“B- could do better” as a teacher might say
Stage 1 was about survival after crashing there in practise
Off on Stage 2, then flatted at the start of Stage 5 so rode it on the rim
~23mins all in, more pleased with ~3h40 for the whole thing so maybe I should have done the sport instead?!
Great event though, loved the riding and the whole festival vibe

I’m hearing good things about this event and fancy entering next year *BUT* will I be under-biked on my 120mm Trail FS?

I’m sure someone will be along in a minute to tell me they rode it on a rigid unicycle with a broken leg, but realistically… Will I die!?

It wont be the bike that makes you die 🙂
Plenty of hardtails about. Not much in the way of big obstacles, mostly just steep. Toughish tyres will help more than a couple of extra inches of travel imo.

Well there’s a hardtail category.

there were guys there on very very expensive carbon bikes that they were carrying. There were guys there with knackered hardtails that were flying.

My brother and I had a chat with a bloke on a very slack hardtail (think it was a whyte) riding the climb to stage 3. He looked thoroughly pissed off and had already been over the bars on stage 2. Fair play to anyone doing it on a HT, I wouldn’t fancy it.

Apart from the Endurobro’s (Nomad, Enve,Fluro kit and sizeable gut) bikes seemed quite varied. As mentioned though, make sure you have decent tyres and plenty of tubes, whether you’re starting the day tubeless or not. And don’t use Ardents, trust me.

Fair play to the dude from Cotic that seemed to be riding round with no bag or water bottle. I did four litres of water and still didn’t go for a pee until about 8pm after a fair bit of beer….

I absolutely loved it, did the sport yesterday. Highlights for me were stages 1 and 2, and 5 was a nice one to finish on with those big grassy turns. Glad we got through ahead of the stage closures and diversions etc (hope those involved make a speedy recovery)

finished on 19:54.10 in masters cat.

I faired well on a pair of maxxis with exo casings, run tubeless. No tyre related issues at all for me.

Got stuck behind the odd person, but I’d say generally people were really good about pulling off line to let past. With small start gaps and no seeding catches are going to be inevitable.

Coming from Norfolk and getting very little riding in lately I was pleased to have survived. Sundays weather also added another dimension to the unreal (for me) terrain. I’ve never ridden anything remotely that steep before.
30 mins was my veteran time on a 2006 5 spot, which dropped it’s chain on 2 stages.
Definitely going again next year.
Hope the injured person on stage 3 was OK.

@Andybrad, This you?

nope , thats dave and chris.

Im much fatter/ shorted less skilled and look like this.

https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider107648/andrew-bradbury/photos/

how did you get that photo without a watermark?

Saturday main event for me – got round with no mechanicals, punctures (tubeless thicker sidewalls), crashes or offs – passed a few people, didn’t get passed myself & finished in the middle of my group of about a dozen mates (about 19:30 in masters).

I chased & nearly caught mates on stages 1 & 5
I got a little held up by a couple of other riders on stage 3, but managed to get past eventually
I chased & caught one of my mates on stage 4 – gave him a little gentle encouragement when I did, which resulted in a faster pace to the finish

I’ll be back next year assuming I can get an entry

how did you get that photo without a watermark?

I stood on a hill shouting at people for 8 hours straight in biblical winds 😀

Coming from Norfolk and getting very little riding in lately I was pleased to have survived. Sundays weather also added another dimension to the unreal (for me) terrain. I’ve never ridden anything remotely that steep before.
30 mins was my veteran time on a 2006 5 spot, which dropped it’s chain on 2 stages.
Definitely going again next year.
Hope the injured person on stage 3 was OK.

I stood on a hill shouting at people for 8 hours straight in biblical winds

worth it 🙂

Did the Friday practice and Saturday race. Big group of us with varying skill levels but everyone got round despite a few tumbles. Loved the big rocky chutes and the off camber sections on the grass were interesting.. Stage 5 was hilarious and flat out. Punctured on Stage 3 on the front and had a mare trying to fix it which balls’d up my results, the transitions were pretty long, god knows what it must have been like with strong winds on the Sunday.
Enjoyed the atmosphere and chatted to some nice people in some lovely scenery with the sun in our faces and we had a giggle, would do it again.

Ive never been photographed so many times in my life! However the roots and rain page is poo to navigate. If youre searching for someone in the middle of the alphabet I can only seem to go 3 pages at a time? Any tips?

main page. top left. search for rider name?

this you?

https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider50856/mat-wright/results/

Find their race number on the results page, click on their name and you’ll get a link to any photos which have been tagged

More & more photos are being tagged, so keep checking or sign up for auto notifications for when new photos are added

Rode Sunday- 24.58, that’s my longest ride this year, definitely need more saddle time before next year. Chain snapped on stage 3 and fell off, rolled most the way down and had a 30 minute stroll afterwards to go find it. Other than that I’m out of excuses.

