[Closed] Brass Monkeys - 27th Jan

Dress warm yet with removable layers, have plenty of energy in pockets / pits, start at the back if your new to racing (please), listen for passing riders most of which will announce their intentions, but most of all keep going and enjoy yourself, it’s a fab venue.

have fun. Great venue, great course, great organisers who've done so much for grass roots racing. Take time to thank them for organising it, it's hard work, doesn't make them rich and takes ever more effort each year as land owners become harder to work with.

And ignore the time cut off.... I don't mean ridiculously, going out at 20 to finish when a lap takes you 45 mins, but, the courses are too good to jack in early 😉 So you're 5 mins after cut off and the lap doesn't count, but how many grins did you have?

I've signed up. I'll be near the back on my dodgy chinese carbon 29er with comedy decals. Say hi as you pass me on the second lap!

The course is great, you'll get faster and more confident on each lap. Most of the crowd are friendly but there is the usual contingent of weekend warriors who take it way to seriously. Just get out of their way if you hear them coming. If you don't hear them they'll shout at you anyway 🙂

Good luck!

Cheers chaps - much appreciated. I'll be on an orange Bird Aeris 120 - I can't imagine I'll be doing much passing (got a cold, and also down a pint from donating blood the other day, and no Contador steak to save me...).

Looking forward to it, and thanks for the advice!

Rich

I’m racing the Solaris in chubby mode- which matches me after the excesses of December!

I'm racing, and will be in the groupetto also.....but having fun. Echo all the above, and don't go too fast from the gun however tempting it is.

Packed the boot for tomorrow and when checking the bike suddenly remembered the RoRo with a worn centre put the back end all over the place last time.

Thats forced me to use my race wheels as I didn't want to put a new Graphene Barzo on the winter wheels. 😀

So what do we reckon in terms of conditions? Looked soft on the photo posted on Facebook earlier...

I’ll be there too, really looking forward to it - as said, then venue is ace and gorrick courses are always great. 2hr vet for me, hoping to crack the top 15, but also agree on the above about time cut off - I missed my 4th lap by 2mins, but it was so worth doing anyway!

it drains well so wouldn't expect too much in the way of mud, maybe a bit on the field edges / crossings but the woodland singletrack will be fine, it's all loam.

But it's even then not sticky mud - not the sort that clogs wheels and saps the fun out of it. It is the sort that eats pads and drivetrains though.

Pretty dry last night (dry enough for me to sit INSIDE the pub afterwards!) But it has been raining this afternoon.
Should still be very dry under the trees on the fibrous stuff but sections like Banksy will be slippy.

Quick question - it states that registration opens at 8, race starts at 10 - any issues if I rock up about 9-ish? (Have some family duties it'd be helpful if I were around for first thing...)

Thanks,

Rich

That’s fine.

9 is good. It's when I would turn up if I was going and get sorted without a rush. If you want a full practice lap then go a bit earlier, but if not 9 is fine.

Ta,

Rich

Time for the debrief then!

How did everyone get on? I hope the 2 people that went down in the opening sprint of the two hour are both ok. That looked painful. Went down myself on lap 1. Washed the front wheel out in mud and went down on my hip like a sack of potatoes.

Was disappointed that the laps were relatively long. Coupled with the tricky conditions, I finished my second lap with 39 mins remaining. Knowing there was little hope of completing a 3rd I had a go anyway... finishing 3 minutes late. That’s racing I guess!

Awwww 3 mins... Damn. If they were 39 for you they'd have been a lot more for me !

Being that it was just a training run for me, I got up to howling winds and sideways rain and went back to bed. 2.5hrs of a Zwift workout was my penance.

But then embarrassingly the sun came out about 2hrs later.

One of those who went down was me! I got taken out from behind - no idea what or how it happened, but it bloody hurt! I got up and got 2 laps done and ended up 19th, but didn’t enjoy it much...

Sorry to anyone further back who I rep-passed with a grumpy head on! It was far more slippery that I expected, and unsurprisingly I hated that dodgy start straight. Plenty of blood spilt, and stiff now, but it’s all good right?

@Kryton57, that's exactly the same for me......minus the Zwift workout....grim.

@bigdaddy - I was just behind and to the right of it. The other guy seemed to be fishtailing, full tilt in the slop and then just seemed to slam into you! If you were the one in the red, you had a Tyson Fury in the 12th dazed look on your face...

Wasn't my best race either... Managed to stay on the despite some very sketchy moments. But it was just too slippy to really enjoy the technical stuff and too claggy to put the hammer down on the open grassy bits.

Still, it was better than the Bordon slopfest a couple of years back!

I completed 2 laps with 30 mins left and decided to call it a day as I needed to be in the pub at 1pm!

As ever it was a friendly and well organised bash. Well done Gorrick. Roll on summertime!

@mccraque: yes I was in the red Redhill kit, thanks for the explanation- I had no idea what happened! I didn’t realise anyone else went down - by the time I got sorted I was the only one around!

I remember that Bordon, it was carnage!

@bigdaddy: I was watching and pretty sure it was you I saw go down. Certainly saw someone sliding around and take out the guy in front.
I did a lap before the start and found it ok but I wasn't hitting racing speeds. Thought it was ok except for the "ditch" halfway round which was very soft and likely to cut up badly and the very short sharp climb at about three quarters that caught me out.
Given the rain we had overnight i guess it wasn't too bad.

