For me as the average joe doing solo those climbs represented so much effort it just wasn’t worth attempting and spending all that energy.

I`d like to see some more technical bits, and the chicken run/route to be a lot longer to reward the more technically based rider.

My fastest lap at the end was an hour, nursing a wobbly rear mech that had been hammered into some form of shape and had optional, random gearchanges.

My comment on the rodie powerhouses is that you could see some people dont ride trails. They were blisteringly quick on the flat and climbs- and then there were people who were just ace at everything.

I was happy as a solo to break the 2 min barrier on the red bull section, but people doing sub 1:30! I reckon i could scrub 20 seconds off that on a full out attack but not 30.

I enjoyed the course far more than eastnor, maybe just because i am a lot fitter than i was in previous mayhems.

Down by the lake an impatient cyclocross riding guy in a red shirt got caught up in a planned overtake by somoene else, not wanting to take his turn a bit of a clash, and few angry words before shoving the slower rider into the lake. Didnt get the No. and he could not be caught. Nice. I didnt witness it but my other solo mate was in the following group that saw it.

Nice course, i`d prefer some more bits to be like the kenda coffin and slow some of the roadie powerhouses down. It played into the hands of the 29″ machines.

Thanks to Andy at geartech for getting out of bed to sort me a hanger late at night, so i could repair my bike (read take apart mangled mech and smash it into some sort of wobbly shape) and get back out there.

I can say the lap felt very long breaking a rear mech sub 2 miles in and walking/scooting the rest. So if anyone spotted the grumpy solo at about 10 PM sporting a stupid purple mohawk, that was me fuming from my mech failure.