Great day though!

My first Ardrock and the first time I’ve done anything remotely competitive, and loved every minute of the the sport on Sunday apart from that wind and the monkey on stage two who didn’t understand rider or can I pass please, I must has lost a minute on there because of that.

Anything sub 25 minutes in my eyes was a good number to finish on for my first event and the wind lifting me on the top of stage one set the tone, I thought I was ready for a face full of rock but my momentum carried me through, I finished on 24.04 which for me is a win and i finished overall 360th so well within the top half..

The four of us and never ridden there before and all of us finished within 4 hours without a single problem, a cracking weekend and having a lazy bike was day today

Roll on Ardrock2017 and a top 150 place for this Vet

Ardent on the rear and third place for me. Must have scrubbed most of the nobbles off on the steep stuff!

Finished 38th in Masters on Sunday’s race (20:02:39). Got held up a few times but no biggie…had a lot of fun overtaking when I could, and good to ride with mates down the stages together.

Loved every one of the stages, all had something a bit different. The wind was most heinous otherwise was was a cracking weekend – well worth the 7 hour drive back to Cornwall after!

Bad news for one of the guys riding on sunday 🙁
Anyone have any updates on the guys condition?

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/northyorkshire/14666962.Second_air_ambulance_scramble_to_mountain_biker_in_Swaledale_after_he_suffers_life_threatening_injuries_in_fall/?commentSort=score

Very sad and I hope that guy is okay. I also hope the organizers don’t dumb down the course for next year, racing comes with risk and nothing on that course was crazy dangerous.

I raced on Saturday. As I couldn’t get down on Friday and had not done the Ard Rock before so I was racing blind. It was also only my third ride on my new bike (Yes, probably not a smart combo). First stage I took pretty steady until I hit the woods section which is a section I felt quite confident on. After that I got a bit of a feel for things and really enjoyed the rest of the day. Best race I’ve ever been to.

lapierrelady – Member

Ardent on the rear and third place for me. Must have scrubbed most of the nobbles off on the steep stuff! Congratulations on your podium place – fantastic!

yorkshire89 – Member

Bad news for one of the guys riding on sunday
Anyone have any updates on the guys condition?That sounds rough – positive thoughts going his way.

Thanks AlexSimon! Was dead chuffed.

Had a top weekend, plenty of practice on Friday led to me putting in an 18.25 on Saturday’s race. 73rd in masters.

My mate came off on stage 2 sunday, shoulder was uncomfortable but managed to finish the ride. Hospital visit yesterday and he has a small cracking in his clavicle and tendon damage.

jaylittle – Member

My mate came off on stage 2 sunday, shoulder was uncomfortable but managed to finish the ride. Hospital visit yesterday and he has a small cracking in his clavicle and tendon damage. There were a few people walking around with slings and bandages on 🙁
There were lots of areas that looked like a fall would hurt a lot.
Hope your mate is back riding soon!

I hope all injured, especially those with more serious injuries are ok.

I too hope the organisers don’t feel compelled to make the stages a little less extreme. I do wonder if the Ard Rock is a victim of its own success, and is attracting riders without the requisite skills to stay safe. Lots of riders seem to be discussing getting caught up behind people walking technical parts of the stages, and the amount of injuries seems high.

Perhaps the organisers should think about filtering race entries by requiring previous race results from a recognised series such as PMBA to enter the race proper, otherwise as a first year entrant you have to ride the sportive.

I’ve never done the Ard Rock as there always seems to be a date clash with something else, but I really want to give it a go next year.

Any of you lot the poor bugger immortalised in ungainly flick-book style here?

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/14670180.Ard_Rock_Enduro_mountain_bike_challenge_organisers_praised_despite_two_riders_being_seriously_injured/?ref=mr&lp=9

@darkside – that happens for some of the longer fell races: you have to show that you’ve completed a race of sufficient length/difficulty for your application to be accepted. In these days of on-line results it’s not too hard to check, if a little time consuming. Obviously if you’ve done the event in question before then you are likely to have the experience.

The only other way to handle it is to have a prologue type filter on a separate timed section – the fast riders go in the race, slower ones in the sportive. Does add to the complexity of the event for the organisers though given the number of riders, maybe just do that for first time entrants.

Awesome weekend again, Rode the sprint on the saturday (As I never got into the big event, despite not missing one yet – Can we do away with the nonsense 8 folk being entered at a time pish?).

