Wentwood 50: Goshawk challenge
This part of the story is told from the Easy Rider perspective. We were riding as a group. Hopefully all the other Bigfooters will contribute with their adventures as well.
The day started out foggy and cold. The venue was not far and so even Dan and I managed to be early, time enough to have some more breakfast and to decide who would ride with whom. It was still foggy when everyone gathered at the start line. The organizer, from the accent I guessed he was American, announced that the trails were dry, only two muddy stretches on the first 25 km. I patted myself on the shoulder for exchanging my mud tyres for fast rolling all rounders. The two short muddy bits should not be a problem. The ride started with a long climb fortunately on road. And that was the last stretch of non-muddy trail for the rest of the ride and the last non-technical bit as well. Technical ascents were followed by technical descents. At one point I asked one of the marshals when the dry trail would start and he only looked at me without saying anything. We had the most ridiculous falls, unfortunately only one was caught on camera. We helped one rider we found at the side of the trail completely exhausted and with cramps by sharing our water with him and giving him sugar tablets. We were complimented on our squeaky toys and I pointed out that only the toughest riders in Bigfoot were allowed to adorn their handlebars with these signs of honour. We had quite a few GOAPs. And the most uplifting encounter was when one of the marshals asked us whether we had a fan club. He saw a few riders in the same jerseys riding past but we must be the main group. When we reached the 25km decision point we decided to call it a day. We all had started out with the aim to complete the 50km course, but when the hours past and we realized that this ride was a different kind of beast than we were used to we told ourselves that we should stop when it is still fun. But most of our fan club completed the 50km and arrived not much later than we did. A great day.
And here are the results,sorted by distance and arrival time: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?pli=1&key=0AnW9JS-n6QjGdEZ1dllnemM0VUdCN0pnaWNoNzNSU0E#gid=0
Dan's 50km
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- Dan’s 50km
Good report Susanne, but you missed out my most fav part!! You and the biggest, muddiest puddle in wales getting to know each other!
I had a great time, although i wanted to try for the 50k, i’m glad we didn’t
Got to say, cracking event. Apart from the pain of the endless climbing, and a fair few scrapes and bruises from my numerous falls, I had a great day.
It was great to see so many Bigfooters there – definitely a trend we should be keeping up at future events.
And, I have to say, the pasty afterwards scored very highly!
Hi all,
Some more images from my phone just click the links…if you want a better copy for yourself let me know?
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went1.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went2.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went3.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went4.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went5.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went6.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went7.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went8.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went9.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/went10.jpg
Hi Jason,yes please I would like a better copy of my picture.
No results yet but seem to be some photos from the weekend…
http://wentwood50.co.uk/photos.html
Cheers all. It was really great to see so many club shirts out, it really helped on the day so we could call out encouragement to each other, and now it’s helpful for finding each other in photos!
I’ll have to look at my bike setup as I find that after several hours I get back ache when on the flat or going down hill, so I was in the rare and privileged position of feeling happiness and joy at the sight of every pain free climb. Luckily there were many of them!
I really enjoyed the day out although when I caught up with Tim and Dom I had very few happy words to share with them
Unbelievably warm and sunny weather so apologies for exposing my chest area, but got very nice breeze
Had a great time. As always the company made the day very enjoyable. Would have liked to have gone for the 50, but when we came to the 25km split point my protests were ignored! Probably for the best…
Jason, nice photos. If you would send me went9 than would be appreciated. Cheers.
And results are now in….
http://www.wentwood50.co.uk/results.html
Good time Mike! It looks like Jason was in a hurry to get this event over and done with since he came back FIRST!!!!!!! OK, it was for the 25km though. Well done though! When the race started and Jason started pulling away from me followed by most of the other Bigfoot fast boys I thought to myself, OK, so this is the famous Bigfoot “pain-train”
Looks like it’ll take a bit of effort to process the results to find out where in the field everybody is, but might try to load it into matlab or something. Fantastic club day out.
Good set of images which capture the day nicely, less that nasty middle bit!!! Surprised Mike’s enormous pasty didn’t get caught on camera though. As I was somehow 5k short of the full 50 they’ve understandably got me down as a 40k rider but happy with the result despite this. For info Keith Green kindly gave me his entry no. 198. I think Keith is pleased with his result!
I must say too that it was nice to be part of the large and encouraging Bigfoot posse. Look forward to the next one.
Results for the Easy Riders:
288 Pete Farrell 25km 12:59
201 Kevin Dingsdale 25km 14:32
246 Michael Knight 25km 14:35
396 Vicky Wheeler 25km 14:35
295 Peter Maher 25km 14:36
378 Susan Klein 25km 14:37
002 Adam Hampson 25km 14:37
Just done a bit of research and the guy with the quickest time in the 50k rides for team GB in the olympic squad.Most of the other top riders were elite full time team riders as well. I reckon the bigfooters did pretty well considering!
Phew, thanks for that Tim! But you know we only did it for the fun, and I had a yellow passenger on my bike
Here’s Susanne’s spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?pli=1&key=0AnW9JS-n6QjGdEZ1dllnemM0VUdCN0pnaWNoNzNSU0E#gid=0
And here is a histogram for the 50km results. Bigfooter times are in red.
