Scottish Enduro Series Round 5 - Innerleithen 18th & 19th October 2014

You don't have to be a gifted clairvoyant to guess that the October round of the POC Enduro Series may be a bit damper than its summer predecessors.

But then again Scotland’s not exactly known for the flocking tourists who take to the beaches in skimpy thongs, with volley ball nets to display their tans and muscles.  On this occasion the riders who had missed out on their foreign biking trips may have forgotten about the sloppy substance we once called mud as up until two weeks prior to this race, mountain biking in Scotland consisted of bone-dry dusty trails thanks to an exceptionally dry and awesome summer. 

A new addition to this round at Innerleithen was the addition of Caberston or ‘The Golfie’.  A steep and windy technical forest with a copious amount of intertwined trails that have left a permanent impression on both my pinkie fingers and altered my cosiness of mountain biking comforts. Caberston had its world debut in this year’s Enduro World Series and since then has seen a good revenue of bikers amongst its slick forest lines.

Checking the forecast a few days in advance and seeing the stormy weather setting in for the weekend, I got myself a spiky Michelin Wildmud for the front and a nice sleek DHR Minion for the rear in an attempt to shed the claggy crud that the week before had turned my Hans Damps into racing slicks.  Thanks to Alpine Bikes at Innerleithen for their last minute help with my tubeless setup!

A grey ray of sunshine at Caberston 

The weather had certainly not deterred the thirst for competition and the event was once again sold out.  The event village/bog had a good depth of brown smearing skid marks up to the sign in tent.  It seemed it would only a matter of time before the local farmers and their tractors would be called to assist stranded vehicles....

On arrival at practice I met up with the buff Buviliscous biking boy along with the usual enduro crew including fellow female pinner Nicola Fel and enduro mud virgin Henderson. There were 4 stages with the first two starting at Caberston and then heading over to Innerleithen for stages 3 & 4, including about 30 km of cycling and a heck of a lot of climbing. 

Carrying the mud to the dry bits at the bottom of stage 4 

We set off with the sun and rain in our eyes and a momentary questioning of why didn’t we bring any sunnies with us, but this only lasted for the length of this thought.   Starting back to front at Inners and the dreaded climb, we then descended with various oooh’s and ahh’s as Stages 3 and 4 were a great dolly mixture of all the old Innerleithen classics: Gold Run, Alistair Lee’s, The Tunnel and many more.  A few funny detours at the bottom section had me in a bit of a navigational giddiness, but it only left me with more to chat about on the way to Caberston.  The rumour was spreading that Stage 1 (Lone Wolf) was unrideable but to me it seemed perfectly fine! Yeah a bit slimey in some sections, but I’ve seen a lot worse (nothing will ever come close to stage 2 at Fort William).  Stage 2, the old downhill track was defined by a passing Ozzy as just like stage one but more 'off camberrie and steepa'  and he wasn’t too wrong as this was the stage I thought about most for the drive home.

Heading home with some mud decor.  

Over night the heavens opened and it was a wild guess if this would improve or worsen the mud fest.  I set off with the rest of the ladies early in the morning it was pretty dreech.  Stage 1 was the talk of the race with many people discussing how difficult and unrideable the mud had made it. So at the start, my optimism wasn’t too high and I was also one of the many riders that fell at the entry shoot. I got straight back on and maintained my uprightness for a while until I realised that my forks had managed to turn themselves off, so at that, I jumped off and ran through most of the horrid bits at the top and then jumped back on finding it so hard to actually find my cleats under all that mud.  Not long after Lewis Buchanan flew past with an impressive speed and flow, I barely managed to have two feet on my pedals for most of the bottom section and fell just as Alasdair MaClennan flew by with a ‘you okay?’ acknowledgement.  It was great to have a visual knowledge of what it should look like to ride that stuff. 

Mud that sticks on thick- I'm still cleaning this stuff up. 

Feeling like I’d made a massive hodgepodge of Stage 1 I was sure I had to make some time back. I headed up to Stage 2 in a mental world of self-counselling and reassurance, telling myself over and over again ‘you can do this’.  This seemed to do the trick as I managed to hang on for dear life, the Ozzy lad wasn’t joking about it being off camber too, this was a sideways sliding race, if you could keep your bike pointing forward you were a winner.

Heading over to Innerleithen, the mud banter was non stop, people talked of how it would feel like concrete in comparison to the squidge of Caberston and mud tyre efficiency was definitely the theme of chat for most. 

