Singletrack Staff Blog

Well, after a solid 24 hours of travelling I’m here in the Northstar resort at lake Tahoe, just outsode Reno in Nevada. Giant have flown 12 journo’s from hither and thither to their 2008 bike range press launch.

I’m satying in a ‘condo’ in the resort village with Carl from Dirt Rag and I’m currently typing this sat outside the Big Wave Burritos and Wraps cafe in the centre of the resort. The bike launch is tomorrow so I’ve got nothing to actually report just yet apart from my utter mystification as to why Breakfast Burritos are not a staple part of the UK diet

So, while you wait for the big news on the Giant range I’ll leave you with a quick pic of Carl. Oh, the weather here is currently clear blue skies, calm breeze, temp in the mid 70’s (9:30am) with a forecast to rise to the mid 90’s later. I hear there’s been a bit of drizzle back home? Yes, it’s times like these that remind me that what we all do here at ST is probably close to having one of the best jobs in the world

ps.. rant - Spotted another two people today walking about in public.. right where everyone can see them.. not even in a car… wearing blue tooth fecking headsets! I WILL flip soon enough and punch one of them in the fecking ear.. really HARD! Unless you are a double amputee.. take the fecking thing OUT OF YOUR FUCKING EAR YOU PRETENTIOUS COCK!

Hmmm. think I’ll switch to juice now.. maybe had enough coffee!

It’s Thursday night and our traditional night ride evening. It’s also raining and I’m on deadline. I know that I’m going to probably jib out and not ride, claiming that I have work to do or no bike to ride, but the reality is that I’ll go home, eat some food and stare out at the not- or barely-raining countryside and hate myself for not going out. I’ll then not do any work and probably fiddle with bikes, or solder amplifiers or something odd.
Friday is looking better though. I’m DEFINITELY going out Friday night. Time for some UPness!

Seeing as everyone else has blogged about it…

If I think about it, 24hr “Enduro” racing is everything I don’t ride bicycles for. It’s roadie racing on grass and dirt. It’s flipping hard work with little in the way of immediate reward.

But for one weekend every year I absolutely love it. Slogging it around a place that looks more like a re-enactment of the First World War trenches than a race course is not about mountain biking. It’s much more than that.

It’s about testing yourself. Mayhem is about being humbled by Elite riders big-ringing it up climbs while you’re off and pushing. It’s about being even more impressed by the have-a-goers lugging a £100 shonk-bike around and still smiling. It’s about getting out of a sleeping bag at 4am to put on clammy lycra. It’s about trying to eat something at 6am without vomiting. It’s about beating the rest of your team. It’s about not letting your team mates down.

This year was simultaneously the hardest and easiest Mayhem I’ve done. It was physically the hardest Mayhem due to the weather conspiring to make the course the most energy-sapping, anti-freewheeling experience possible - the worst conditions to race a bike in I’ve ever seen. Yet it was motivationally the easiest Mayhem because of my team mates. Watching Matthew, Mats and Mike come in after every single lap looking completely spent was more than enough inspiration. I knew all of them gave it their all and so there was no alternative but to do the same. And it hurt. It hurt like Hell.

The reward of racing for 24 painful hours seeps in after the final klaxon has sounded. The main reward I find is pride. Being proud of your team mates and, more importantly, being proud of yourself.

My tenth Mountain Mayhem went surprisingly well. Yes it rained, yes it was muddy, but complaining about that would be like complaining that Glastonbury was a bit wet. It’s the same for everyone and a test of who’d brought the right tyres and all of their clean socks. It’s more than the racing though - there are the trade stands, the coffee, the ambling around and the sight of the enormous sea of tents in the campsite.
More importantly, it’s about seeing friends. Nearly all of my friends are mountain bikers and nearly all of them were at the event. It’s the one time a year that we get together for a chat and a few beers. Sometimes it’s under sunny skies and sometimes it’s sheltering under canvas.

This year’s Mayhem is already getting better with hindsight. It’s amazing how quickly that happens. By next week it will have been the best one ever and really quite sunny…

That’s the general concensus at work post-Mayhem. Running the Dirt Demo as well as our own stand means that we need to get to Mayhem by Thursday and the extra nights of socialising take their toll on us finely tuned athletes.

Saturday saw the “Singletrack Cubs” ready for action. With the last minute addition of an old customer of mine Mike ‘The Strike’ Lawrence, Mats ‘33% solution’ Lund, Ben ‘Whippet. Haworth and myself Matt ‘The Carthorse That’s Seen Better Days’ Letch making up the team.

First lap wasn’t too bad for me. Dry(ish) and good fun. I went far too fast and thought I could taste blood in my mouth but other than that… fine.

