A quick drive up to Fort William last weekend as this little MTB race was intriguing me. One big lap of Ben Nevis, with a few sprints thrown in just like the real tour. My kind of race, it sounded like an Adventure Racing stage without the need to change kit and go running afterwards.
It was billed as a race with the cotton wool removed, and it had things like survival bags and maps on the kit list. Great! In reality, the course was pretty well marked and marshalled, albeit no quite the same as a lap based race.
I paired up with Si Bullock for this, as it would be a bit more social and we would push each other on a bit.
We started in Fort William and were to go round the Ben counter clockwise. Starting with a long climb on a road with a 1km sprint special stage near the top. Si was taking his time to warm up and we lost the leading few riders slightly. Heading to Kinlochleven Si shot past me on the rocky downhill, as did the talented team Orange rider Hannah Barnes. I made a note to myself to sort my downhill skills out as I saw Si casually waiting for me at the bottom.
Shooting up hill fast and furious the course eventually turned into bog and we were hiking about 6km in the rain but pushing hard, as this was a timed special stage too. After that the final third of the course was flat out fast making our legs sting as the finish seemed quite close.
We finished in 4 hours 44 min, 10th overall and winning pair. We were really pleased with this and the smart slate trophy we picked up. Maybe we could have been quicker, but we didn't care. It was a great race, and one for the highly recommended list.
Check out www.nofussevents.co.uk and the sweet video below from the folk at www.mtbcut.tv
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment