The coast ride. 1000m climbing, 2000m descending, lots of big rocks, tight switchbacks, technical climbing, loose singletrack, amazing views, roasting hot weather and finishing up with a swim in the Mediterranean sea. Needless to say this is a pretty amazing ride!
Unfortunately the photos don’t tell half the story. freeridespain.com
Combining hard training with working as a guide in a place with giant mountains can get pretty tiring and days of can be few and far between, so when one comes I’ve learnt fully make the most of them. Recovery is priority so rather than exploring the area and enjoying the sun a rest day normally involves lazing around watching dvds or reading books in the shade, fixing piles of punctured inner tubes, eating lots and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
This means that despite several trips out here over the last few years I’ve never made it into Granada, a very cool city which is only down the road. Yesterday I thought I’d better make the effort and go but rather than traipsing around tiring myself out seeing the tourist sights, we spent the day cafe hopping, people watching and food sampling.
Coffee and tostadas with tomato. More coffee. Sun. Falafel and baklava in the Moroccan quarter. Beer and tapas. A sunny terrace. Garlicky olives. What a life. Fresh and ready for more riding…
I seem to have hit a period of bad luck the last few weeks, beginning with extremely sore calve muscles as a result (or cause?) of a bad race in Sherwood that limited me to nothing harder than steady riding for 2 full weeks. On Saturday I flew back from Spain for the next round of the British national series but as the day went on I started experiencing stomach ache and feeling feverish. I hoped that a good night sleep would do the job but instead woke up feeling worse and if I hadn’t made such a long trip to come over I would have rolled over and gone back to sleep. Talk about bad timing, I never ever get sick!
I pre-rode the lap to warm up but increasing the intensity made the stomach pain worse, by the time I got to the start line I could barely think of riding around the course let alone racing hard. I tried to concentrate on the task in hand but struggled to put in enough effort to get into a good position approaching the first singletrack. The first half of the course is descending with some nice technical features so I was able distract myself from the pain and move up the field a bit, but each time we got to a climb I had shooting stomach pains that got worse the harder I tried. Not good.
As time went on I had a few battles with different riders but couldn’t hit the extra gear needed to attack and fight for positions. Luckily the course at Dalby is a good one, so there were some fun parts but most of the race was uncomfortable and painful so I didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as I should have. The stomach pains got worse as the laps went on, and I started to get fever like sweats. I began to think that I’d love to drop out, but something in my head won’t let me do it. I’d rather suffer like mad than give in completely, at least that way I can at least say I tried my best. I pushed on, only thinking as far as the top of each hill, finally getting to the finish where I doubled over in pain, unable to stand up straight and relieved it was over.
I finished 9th(results here), although very annoyed and frustrated overall, under the circumstances on the day I was glad to survive the race and still pick up a few UCI points. I thought I was better yesterday but had to lie down half an hour into an easy spin, hope I can get it out of my system soon I’ve got work to do before the world cups!
Thanks to the WXC World Racing for all the assistance and the Elliott family support team.
Last weekend I returned to Lanjaron, one of my favourite places on earth, to spend a few weeks working as a guide for Freeride Spain. Living the dream or what!
Yesterday I was on the road bike for the first time in a country with proper mountains – road riding shouldn’t be so much fun. Heading from views of snow capped mountains all the way down to the Mediterranean sea and back up again. 5 hours with over 2500m of climbing, 30 degree temperatures, dozens of hairpin bends, and 70 kmph descending on super smooth roads – it was a good day.
Today it was back to the mountain bike for some gnarly singletrack descents, hurtling through whitewashed villages at high speed, and more savage, sweltering hot climbing. Cyclist tan lines are coming on nicely.
Some images from a typical day:
In a moment of extreme organisation I did my preride for the Dalby forest round of the British NPS 3 weeks before the event. I was joined by a few less experienced WXC team mates who I’d promised to help with riding some of the more extreme drops.
A sucessful day was had by all. I kept myself busy trying not to brake on the descents, and for girls who’ve been riding less than a year to get down Medusa’s drop with no problems is impressive, especially as we stood an watched guys on downhill bikes take the chicken run!
Afterwards we met the nice people in the Purple Mountain centre, great place for a post ride cafe stop! I then left the race bike clean, shiny and ready to roll, and jumped on a plane to Spain…
British MBS in Sherwood, the first international xc of the year, UCI c1 classified, lots of world class competition, bad day at the office.
I had a bad start, didn’t get off fast enough and couldn’t pass enough people before we hit the first singletrack, not ideal but its a long race so it shouldn’t have been over then. Into lots of tight, flat pedally singletrack I could do no more than follow the wheel in front until the course opened up a bit and I could move up. By that stage a lead group had moved off, I should have been up there but instead tried to focus on Lee Craigie just ahead. I chased for a lap or so, working fairly hard but struggling to get into real race mode, I just couldn’t get into that extra gear both mentally and physically.