Gradually over the night the usual horrors occurred: after the 2nd lap I was convinced I wouldn’t make it, I had cramps and a very large dose of self doubt to go with it. In fact everyone already looked tired. Tanya (my girlfriend) had to give me a pep talk and a tuna roll to calm my fears.

3rd lap. For some reason peddling through plasticine seemed good fun and I felt a lot better and I realised I’m probably half way through my laps. After some complicated maths (why is it so hard at events?) it was worked out I could go to bed for a few hours before my next lap.

After dreaming of intense unsyncopated tribal drumming which morphed into rain on the tent as my eyes opened it was time to start again. Harsh hash harsh. Opposite-locking like I was in an old 911 on the rideable bits, followed by pushing like a single cylinder Russian tractor on the way up the unrideable sections. Shitty but also ace! The weird sleep- and exercise-deprived tiredness is a hard-to-get high and it should be cherished as it’s going to be followed by a massive come down. Which hit me at about 4.00pm Sunday as I had a massive pointless shouting match with a very good friend.

Results came out today. And we came 38th out of a few hundred and I can just about type again and I don’t want to eat everything that I see.

Thanks to my team mates and friends for making the event. Thanks to Pat and his crew for letting it happen.

Packing tonight for a press trip to Reno, Nevada. It’s a press launch organised by Giant. I’ve travelled to lots of countries with work but my US experience has been very limited. I’ve spent the obligatory 2 weeks in Florida with the kids and that’s it.

I’ve just come out of a weekend of solo 24 hour racing at the Giant T-mobile mountain mayhem so I’m pretty tired already. Tomorrow I’ll spend 13 hours in the air and then there’s the jet lag… Apparently Reno is at 6000 feet asl so that should do me some good I fly back on Sunday, arriving Manchester 9:30am Monday, probably just in time for any jet lag to kick in all over again. But hey.. enough of the moaning. I’m being flown out on Giant’s dollar to be looked after, fed, watered and then given nice bikes to ride through the Nevada desert. That’s pretty good and I still consider myself very lucky to have a job that throws up perks like this on quite a regular basis.

I’ll be looking around for tacky US souvenirs for the important people in my life and maybe a rock or two from the desert

When I get back it’s straight into deadline for issue 36 and we still have half an office to move into our new place. And then there’s the legal stuff and nonsense we are dealing with, money owed but not paid… But before that there’s Nevada so I’m just going to enjoy the next few days away

Well, after five near-solid days in bed with flu, unable to do anything other than wince, I’m finally near enough mended and where I was supposed to be yesterday; at Eastnor Castle, preparing for this weekend’s T-Mobile Giant Mountain Mayhem. The course conditions this afternoon were sunny and breezy, with ground firm, but soft enough for tent pegs. However, that was before 30 minutes of torrential rain, so I can’t comment now. You’ll certainly want to bring knobblies rather than semi slicks if you’re stuck for space. One good thing though; the handover area is under a big marquee so shivering in the rain hopefully won’t add to your woes.

I’ll see if I can give you updates for the next day or so, just in case you need any more convincing on buying wellies

I’ve just been reminded how much for granted most of us mountain bikers take our health. I’m never ill, but I’ve been struck down with flu and monster temperatures since Wednesday and only now, on Monday morning do I feel even remotely able to get up and do difficult things like walk to the shops. It’s funny how one minute you’re thinking that you need to do more two-hour-plus rides and the next minute you can’t even contemplate making a cup of tea. Well, lesson learned. I’ll appreciate being well far more next week - and then, like everyone, I’ll forget about it until the next time I’m ill. Fortunately, by my usual going, that should be another 10-15 years.
Now all I need to do is survive Mayhem. No record laps for me I think this year

Since Wednesday actually. After 9 days of European travel it’s nice to be home, but God what a trip!

After parking in Manchester we were kindly given a lift to Gatwick by friend of the magazine”Mr 360″. After that a flight to Venice where we picked up a car and drove to Cortina for the Marzocchi launch.

Three days later we drove overnight (including hallucinating animals against the side of the road) to Champery for the DT Swiss launch.

Saturday Morning saw us in Verbier for a bit of R&R for a couple of days. Finally another mountainous drive over to Engelberg to see the new GT Bikes. One final drive to Zurich and we were back in Blighty ;]

I’d just like to say thank you to everyone that put us up (and put up with us), fed us and drank beers and rode bikes with us.

Obviously a lot more to follow.

Matt

It seems that as soon as I think I’m going to have a spare moment, it gets filled up for the very reason that it’s a spare moment. Anyway, I think Dave’s comments on Bristol echo my own thoughts - it’s always great to get to ride somewhere different, even if just for the weekend. I’ve been doing far to much work recently to do my usual summer zipping around the country, but I’m really looking forward to Mayhem in ten days time (eek!) - and in the mean time, here’s a peek at the bike porn for next issue…