with a smashing bunch of fellas who worked their collective socks off in the name of Team Bullheart.

The fella from the Retrobike team who wore an Alpinestars jersey, a thin moustache, pimping period riding boots and rode a Cannondale with canti’s!

Chasing down some fancy carbon riding all-singing all-dancing FS riding cocky bugger in the woods on my SS rigid 29er and politely enquiring if he’d move out the way, only to hear him sigh as a did.

Amazing MM team – Marshals, Pat et al. Fantastic.

Worse bits:

The reward for riding SS up all those bloody hills should be comparable downhills. I didn’t find any.

Pulling a stomach muscle and pissing blood for the entire weekend.

Worst bit: Snapping my powerlink very near to the top of the Kenda Klimb at the start of my first night lap 🙁

Best bit: Finding my spare powerlink in the bottom of my bag 🙂

No-one’s mentioned the “Jump of Doom” – I thought that was hilarious!

I loved the jump of doom, rode it every lap it was out there, throwing down some quick cross ups too.

No. 8 was Ant White.

And yes, he’s is some rider 🙂

He finished first for the second year running.

Best bits – catching up with loads of great people I haven’t seen for far too long and realising I can just about ride a singlespeed.

Worst bits – head-butting a tree when I had to change line to avoid someone on that short, sharp, double-arrowed descent and realising I can’t actually ride a singlespeed after all, when Shaggy went flying past me twice at ballistic speed.

Oh, and hats off to the kids along the course, they were ace, really funny. And the marshals.

BadlyWiredDog………….. realising I can’t actually ride a singlespeed after all, when Shaggy went flying past me twice at ballistic speed.

You do realise he is cheating by being some sort of android and not a real person at all?

Also, sliding off on the last corner on damp grass at 4am wasn’t that great.

So I wasn’t the only one to do that! Was lucky it wasn’t on the last lap with a full arena.

Worst bit was definitely the length of the stupid run.

Best bit each lap was getting to the top of that last climb knowing I just had to bomb it back down the hill to the finish. Oh and the jump of doom.

Dumbest bit was forgetting where I’d left my bike in the handover area and not being able to find it in the dark.

Best bit: the general hanging around and not-racing, catching up with mates, pit bitching etc

Worst bit: who on earth keeps inviting Quavers Catering back? Overpriced and crap. The other bits were nice though, the Cafe Cultura and Indian place down in the corner and Specialized with their coffee wagon but please can we have Wilf’s back instead of Quavers?

I didn’t see the jump of doom 🙁
Someone was in front of me so I didn’t spot it until it was too late 🙁

Best bit was like many others, seeing old friends and overtaking those that mocked me for riding SS at the top of the Kenda Climb as they fannied around with their gears 🙂

Worst bit was coming off on a wet stoney corner, gashing my arm popping a few ribs, bruising my side and hurting so much I cant get myself off the bloody loo 🙁

Totally agree with crazy-legs…. Quavers are shite. Stupid slow and over priced.
Wilfs for me…their bacon butties rock at 3am 🙂

Best bits:

Visiting two local cider mills on Friday afternoon with plenty of samples 😀

Having the disco running all weekend (Thursday to Monday) with DJ Craig banging out 80’s hits

Being in a team of ten so no ‘racing pressure’, just being able to enjoy the riding

Heckling until my voice went. ‘Come on you lovely ladies’ getting lots of smiles from the gals

Seeing all the kids really getting into the spirit of the event, ours had a great time and developed their heckling ability nicely

All the support from watchers and riders egging us on, and shouts of SUMO all round the course

Embarrassing some quite good riders by overtaking them on the climbs dressed in a sumo suit (particularly liked that bit!)

Really cranking up the disco on Sunday night, drinking too much cider, and all the visitors from the remaining campers who popped in (even Pats wife stopped by for a boogie!)

Bad bits – N/A

i’d like to poo-poo the people in the main catering tent too. rubbish.

Oh forgot-

Walking the run in my sumo suit and realising after 5 mins I needed a pee. This involved disrobing fairly indiscreetly near the lake as there is no easy access. This took some time and saw me starting in joint last place with stripey mohican dude. Classic!

iDave – Member

Best bit, the few minutes I spent riding behind someone wearing Shespoke kit….

sorry, what was the other question?

ERRRR THAT WAS ME – it is lovely kit isn’t it?

Ah the Sumo riders….hats off to those guys 🙂

Thought of another best bit…..
…. all of the riders that stopped, even the whippets, to see if i needed help or a marshall alerted after my spill.
Top people everyone 1 of u 🙂