Race report, Dusk till Dawn 2010

Right, thats me clean and dry and the bike cleaned...


well, it rained. alot. those of you at the 2008 race will remember what its like in the wet, this year the rain was alot harder.

I had the honour of the first lap, and aside from the first lap heroics of a few this was a good lap, the course was still pretty dry at this point and I was riding very much in mind of not buggering my back out on the first lap ( a massage friday night with acupuncture solved alot of the sciatic pain that has dogged me since 24/12 ). The rain started getting heavier towards the end of the lap, I had some minor drama on a paricularly badly placed root but that was it...not bad I thought, lets hope it stays tht way...


It didnt.


Including the pre-lap we all did following the quad, the first lap took me 1hr7mins ( iirc )

Thge course unfortunatley rapidly detereorated after that and come my second lap, the singletrack was like riding through porridge and the fire roads like slightly runnier porridge. Luckily I had my contacts in so I could still where I was riding but the going was awfull; I could only listen as the gritty paste destroyed ( luckily brand new ) brake pads and ate my transmission which was a major issue as chronic chainsuck doged me around the 2nd lap. Everytime I slowed for a technical section or just slowed my spin a little the chain played silly biggers and did its best to grind my chainstay a little thinner - after 11 miles of this I decided :o to it, I wasnt having any fun so decided to call it an evening. Second lap took around 2 hours I think.

On the bright side, my back held up well and my tire choice ( 2.1 trailraker rear and 2.1 nobby nic front ) performed really well.

Anyway, thats that over with. I'm going to try and have a good winter and try and get some kind of fitness back for next year, perhaps with some yoga/pilates to sort my back out.




Going to try and keep up my 100 training miles a month till Christmas, then try and ramp it up for the start of the new season...I'll keep updating here!

Jim, over and out.