Mountain Mayhem 2014

What an amazing weekend.

I did my first lap at 7.00pm, as both my kids said I should really do a sighter lap, and they were right. There was really no comparison to last years course.

My next two (back to back) laps started at 10.00pm, although my relative lack of pace and difficulty climbing on the second of the two was later explained when I realised I had almost no air left in the rear tyre… DOH!

Our fastest rider (my son) was consistently putting in 37 to 39 minute laps; the sub 30 folks…. just awesome.

Anyway, great success all the way round, including the few traders who stayed open for the whole 24 hours, fair play.

I’m driving down the M5, lots of cars coming the other way with mtbikes on top, numbers still attached.

Many, many more to follow. Pics.

tang – Member
Last one with wiggle as sponsor. Not last mayhem

It’ll never be that dry again , so dusty! 🙂

Great weekend got 2nd in the sport men team cat. Good course plenty of passing places and the prizes weren’t too bad:-)

It needs turning into some sort of bike “festival”. Wiggle kill it with their restrictions on who can sell what, who can put banners up etc. It needs a beer tent and bands or the Diprose brothers disco in the woods to come back. There is no buzz in the main arena these days.
The course was great this year, as was the weather, and I’d like to say a big thank you to Patrick and Gatcombe Park.

It does seem to be far lower key than it ever used to. Spiralling entry fees coupled with less ‘event’ and the history of weather can’t help.

Great weekend though, course was great fun, I’m not convinced how much better than last year it would’ve been in the wet, but luckily not an issue! I stopped at Membury services on the m4 and there were literally dozens of cars festooned with MM bikes!

Great weekend, my first solo, managed 23 laps.
I thought the course was better than eastnor and certainly looked better suited to the wet.
Who managed to not touch the bakes on the rooty corner halfway through the red bull section? I bottled it every time!

It was a great weekend, thanks to the weather and our brilliant MCS club riders who did excellently. As a spectator it was a pleasure to see pretty much everyone smiling and chilling in the sunshine.

It needs turning into some sort of bike “festival”. Wiggle kill it with their restrictions on who can sell what, who can put banners up etc. It needs a beer tent and bands or the Diprose brothers disco in the woods to come back. There is no buzz in the main arena these days.
The course was great this year, as was the weather, and I’d like to say a big thank you to Patrick and Gatcombe Park.

^ Totally. It definitely has lacked that ‘festival’ atmosphere ever since Wiggle took over with their iron-clad-sponsorship. I am glad to hear they will not be involved next year. MM is a fantastic event, with a great history, but it could easily be destroyed by bad commercial sponsorship.

Does anyone know the photography company that were there, I know they won’t be ready yet.??

Just re-read my post. I am tired lol.

Awesome weekend for the Loco Racing team, male open 5th, amazing riding 😀

Thanks to the retrobike guys letting us have a little plot on the end of their area on the corner at the top of the campsite climb

Loved it. My 9th Mayhem and for me the most fun, rideable course design that I can recall.

Thanks to Pat and the team, the marshals, course design team and HRH for allowing us to play.

Does anyone know the photography company that were there, I know they won’t be ready yet.??

Well I was there but I wouldn’t call me a company.. armature maybe… 🙂

part one loading here, more to come.

First time solo here. Managed 20 laps but the last two were hellish and ridden completely on auto-pilot. Course was great I thought, much better than last year. Once you got to know it you could stay off the brakes on a lot of the corners, like the one on the Red Bull descent mentioned above, and at the bottom of the field about halfway round.

Only down point is getting home to discover to my horror that my bloody useless garmin corrupted the gps log 👿

+100 on the need for a beer-tent and entertainment. Don’t understand that and seems a massive missed opportunity.

good weekend and all

couple of moans

timing mat – what was that all about, f’ing it was not a running event

arena – seems to be deserted of any stands worth visiting and I wish I hoofed the rugby ball the wiggle lot were chucking out of the county

team categories – appears to be a free for all, whats the difference between sport and open, or is it just a way of people saying they have won something they really haven’t cos they were in the “easier” cat

Only down point is getting home to discover to my horror that my bloody useless garmin corrupted the gps log

Probably recoverable – get yourself First Object XML Editor, you may well be able to fix it. Send me the file if you want me to have a look.

team categories – appears to be a free for all, whats the difference between sport and open, or is it just a way of people saying they have won something they really haven’t cos they were in the “easier” cat

Agree that the team options are daft, if you have any Expert or Elite riders then you have to enter Open, but actually if you ignore the first couple of teams (comprised of Elite riders) the two are usually pretty close. Pointless differentiating really, or rename open Elite and make it clear that it’s for the fastest guys.

timing mat – what was that all about, f’ing it was not a running event

Tell me about it. I finished to discover the chip hadn’t registered my last 5 laps and had to haggle with the timing guy (who was actually very helpful to be fair). Funny when he asked me what my lap times were between 2 and 6am. Told him I didn’t have a clue due to sleep deprivation and caffeine overload 🙂 You’d think timing would be one of the easier things to sort out for an event like this.