MikeB, then Dom and Tim, then moi, then Matt and MikeP. Superb effort all!
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/goshawk_50km_results.jpg
Well, pretty chuffed to have completed my first ever event, not to mention that i’ve only ever completed the BF 2hr routes before, which, at best are about 18-20 miles.
On the whole the event was really enjoyable, especially the middle 15k section, twas awesome. You can keep the final 10k, that was a slog, and a little tame compared to the rest. I also had a few mechanicals, one of which took a while to fathom which was a little annoying.
Saw tonnes of BigFoot jerseys (mine is on order), but only recognised a few. Perhaps the fairer weather and lighter evenings will mean i met more BF peeps…
Thanks for doing the spreadsheet Susanne. I can’t get over how quick those pro guys are, it is immense to go round in that time!
Hey Steve, well done mate. That was a baptism of fire for you then! Was good to see you on your brand new fancy bike. Let us know about your bike issues if you like. With me my chain came off three times, which just means that I have to put in a new limiting screw as the old one was ripped out. It did have a consequence however: On the very last climb up a wide almost empty tarmac road one chappy decided to follow me with about 5cm separation. I wasn’t feeling my best and thought I should go to granny. Result: chain came off and chappy slammed his brakes on and was then hopping around with serious cramp pains in his legs!!! I hung back with him for a minute, but short of giving him a massage I didn’t think there was anything I could do to help. So I left him hopping about.
Loads of other people had cramps too, just like last year from what Paul said. One guy looked like he was dying, but said he was “alright” so I cycled on
Definitely worth putting those salts and things in your water.
OK, I’ve added the two Steves to the 50km histogram. If there were other 50km Bigfooters sorry for omission, but at least you can see where you are in the pack:
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/goshawk_50km_results_v2.jpg
and here are the 40km and 25km histograms, so you can easily check your relative worth
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/goshawk_40km_results.jpg
http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/goshawk_25km_results.jpg
I think Jason didn’t need a histogram to check how he did against everyone else…
An absolutely fantastic Sunday out.
I console myself with: ‘What we have not got in leg power we have got in brain power’ But of course that makes me imagine all kinds of accidents before I even start. The possibilities are infinite.
Cheers Dan. Yeah, i saw tonnes of riders all cramped up. I was riding with Gus (Dom’s buddy) who, in the last 15km or so, had tinges of cramp after or during each climb. I wasn’t complaining though, a few extra minutes rest here and there suited me just fine. Strangely i do not suffer with cramp … yet. Maybe i should try harder – haha. I also had three guys throw their bikes down the trail right in front of me, talk about evasive action. Three distant “I’m ok?” meant we could carry on our merry way…
I also had problems with the chain coming off when dropping to the granny gear. It always happened after i intricately worked my way around a few riders, only to have to do it all over again once i had fixed the chain – doh. The trickier mechanical happened on the last 10km. The chain device bolt worked its way loose and jammed my crank arm. It wasn’t terribly visible, so it took ages to trouble shoot. Luckily Gus was more than handy, so we found the issue eventually.
Great ride, and yes, my Enduro initiation certainly wasn’t for the light hearted. I have Dom to thank for that!!
What a great ride! I was amazed by those elite rider times, sheesh! I am busy fathoming out cramp now as although I managed it, it definitely slowed the pace down. More Mg I think for me and salt…Thanks to Tim for helping me get back; it was just brilliant to meet up with riders and support one another back in…as for those finish signs…how many!?!?
Looking through the results again I spotted another Bigfooter who can lay claim to completing the 50km. Well done Dean! Wouldn’t be surprised if there were even more.
Dan, I went covert and cycled under the pseudonym Neil Hurcomb but I can tell you that it didnt make it any easier. As for the Finish signs i was starting to loose the will to live in the end!!! All worth it in the end though, really enjoyed it.
http://www.edgelandsphotography.com/MountainBiking/Wentwood-50K-Goshawk-Challenge/21916422_jrmxfj#!i=1748482782&k=jVCkNSK please explain the walking…downhill?
Well, that’s one way to show off your bling
Here’s one for the ladies, my it was a warm day…:
http://www.edgelandsphotography.com/MountainBiking/Wentwood-50K-Goshawk-Challenge/21916422_jrmxfj#!i=1748109080&k=5PGmbTg
I did not want to throw the bike on the floor. I was already muddy enough after trusting a fellow rider with the consequence of swimming through a puddle.
And Dan, I think all the ladies in the club noticed your risque apparel.
Kieran and I debated going topless, but decided against luckily
Dan, I may have made a very poor decision to unzip just a little much granted! I do appologise and have a couple of weeks at a German training camp until easter to try and …well lets just say sort out my soggy body and I will then possibly look at cycling in a Borat style mankini, thoughts? lol
Is the link bust or is it me?
http://www.edgelandsphotography.com/MountainBiking/Wentwood-50K-Goshawk-Challenge/21916422_jrmxfj#!i=1748482782&k=jVCkNSK
Squiz, I don’t know what you get from the link, but I see a very happy looking person walking down hill with their almost brand new Orange 5 top of the range full suspension bike, whilst wearing full leg and arm protection, with flat pedals and heavy duty shoes
Strange Squiz, I get the same as Dan!!