Singletrack Staff Blog

I’m just off to catch a train now for the London Cycle Show. It sits rather awkwardly with the magazine that’s due at the printers on Monday, so expect to see me at the show this weekend, laptop on lap, finishing a few bits and pieces. And by the sounds of the engineering works on Sunday, I’ll be lucky if I even get home at all on Sunday… Never mind, it’ll be my first visit to London in, er, I can’t actually remember when the last time was. Over a year… Wow…

Although the magazine seems to be taking shape around me - things are being written, products are being shot, there’s still a lot of un-highlighted squares on Sim’s flatplan of the magazine. I’d best get back to writing then…

Once again the Marin Dusk Til Dawn was harder than I was expecting. And once again, I’m already forgetting the bad bits and remembering the good stuff, like the fantastic course, funky trail-side lighting and great atmosphere. That was until I blew into little pieces around 4am and my 60min laptime dropped to 1hr40min… I was proper cross-eyed bonked, falling asleep on the bike and riding into hedges and begging riders for food (thanks loads to the guy who gave me a gel - I might still be stumbling through the woods otherwise). But all good fun and a great excuse to ride Thetford again. I’ll be back to ride more, like I always promise.
Results are here.

Tomorrow is my favourite event of the year - the Marin Dusk Til Dawn in Thetford Forest, Suffolk. For somewhere that’s supposedly ‘flat’, it’s always a hugely fun and testing course. Thetford is where I did much of my early mountain biking for fun back in ‘91 and ‘92, so perhaps that’s why I have such a fondness for the place. The course is twisty, whoopy and flat-out fun, which is probably why it’s so hard; there’s nowhere to freewheel or go easy.

I’ll be racing Mixed Pairs with Emily, my girlfriend. After what seems like a couple of months of colds, travelling and inactivity, it’ll be a shocking way to end the race season, but hopefully the fun of riding round the woods all night will keep me going. If you’re down there, come and say ‘Hi’.

Well, back in the country anyway. We arrived this morning. I’ve spent most of the day asleep, but I reckon I’ll still be able to sleep through to Tuesday morning as well. Then it’s back to the grindstone with a lot of work to be done for the next issue of Singletrack. It’s the photo special and it should be a great issue. We’ve also got Dusk til Dawn this weekend and the London bike show the following week… Following that, though, I’m looking forward to a week or so of riding bikes for fun…
Oh, and Mark didn’t get a tattoo - they were too expensive ($400 for a small logo seemed a little steep…) so he’ll have to be a tearaway another time