I’m just back from my annual international ‘training camp’ in Yorkshire (aka Christmas holidays!) – and since its home of the next race on the World Cup circuit it really is a pro training destination. Dalby Forest is the closest place to York to go biking and one of the places I started riding so to have the best riders in the world there is going to be very exciting. My intention was to get lots of practice on the course with the aim of competing in the race in April. Unfortunately snow messed things up and I only made it up there once – more of that later.
York is pretty low, something like sea level, so it doesn’t get much snow, but the place was white over the whole two weeks I was there. So between all the usual Christmas and New Year stuff I got in plenty of fun cold spins with Eoin. On reflection it turned out to be pretty eventful too, generally down to bad planning.
On Christmas Eve, mountain biking through 30cm of snow was cool, surprisingly ridable once you get some rhythm going, and it makes steep rocky descents great fun – sliding down, floating over rocks and soft landings when you fall. At one point we were in amazing blue sky and sunshine so views over the Moors were spectacular. There were even people ice climbing – almost alpine! Unfortunately snow also makes a spin take much longer than normal so it wasn’t fun running an hour over schedule, tired, out of food and water, pedalling across a moor in freezing fog with 50m visibility and no idea how close you were from the end! Glad to finish that one.
Christmas day we went sledging with my mum instead of biking for a change. More snow covered fun in the sun and homemade sloe gin after makes it even more worthwhile (Eoin spent his time posing for photos as you can see!).
Then we finally got to Dalby on a day with slightly less snow, but instead all the fireroads turned to huge sheets of ice. There was nothing for it but to pedal but we both managed to slap ourselves on the floor a couple of times! Luckily most of the singletrack was in better condition so we got in a lap of the world cup course. All I can say is I don’t need excuses to ride lots of technical mtb trails before April – most of the course isn’t that technical, normal trail centre stuff. But… they’ve built in some rather big drops and rocky bits which take a bit of getting your head around. I managed to cream myself on one, pulled the front break and went over the bars with my bike somersaulting 4 or 5 times down the hill!
Again the ride took longer than expected so not having brought lights we had to sprint 20km back to the nearest town to catch a train before it got dark. It was getting a bit dodgy (on a main road) when suddenly we got hailed over by an unmarked cop car on the side of the road and a big lecture about lights and preparation. He wasn’t wrong but with muddy bikes he wasn’t offering a lift either so it was more sprinting to make the train by the skin of our teeth.
Then I went out on the road and got stuck 30km from home with a puncture and extremely ineffective pump just as the weather changed and a big blizzard came making visibility terrible and the roads treacherous. Mum to the rescue!
So theres the lesson – prepare for everything!!