Not normally on that side of the race tape but was nice to take my camera and get a few photos in the sun. Will stick a full gallery up on Flickr[/url] later (a few hundred images!) but a few initial favorites below.

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IMG_8405[/url] by J_Hphotos[/url], on Flickr

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IMG_8833[/url] by J_Hphotos[/url], on Flickr

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IMG_8881[/url] by J_Hphotos[/url], on Flickr

Graat weekend had by all of ‘team fubar’ it was a cracking weekend, we had lots of riders out! I did it solo myself the support around the course was brilliant. Whole team agreed that track side camping was brilliant lots of support, people offering beers, kids with water pistols and balloons! Definitely needs more atmosphere around the arena though! Hopefully all the positive comments will bring people back to mayhem

i liked the fast finish this time too, last year was nearly all uphill to the arena but this time once you got up the last grassy climb it was like a lap of honour around the campsite with beer & red bull hand ups, water squirters, the jump of doom and on one lap a very attractive lady who was very skilled with a hoola hoop!

That’s a great pic of one of our riders above! Thank you

What a great weekend.
Loved the course and it struck a good balance between being fun, challenging enough and rideable for most. Maybe less climbing in the last 1/3 mind as so many were walking.

Such an amazing battle for Open Male team with my Pivot Boompods buddies. George and his Salsa team really made it very special. Racing hard for 24 hours and in the end it came down to just a handful of seconds, absolutely incredible!

Such a close solo mens race too, only 4 minutes there I think? Nice work by Jason Miles.

Roll on next year with a more amenable sponsor and hopefully back at Gatcombe.

A few more pics added.
Here[/url]

Like mtbmatt said, exciting racing down to the wire, and if it’s at Gatcombe I’ll be going again.

@grahamh I had to double take when I visited your gallery as I am the first rider on there! Thanks for the photos, they’re always appreciated!

Big thumbs up from me. Definitely enjoyed it a lot more than last year, the course was a lot more manageable, the dusty conditions made it really fast. I was happy with my lap times (sub 39’s) but seeing one of the fast dudes doing a sub 30 opening lap almost made me vomit, god knows how they manage it.

First time solo and managed 19 laps.
Was last place after 10 minutes due to a blown inner tube!
Enjoyed the course, particularly the red bull run and the last rocky(ish) one.
Downsides: arena was bleak and they shut the loos whilst the prize giving was on!! Not a bright move.

Well done all: it might have been dry but it was pretty tough.

What an awesome event.

The course rode in well; the descents were a mixture of fast fire road (but a line developed so it was more fun than that sounds) and the singletrack got better when absolutely hooning it at full speed. The climbs were sensible too. A much better lap all round.

It’s really not that expensive. £65 each for 3 nights camping, water, showers, loos, bike wash oh and all the stuff you need to put on a race. Compare that to se other outdoor sports eg triathlon and also to the cost of bike parts!! An amazing weekend’s entertainment for less than the price of a pair of tyres.

The facilities were amazing – masses of showers, loos etc. The campsite is huge – loads of space and 1.3km of trackside camping which made a massive difference. Totally agreed on the better end to the lap – whizzing down the campsite to end each lap was brilliant.

The actual race was insane – we were changing the lead with Pivot for the entire race. It came down to the last 2 laps – I started the laps with our team 3mins down in 2nd place and had 1hr 2mins to do 2 laps before the cutoff and send our team out again to chase. Sadly I couldn’t quite do it and did the 2 laps in 1hr 3mins. The encouragement from spectators and riders on course was amazing – people seemed aware of how close it was. The actual time gap to 1st was less than a minute after 24hrs. Absolutely nuts. Couldn’t lose to a nicer bunch of guys though.

Hopefully the loss of wiggle will mean more expo again like there was in the old days at Eastnor. The massive demo sessions always seemed a good idea – I think it was possible to demo just about anything at mayhem back then.

Thanks to all involved for what continues to be the best weekend of my race calendar all year and see you all in 2015,

GB

Loved the course and it struck a good balance between being fun, challenging enough and rideable for most. Maybe less climbing in the last 1/3 mind as so many were walking.

I thought it was one of the best courses I’ve seen at any mountain mayhem, great fun even if I wouldn’t really mind if there was less climbing! Nice to go again after a 3 year break and get the best weather ever too 🙂

Really enjoyed this event, my first one for about 6 years of this kind.

Managed 7 laps to bring our team home.