Two girls caught me from behind and I jumped on for a while but couldn’t hold the pace. What was going on? I tried to stay interested, to make myself angry, to tell myself to push, that I could do better. Nothing worked. The course at Sherwood is unbelievable for its ability to sap all the energy from your legs and desire to race from your brain, its not just that its flat but I find it impossible to race. The singletrack is alright, tight and twisty but very bumpy so even of you’re not pedalling its draining the leg muscles and there are no descents to recover on. If I’d felt strong it might have been different, but once you’re going badly there is no adrenaline filled descents to get you going so the whole thing quickly becomes very miserable.
On lap 4 I tried a new line which didn’t work and I crashed into a bump. As I stopped to twist my handlebars back into place I was caught from behind again. After that I finally got slightly into racing mode, it was easier working with someone on the fireroads and we kept jumping in front of each other trying to lead in the singletrack. This continued until towards the end of the last lap so I started to get psyched for a sprint finish, not something I was keen on having to do at that stage! Luckily I attacked on one of the tight trails 3km from the end and got a gap that I kept until the end. I finished 10th, way of the pace, way of my own expectations, and not impressed (results here).
So what went wrong? Maybe I’m not recovered from Spain? Maybe pushing super hard against Mel in Ireland last week was a bad idea? Maybe I did too much in the week? Maybe I’ve been kidding myself all winter? God knows but at least I don’t have to go back there for another year! Even better, 5 days until real mountain biking…
Thanks to WXC for the excellent race support and SIP events for the shiny new bikes, I’ll race like I deserve it next time.
On Saturday I took part in Cycling Ireland track training day and to my surprise found it to be great fun. The only track in Ireland is a slightly makeshift affair, outdoors and surfaced with tarmac rather than a fancy velodrome, but its 10 minutes from my house and having shallower banking than normal makes it a good place to learn. We began with an accreditation session to learn how to ride the bikes safely – there is no free-wheeling, no gears and no brakes and you ride very close together so it takes some getting used to.
After a morning of riding around in circles and some elbows out skills sessions we were thrown into the deep-end with a training session involving several different track disciplines. First up, flying start sprints, here you get a lap to build up speed and are timed for the last 250m. This requires a lot of skill to know how much speed to carry, how to use the banking of the track to help you, and when to attack, so a few practice runs would be useful. Next a short standing start sprint that means heaving the bike to get up to speed before powering to the finish over a distance that is barely long enough for the pain to register. Third was four laps at the fastest speed possible, a painful interval session that could get quite addictive in trying to knock split seconds off your time. Finally the most exciting, a 12 lap keirin, a bunch race (still no brakes and riding very close together!) that if done properly should involved lots of aggressive racing and attacks as people try to breakaway on the short laps. For this I was a bit too cautious, waiting for more experienced riders to attack and then following, so missed the winning break at the end – next time attacking is the way to go!
To do any of these events well involves quite a lot of skill, the tiniest mistake or mistiming can cost split seconds which make all the difference (youtube tutoring may be in order before I return!). It seems that track could like a condensed version of road racing with more action, excitement, and technical skills. I’d certainly recommend heading down to Sundrive to give it a try!
The first round of the Irish Leinster League xc races was a chance to shock my system into intensity having done nothing since Spain. Changes to race categories in Ireland this year has made bigger ability based fields to help closer, more exciting racing and it seemed to work very well. I was up against Mel Spath who was sure to be fast after some recent tough racing in Cyprus, but we were also gridded with 25 fast cat 2 men.
The whistle went and we were off with Mel setting a fierce pace up a long fireroad climb so that I had to give everything to hold on. I knew she was trying to make me blow but its a catch 22 situation, if I lost her early on it would be game over so it was straight into the hurt locker – a lungs burning, donkey breathing, pain-fest and that was only after 2 minutes! I held on until the singletrack where I knew I could make up time but dealing with streams of aggressive guys and sliddery trails at the same time made it a difficult task. The day continued like that, kill myself to cling on climbing and slide down the hills as fast as possible to make up lost time. Feeling of Déjà vu here?!
The course was a proper technical Irish xc course, loads of singletrack with overnight rain making it super damp and sliddery. Steep sections and slippy rocks added to the challenge, as did avoiding all the people crashing in front of you, but it was so much fun (nice video of the carnage here). Every lap I pushed myself to go faster, sliding all over the place at high speed only made it easier. No brakes was optimal, drifting around corners and even jumping off drops – awesome!
I lost sight of Mel on lap 3 and started to drop off but found extra reserves in the final lap to try and catch a few guys and fight of others coming towards me from behind. Finishing with a mad uphill sprint to try and make up one more place added to the excitement. I was about 2 minutes back in the end but happy enough for the first race of the year, I got the system shock I was looking for (results are here). Definitely feeling better prepared than this time last year and some pain training in the next few weeks will get the real speed going. Next stop Sherwood Pines…
Thanks to everyone from Racing 795 for all the effort, brilliant course and really well organised event. Also thanks to all the Think Bike support crew and workshop mechanics for sorting my bike. 