I thought that was another cracking race from the Gorrick team.
The course was way more fun and rideable that I imagined it was going to be based on the ground conditions local to me. Weather also held off for most of the 4 hrs.

Given how close the series points were in the 4hr Vets after 2rds (top 3 separated by 2 points) I decided to actually try and taper properly for the final round showdown to try and avoid the heavy legged feeling of the previous round. It seemed to help as I managed to keep Ant White in view for the first couple of laps (normally takes me a lap or two to get going...)
Stuart King, also with a shout of the series win was stuck to my wheel.

Lap 3 and 4, I slowly made progress and closed the gap to Ant whilst opening up a gap to Stuart.

By lap 5 I was starting to catch Ant quite quickly, ended up catching him sooner than I wanted. I knew from the lap timings I'd only have time for 6 laps, but didn't want to make an all out effort to drop him now and pay the price later on... So I continued at a comfortable pace with Ant in tow. I knew the second half of the lap suited me better, so worst case, if we were still together on the last lap I could try and gap him towards the end of the lap. As it was, I put in some hard'ish efforts on some of the climbs and long drags at the start of the last lap and found myself with a gap.

I kept this effort on until the gap was big enough for Ant to be out of sight and maintained it to the finish. Marc Chamberlain was good few minutes up the road by this time so there was minimal point in trying to chase him.

So, 2nd on the day, but more importantly finishing ahead of my series rivals meant I leapfrogged them to take the series win!! Boom!

well done sir !!!!

Great fun yesterday, nice course and it rode surprisingly well, finished fourth in the 3hr GV race which I was pleased at considering January has been really up and down for me.

Great to see quite so many people out on the course, made it quite exciting moving through the field! The start was fairly hectic and I was nearly off on the fireroad section having blindly hit a load of muddy ruts after a bit of bar tangling off the line, dropping me well down the order. Wasn't sure whether I'd get 5 laps in or not, the reality was 'no chance', did start the fifth though, just in case 🙂

Good day out for the team in general with another win for Marc in the 4hr Vets, a third in the 2 hr senior for Sam, Andy 5th in 3hr GV. Unfortunately my son has to pull out of the junior race (while in second) on the first lap with breathing problems due to the cold weather.

Sorry there is not another one now having missed the second one due to a throat infection.

richP - that looked a really good ride - Ant's pretty strong just now, sorry to have missed you, hopefully see you later in the season. Iain.

Well done everyone - sounds like some very impressive results there. Had lots of fun (possibly quite type 2 fun for a bit of it), bit of a learning curve for me. Course was very good - conditions were tricky, but enjoyable (running a Minion and Aggressor probably helped... ;-)), though my performance was pretty abysmal...!

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and advice prior to the race.

Cheers,

Rich

Good work RichP! Roughly what training have you been doing? I have entered the beastway series- initially it was just for fun but now I'm wondering what commitment is required e.g. for top 10.

beastway... ...for top 10.

Firstly, there's some decent riders at Beastway - don't assume the size / locality of the riders means a bunch of socialites. Top 10 is not easy. e.g. you'll be starting by sprinting up a 12% climb. If you're untrained you'll be in the back half.

No rider is going to communicate their personal training plan. Google the many plans available via TrainerRoad, Todays plan etc. Essentially, get some low effort miles in now and then some sweet spot / Vo2max and speed work leading March - May.

Fair comment! I wasn't imagining it would be a walk in the park though 🙂 Have already seen plans on BC etc, was just curious what fast guys were up to. RichP - please consider the question retracted..

RichP – please consider the question retracted..

Lol, its worth a try! But everyone has different strengths and weakness so even if he were willing to share you may not benefit as much as he does.

Pick one and go with it, so how you get on - would be good to meet you at Beastway. I'll be in the front group up the climb and then picking up my lungs as everyone else comes past a few minutes later 😀

Ha, I don't really have a training plan as such. I try to squeeze in as much riding as work and family allows (8-10hrs a week); much of this as extended after work commutes over the south downs so as not to use up too much weekend family time.

Most of this will be quite low intensity aside from the Tuesday night with the other local Boompods and in winter some Zwift racing.

It's all on Strava if you're bored (and want to get even more bored 🙂 )

Nice work, Rich. I see Bryan took the SS series win too.

I went skiing instead :o)

Kryton - look forward to meeting you too 🙂 Despite talk of top 10 I'll be pleased to finish in the top half really!

Currently riding ~6 hrs/week, about half commuting (mainly drag races from lights) and 1 longer (~65km) ride. I have ordered a HRM strap but have no other training devices (turbo etc). Playing football and swimming too, which helps cardio.

Cheers RichP. (I tried but failed to find you on Strava).

Fill ya boots twowheels

https://www.strava.com/activities/2107464112

Cheers RichP. (I tried but failed to find you on Strava).

Just look for the penguin at the top of any climbing KOMs on the South Downs between Shoreham and Lewes.

I wish I could average in excess of 330w for an hour with no training - but then there's a reason he won!

Well done Rich P...

Cool.

I should try to do something about my embarrassing Strava profile

Well done RichP.

Like others I found the slippy parts, slippy! But I did enjoy the course apart from a couple of places.

I nearly threw in the towel on the first lap as I came off the course a few times, and then missed the first option A route by following a rider around option B. Settled in for long haul. Glad the track had mixed conditions which made it enjoyable after the initial shock.