Finished 50th of 225, despite the fact I’ve not ridden much at all and was blowing out my hoop on the pedally bits. Had a peach of a washout on stage 1, cost me at least a minute, but hey ho, lots of other folks have similar stories, all part of the race.

Bellend of the weekend has to go to the guy that thought it was okay to bring half a dozen huskys and chain them up at his tent for the weekend. ****.

Brilliantly organised again, can’t believe how big it was compared to the first year.

Yes, there are a lot of mincers riding – I’d never get anywhere near that kind of result at a Scottish enduro series race, but everyone I caught allowed me to pass with no issues, again it’s all part of this type of race.

See y’all next year.

Hope all injured are on the mend.

I did ride all the sections blind and would have loved a few runs on the Friday or even last year but I have to agree even though my times not the quickest on here the amount of people bailing on some of the stages worried me , just for the reason they stopped at the worst moment or right on the steep stuff ,causing problems for riders behind.

I think the fact that there was a massive up in Mbuk(iirc) just weeks before the booking was opened added to the influx of people not prepared for what was in store. I hope that the event doesn’t become a victim of its own success

Wanged my experiences of the weekend up on my blog if anyone’s interested – Ard Rock enduro race report 😀

I too hope the organisers don’t feel compelled to make the stages a little less extreme. I do wonder if the Ard Rock is a victim of its own success, and is attracting riders without the requisite skills to stay safe. Lots of riders seem to be discussing getting caught up behind people walking technical parts of the stages, and the amount of injuries seems high.

Perhaps the organisers should think about filtering race entries by requiring previous race results from a recognised series such as PMBA to enter the race proper, otherwise as a first year entrant you have to ride the sportive.

Unless I’m wrong all of the events over the weekend used the first three stages, so the sprint or sport event didn’t get any easier technically, when compared to the main Saturday event.

I’m sure the organisers will be analysing what worked well and didn’t this year and they have a lot of experience to draw on, to make any adjustments needed for next year.

I think perhaps one of the things that attracted a fair number of riders to the Ard Rock weekend is that the course last year wasn’t as full-on or raw as perhaps some series-based Enduro’s such as PMBA etc. So it was seen by some riders perhaps as more of a ‘Funduro’ with tough transitions, rather than a mega-gnar event which would be way beyond their skills/capabilities, or beyond the level of risk they are prepared to take .

I’m sure the faster riders will not want the course dumbing down for the main event, so perhaps a suggestion for next year would be to have some hard(er) stages for the main event (as per stage 2 was), but also have a few easier stages just for a sport event, aimed at mincers like me 🙂

I’m not saying that Ard Rock should be turned into some type of XC marathon event, but I’d guess that there are a lot of riders from this years event who will never ride a mainstream Enduro event, but would like to see a technically easier Ard Rock course aimed at the lesser-skilled rider for next year.

Either way the organisers will ultimately decide, but it would be a shame for this particular event to become more and more technical and therefore beyond the skill (or risk) level of many. There are plenty of events already catering for the top guys.

Since the stages aren’t accessible outside the event could anyone give me an idea of steepness/technicality of them, basically a comparison to other bridleways or descents.

None of them were harder than Black trail centre level, and the steep parts didn’t last long, mainly chutes.

None of them were harder than Black trail centre level, and the steep parts didn’t last long, mainly chutes.

I disagree, perhaps my perception was clouded by racing and being knackered but I found stage 2 especially tough compared to anything I’ve ridden** I’d say 20% of stages 1,2 and 3 were way harder than a trail centre black.

As above, I don’t claim to be a good rider. But my point is, if you took the average trail centre rider who was very comfortable on reds and could do blacks, I think they’d really struggle on many sections of this years course. Not that they couldn’t ride them, but they’d really struggle.

** Sierra Nevadas, Calderdale local trails, Lakes, Peaks, BPW Reds and odd black, Llandegla, Gisburn, etc, blah, blah

Since the stages aren’t accessible outside the event could anyone give me an idea of steepness/technicality of them, basically a comparison to other bridleways or descents.

example – Blue Pig in Hebden is relatively easy and not very steep, compared to parts of stages 1,2 and 3

Possibly a little harder, but nothing on the course wasn’t rollable, at no point did you ‘have’ to launch off anything, and I can’t for the life of me recall a steep section that was anything longer than yer average trail centre chute/bombhole.

There was a fair bit of off camber stuff on stage 2, but as it was dry, it wasn’t a problem, would’ve been different in the wet mind. I suppose a difference could’ve been that there was quite a few of the top sections in 1 and 2 that felt exposed, trail centre warriors could find that very off putting.

It was definitely techier than all the previous years, but that’s got to be a good thing.