Unfortunately the other team consisted of one guy who had his borrowed bike stolen, one of at least six that were taken at about 4 am on Sunday morning!! Right before he was due two night laps, so they failed to complete, as they were all pretty much spent anyway!

I was fitter than at any other MM i’d done, so that helped my enjoyment – i was pleasantly surprised by the course, I’d have liked a couple more singletrack sections, but i loved the short sharp climbs where your skills and fitness were tested, especially the off camber one before the final decent.

Good job all around by Pat and the team.

as a first time Mayhemer I thought it was an incredible event.
the course was a great combination of different types of riding so all credit to the course builders/ designers. although I did swear at the tougher climbs a few times.
abiding memories for me will be:
– the massive crescent moon at dusk over the grassy bank
– the smell of wild garlic at 4am shortly followed by the smell of the swamp!
– something running through the woods alongside at 1am – maybe a fox?
– the little kicker on the approach to the arena – I couldn’t help but speed up and jump over it every time
– how much respect every person who does it solo deserves – proper hardcore.
Hope to be back in a few years time to give that a go myself.

This was our second go at it, enjoyed last year but the weather put the kybosh on it – I thought this year was ace, fast and flowing, nothing too scary but plenty of fun and challenging downhills. Great atmosphere on and off the course, the scenery as you go round is lovely and even the animal sounds at nice were ace. I didn’t clear all the climbs (and I was sick to bloody death of pushing the bike) cause I didn’t want to just blow myself out (I ain’t in good form, and my form’s not great form even when it IS in good form), but there was nothing that I could point at and say “that shouldn’t have been there”. If I could add things to the impossible magic wishlist it would be to switch the course so the bulk of the climbing was in the first half instead of the second (which was what the profile suggests on the actual website), but there you go.

It was sufficiently good that there was some talk of us not doing it next year, because it surely couldn’t get any better than this year – that’s how good it was.

Well done mtbmatt, Pivot must be pretty happy with their UK riders at the moment! Mike Hall in the US TransAm and is Ed Pickup also on Pivot or just a bike choice co-incidence?

gee you and your team were tremendous, I thought after 3 laps on Saturday in that heat I was toast, but Rory kept our spirits high.

I enjoyed the course and so much respect to all the slower riders who always let us pass with no dramas, always thanked them and encouraged on the climbs.

A battle royale for sure.

Paul – Pivot Boompod All Stars

– how much respect every person who does it solo deserves – proper hardcore.

Outside of actually being at the event, a little voice in the back of my head says “that would be a cool, really challenging thing to do”. At the event, I couldn’t even consider it. I don’t have enough kudos to give to soloists as much as they deserve.

Outside of actually being at the event, a little voice in the back of my head says “that would be a cool, really challenging thing to do”. At the event, I couldn’t even consider it. I don’t have enough kudos to give to soloists as much as they deserve.

I kind of said jokingly I’d love to have a crack at it solo after a couple of attempts as a team of 4 – I didn’t realise the guys I was with were listening seriously?!

First solo this year – much better course for it than last year, and weather played a massive part in me doing ok (if it was a little too hot at times!!!)

Definitely going solo again next year, had a target this year which I exceeded – so setting next years target already!
Really great time this year, much better atmosphere – and having proper trackside camping made all the difference – the support from everyone cheering you on makes it worthwhile to dig deep when you feel your legs just can’t take anymore!
All the marshals and spectators who encouraged and cheered us all on – THANK YOU! – you were amazing

Another team that had a great time here, despite a couple dramatic moments that included a carbon frame, wheel and handlebar being destroyed in a single accident, and a dislocated finger in another ‘moment’. Pretty chuffed with our finishing position as well!

Course was really good fit for the event, trackside camping really added to the atmosphere, and a special thanks to the guys from Lezyne who let a pair of us sit in their trackside tent and keep warm in the early hours while we were doing alternate laps.

Said immediately after “never again solo”.

Now think that with some support at camp (totally solo this year) I might get a couple more laps in. Oh, and a 32T front chainring!!

This made I chuckle. Sat having a bacon and egg roll and a brew outside the catering tent yesterday morning after my penultimate stint, heard a couple of chaps chatting to a passing paramedic, who said that someone had set a new lap record that morning – apparently it had been around 29 minutes at close of play Saturday, but he’d heard someone had done a 19 (nineteen) minute lap early on Sunday. The paramedic finished the conversation and moved on, and I looked at the two guys, and they looked at me, and we all just went…

“Nah, not having that.” 🙂

Maybe you had to be there. 🙁

“Unfortunately the other team consisted of one guy who had his borrowed bike stolen, one of at least six that were taken at about 4 am on Sunday morning!!”

What!! You are saying bikes were stolen form the camp site?

Do you have anymore details?