Today I was on a mission to be the first female over the line and there was very little that was going to stop me. My legs felt tired but no worse than previous days, maybe even a bit better, but mental performance was the most important thing today and being the last day I intended to give it everything. I also wanted to do it on my own, no pushing and I even had to tell Josh to stop encouraging me since I had enough self-motivation – I think he was a bit scared!
Early in the stage we were climbing for nearly 2 hours up through the olive groves, on into pine trees surrounded by huge cliff faces, and finally out onto open mountain pastures that felt like they were at the top of the world. We settled into a steady pace with a group of Spaniards, but as soon as the ascent kicked up into a steep singletrack we were able to drop them and move up to join Jenny and Kathy (Stans no tubes/Oryhopedics) who were leading the women’s race. Despite all the climbing I felt really strong and sat at the front of the group with Josh pushing the pace on. At 1500m it felt a bit chilly and suddenly started to snow – very surreal after a week of 20-25 degrees and sun but it made the views look even more stunning.
Finally we reached the top and the so began the biggest challenge of the day. All week we’ve been able to put time into people on technical singletrack descents, but when it comes to fireroad I’m terrible! The problem was that I couldn’t stop myself pulling the brakes, I know the theory of going fast but couldn’t make myself do it. I knew today was mostly fireroad and to do well on the stage I’d have to learn some rapid descending skills. Again it was all about getting my head in the right place, I simply decided that I wasn’t giving the wheel in front a gap and before long I was hurtling down at high speed and passing people out.
We had pulled away from the girls and most of the group we were with on the climb when disaster struck, my front tyre suddenly lost a load of air. We decided to put a tube in and had to use a pump to blow it up so it took a while and as we worked the front 3 women’s teams cruised past. It wouldn’t pump fully so I spent the rest of the day squidging around with 20psi. Gutted! to make matters worse it started to rain what should have been the best day yet became a horrible test of survival and we lost any hope of chasing back on.
The temperature was down to about 5 degrees but rain and wind-chill from descending at high speeds meant it felt much colder and we weren’t prepared for it. Luckily I had arm and knee warmers and a thermal top but they were no where near enough. We had over an hour of descending to do, getting colder and colder as we went. Fingers that won’t brake or shift gears is has been fairly standard this winter but its when your body gets totally chilled that there’s really trouble. We hurtled down screaming out loud in pain using every swear word we could think of in some sort of attempt to generate heat. I was praying for a climb but even when they came they were nowhere near long enough to warm up. Towards the end we started to catch people again, all suffering similarly. It went on forever so that by the end I was a shaking, whimpering wreck. We could barely lift our arms to celebrate the race win but to be handed a cup of hot soup at the finish was like a dream that seemed like it would never happen. We finished the 82km/2400m climbing in 4 hours 44 mins, winning the 6th stage and taking first place in the mixed category overall.
Hot showers, a massage and good Spanish coffee soon sorted us out so that we were ready to move on to beer and tapas. After that the final stage began – the podium presentations followed by a great after party with some crazy dancing. The Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans are a force to be reckoned with on the dance floor! With only 2 hours sleep and a hangover the journey home was the final test of mental strength.
Thank you to everyone involved in organising the race, one of the best I’ve been to and definitely one for the diary next year. Also thanks to WXC World Racing and team sponsors – in particular Compressport compression clothing was very useful for recovery between stages and Sportique warm-up oil and chamois cream were essential for staying comfortable during the long days.
more photos here
I have never felt less like going out on my bike as this morning, so much so that I saw someone out running on our way to the race and I could only wish that I had to run today rather than cycle. I really don’t like running. Luckily once we got settled into the first climb my feelings changed dramatically and I was back to having a great time. Today’s video is a good one (click here).
We’re now based in Jaén, a city high up in the mountains surrounded by olive groves and a much drier, barren landscape than Cordoba. The winter sun is strong but temperatures have dropped so we’ve have to learn the Euro racing skill of stuffing newspaper down your jersey to keep warm at the start. The day began with a huge long climb through the olive trees up into the high mountains. Tired legs are to be expected at this stage but we settled into a steady and manageable pace in a group of about 15 riders, though a bit of pushing from Josh was required from time to time!
Over the top we moved up and followed Sally and Kristine into an amazing singletrack descent once again. We were on top of the world with incredible views and a narrow track swooping through alpine like pine trees before turning into a dusty rocky trail running along the mountain with a big drop of the side. Eventually we finished with steep, switchbacks through more olive trees into the valley. Its amazing how great trails can motivate a tired body and it was back full on race fun.
Unfortunately towards the end of the descent Josh’s wheel bearings collapsed and we had to ease up. At the next feed station we stopped to try and fix it but there was no hope so we continued as best we could but had lost several minutes to the girls who were still looking super strong on the climbs. After another killer climb and some brilliant descents we finished just over a minute behind the girls and 1st mixed team. From being dying for the race to be over yesterday I now can’t believe there’s only one day left!
