~ Bicyclemania Ride
~
Rain, rain and more rain
Then the sun turn up and all of a sudden things
didn't look so bad. With a quick blast of
'Free' all right now turn up to full volume old
timer Chiefy was ready for the big off. His
camping pals for the weekend were Howard, Pete and
Greg. Howard was signed up for the BIG 100km (85km)
and Pete the 50km (53km) the same as
Chiefy, Greg was on the food eating competition,
because he had come down from Scotland just for
the crack. (Pete Farquar's personnel
chauffer)
THE BIG OFF
The
mass of riders headed off up the main high street
of Builth Wells and then turned off up a short
hill and out into the countryside above the town.
The climb just kept on going and going, higher and
higher until it reached the start of the off/road
section on the edge of the moors.
THE
TERRAIN
Chiefy was surprised to find the ground still
quite firm after all the rain. The going was best
described as 'good to soft' with
lots of running water pouring off down the tracks,
channels and gullies. The bottle necks were few
and far between, Chiefy only had to stop twice,
once at a little gorge crossing and then on the
steep downhill section where all the riders were
'bottled-necked' up due to a tree with a very low
branch hanging down. (Could of been a big
headache)
FLASH . . BANG
. . FEED-STOP TO KNOW WHERE
Chiefy had a bit of a tumble on the fast muddy
downhill section before the last feed-stop of the
50km. The photographer jumped up out of the
bracken and blinded Chiefy with his flash going
off, right on the bend. (All Chiefy
remembers was a wire fence and bed of nettles
heading in his direction) After jumping up
smartish, Chiefy hear the culprit say . . 'Are you
O.K. mate?'. Chiefy's reply was some thing like
You fu%King blo%Ły knobber, . . . 'eerr . . .did
you get me then!.'
What
was that trip to the last feed-stop on the 50km
all about then?. The last thing we needed was to
add more miles and hills to our ride especially if
you were O.K. We wish the organizes had put a sign
saying 'Left for the finish' and 'right
for the feed-stop', it's quite a simple
task to do. Anyway the last section was a road run
back to the event village and the finish line.
Chiefy just kept a little some-back and managed to
pass a couple of riders who had 'shot there
lot' & had nothing left to respond with.
Then came the BIG puddle, 'what a surprise'
it just got deeper & deeper, will it did clean
half the bike . . . . 'saved me doing it
later'. |
For every downhill
there's an uphill
One of many |
There was an Enduro style mountain bike race at Builth
Wells, Mid Wales, the Merida Marathon Series.
