It was Clag-opalypse!
Only once before in my life have I had to push my bike downhill, and that was in Harris into a wind that was lifting me off the ground. I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one pushing – I was beginning to think I’m getting too old for Grade Z fun.
My race was somewhat compromised by my daughter having a first lap wipeout on the rock slab. She’s ok now, but was looking really dodgy. She went home for a while and came back full of good intentions of continuing, so I volunteered to nip up to the top marshal’s post to retrieve her bike.
So if you saw an old bloke jogging up the course wearing a helmet without a bike around dusk, that was me. The killer was the marshals had kindly returned the bike to base just before I started.
I returned only to find that my daughter had gone into shock so we took her home again, and that was the end of my race. Still, it was a nice 9km perambulation…
It was going to be my last, but now there’s unfinished business, so I’ll be back for next year. But this time with gears, I’m definitely old and frail now. 🙂
I agree with the comments about the bridge.
I reckon the bridge is ok as part of an XC course, but not for a course where there’s brain dead 24 hour soloists at stupid o’clock. The potential consequences could be disastrous, and there’s crashes there every year.
It was disappointing to see riders straight lining some of the corners to avoid the mud.
Fair enough up to a point, ie safety, but using it to overtake other riders is cheating in my opinion. If you’re going to do that the decent thing to do is wait for the rider you were following and who is using the course to go past so you don’t gain any unfair positional advantage. I saw 2 male riders pass a young woman this way, and thought it poor form. Or less politely, don’t cheat.
