Hi everyone.

I didn’t go to the race at Grizedale last weekend, so I thought I’d be lazy and get someone else to do my work for me! Guest writers Joe and Ali are here this week, and here’s Joe’s blog first.

This weekend I went down to (well across to) Grizedale forest in the lake district for the 3rd round of the British National Points series, we got to the race site at about 7 o'clock to pre-ride the course. The course was really good and had some nice beasty hills in it along with some pretty rapid rocky singletrack, there was also some dead gnarly sections to spice things up a bit. I really enjoyed the course, it was a real mountain bikers course (not like some of the milder British rounds) so i was pretty confident for the race the course suited me for the climbing, the fun descents and the fact that (I thought) I was in pretty good form.

Come race day all was going well, after a quick check over my bike I started a warm up, unfortunately the field that the race village was in was quite bumpy so you didn’t really have a chance to spin your legs up to full speed, but I turned my i-pod up to full blast and I was confident and ready to go.

My start was pretty poor really I started on the second row of the grid and on the start straight everyone flew past me, so that by the first hill I was already couple of seconds away from the leaders, none the less I went past almost the entire field on the first hill so that I was about 8th

Through the first lap my legs were pretty dead as if they had already been going a few hours. On the second lap though I settled into it and really started to enjoy myself, I was winding up the pace and as the first singletrack section turned into fire road my friend Lewis (who I had tried to get rid of on the singletrack) came up beside me urging me on to sprint past the guy a few metres ahead, but as soon as I put the power down I knew something wasn’t right, looking down at my rear tyre I could see it rapidly losing air, and that was that. My race finished, I carried no spares as I run tubeless tyres so there was nothing I could do.

After fixing my tyre in the morning I got ready for the 25km Enduro which follows all the NPS races, wanting to make up for the day before I put in a good ride making use of the extra hills in the course to get a respectable 2nd place.

I just want to thank the Rowlands for taking me (and putting up with me for the weekend) Also a special thanks to TORQ who, after my bad luck in the race kindly gave me some free bottles to make me feel better (talk to Ali Roland for the full story)

cheers for reading,
(other) Joe.

Here’s Ali’s blog:

Last weekend was the 3rd NPS only Joe and I were racing, but as usual the whole family travelled up. After arriving at the campsite and setting up we set off to pre-ride the course so we knew what was coming on race day. After a chat with Colin Murley we set off into the first climb. It didn’t seem too bad until we reached the first section of single-track which was a loose gravel climb. After that it was a short descent with a few pieces of north shore which were a change from the rough rock surface. After leaving the single-track there was a small section of fire road then followed the hardest hill of the course, a dried out river bed which had loose rocks all over and very steep climbs. Then a few Kilometres of climbing, which led you into the best part of the course, the downhill. When you think of downhill you don’t think it will be too bad but I swear they sent us down the side of a cliff. It was so steep that you struggled to walk up it. After an awesome downhill it led into a short fire road to then lead into more single-track which was mostly north shore, fast and smooth that brought you out above the arena and then dropped you down a grassy shoot and took you round the outside of the arena to finish. We all liked the course except my dad who thought it was too rocky. What a chicken.

On race day we all felt fine and eager to go but it didn’t go as well as we hoped.
My race was first and I was only doing 1 lap. I got a good start up the first climb only to find out I couldn’t get into my big ring so I couldn’t keep up with the competition. So I dropped right off the back and was left behind to crawl round. While my race was in progress Joe’s race had started, he was doing 2 laps, Joe had set off and was riding well on the first lap only to get a puncture about halfway through the second lap, and unfortunately had to pull out of the race. After a bad day at the races we headed back to the campsite for a rest, later in the night we decided to go for a walk round the surrounding area. While we were walking through the fields we came across a field with a bull in it. Being as stupid as he is my brother started to aggravate it to the point that its tail was swinging all over and it started to stamp its foot (or so mam said). We didn’t care at that point as the wall was 6ft tall and 2ft wide. Then mam pointed out that further down the field the wall became a tiny piece of wire and a few wooden fence posts. We took mams advice and stopped.

More racing on Sunday. This time we were racing in the Marathon. The only difference to the course was a few more K of climbing at the start and a bit more single-track towards the top. Me and Joe both set off in the same race, the 25K fun men. I got a good start again but by the first corner I couldn’t even see Joe he was so far ahead. I was doing well in the race I was battling against a guy about 3 times my age all the way around. He attacked at the end of the first lap but I managed to keep him in my sights all the way to the highest point of the course. Where he attacked again but unluckily for him he got a puncture around the next corner and I over took him. Joe got a very good position coming in 2nd, well done Joe, and I came in a good 10th .

Thanks,
Ali.

I’ve been off school all this week since except for Monday because I wasn’t very well. I was so bored as I couldn’t go out on my bike because I was ill, and I had to lie down nearly all of the time. A lot of time was spent watching repeat after repeat of Police Camera Action and Top Gear! I cheered up a lot on Friday, though, because I went to Cestria Cycles to collect my new bike. I was supposed to be going up to Scotland with Joe, Andy and Ali today to race, so that would have been a good test ride, but I had to stay at home because I’m not at full strength yet - I lost about half a stone in weight.

I’ll be back on my bike next week, so I’ll see everyone at training then.

Joe.