Innerleithen was great fun, some folk had even brought pedals to change over from flats to clips in between the two varying locations, an interesting tactic.  I was so happy to complete both stages without falling or having too much feet out drifting action.  The trails were on the muddy side, but nothing as wild as Caberston, so what would normally be considered as wet and slippy felt like the traction of a fly on a sticky bun.

At the event village I collected my time to find I was sitting in top spot with a good lead too! I only had to wait for top ladies, Emma Guy and Tracey Brunger to return, but to my complete and utter surprise I managed to remain on the top spot, with stage one as my fastest stage... which was the surprise of the day!  

Podium banter with Tracey Brunger (2nd)  and  Emma Guy (3rd)

Full results can be found here.

And a fantastic write up  by Trevor Worsey from Enduro Mountain Bike Magazine.

  

A much deserved gratitude to Helen Findlay
the heart and soul of Innerleithin Mountain Biking
She will be well and truly missed.
Thank you Helen!  

Redbull Foxhunt 2014 with Rachel Atherton

The first time I heard of The Female Red Bull Fox Hunt with Rachel Atherton I was filled with a feeling of grand delight in the anticipation that something awesome was going to happen.  The realisation that the event was taking place in Scotland and not only that but very near my roots hometown in the Pentland Hills compounded my excitement.  So its no surprise to myself and anyone who knows me, follows my blog, or racing that I was going to put my heart and soul into it.

At the Start Line  

Putting all that aside i've decided to focus on why I consider this event to have an ever increasing impact of the quality and popularity of mountain biking in the UK.  

So why was this event so fantastic for mountain biking?  Why do I consider it a success?

The first aspect that I never considered about the largest female only mountain biking event in perhaps the world, and definitely on this island we call home is that there would be a large amount of children present.  Not just random children, but the children of female bikers who don’t race or compete that often.  It was not only an incredible and accessible opportunity for the kiddie winks to see their own mother ride, but also to see other women and mothers in a racing environment.  Is it implausible to consider that this may be part of a small stepping-stone to demonstrate to a new generation that active women and athletes are the bees knees.  No matter who they are or what they do they want to be active both for fun and self-fulfillment. They are our mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins and grandmothers and these ladies are badass! And hell yeah they all rode their bikes as best they could. Taken this into consideration, surely a new generation of rippers could be on the cards and thus British Cycling could be in for an insane arrival of upcoming talent.   

Riding with my daughter Ski Pea

Secondly with the large amount of children in many instances with their fathers, brothers, mother’s partners or grandparents, it was empowering to see the role reversal of men with child whilst women ride.  Something that reassures me that Gender Equality for both the sexes may not be some words we just pull out of a political agenda hat every now and again to make local services look better.

Another aspect I never considered was that women who were pregnant may turn up to ride the course and participate in practice, joining in with their friends and part of this extraordinary celebration of women on bikes.  This alone gave me an acute sense of pride and belonging that women, despite this potentially limiting factor were more than happy to overcome this to show that the activity is part of their lives.  

On top of this it was great to see my daughter play with my friends children.  We ride and chat about our children a lot but very rarely with our children and partners.  With the inadvertent ex golf course bunker sand pits included, the Red Bull Fox hunt had a great family event feel in the air.

The Push up had our heart rates up. 

Perhaps what put the icing on the cake for empowering female riders and athletes was that Rachel Atherton (and her mother) were hugely supportive and involved.  Rachel talked openly about her own experiences of riding and racing, blending in with the social ease of any other participant, and it was easy to see that she was more than happy to be involved.  

Keeping the speed up out the woods 

I was really impressed to see Rachel and her team support all riders, young and old coaching and assisting them with technical issues and also providing support on the course and hill.  Seeing Rachel’s commitment and natural pleasure to be part of an event involving girls from all backgrounds and abilities-a far cry from the fast paced and competitive lifestyle she is usually engaged in, made me realise that she is a great asset to British and world cycling.

Chasing Elena

It was such a fantastic weekend.  I thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many girls, catching up with old faces, racing with my friends from other disciplines, doing yoga and riding an awesome course as fast as I could.

And for me to crash so near to a podium finish was also a good lesson on my mental outlook for racing.

1.     Positive and confident riders take risks,

2.     A committed athlete has a positive reaction to set backs and takes responsibility that risks don’t always work and learns from this.

3.     Holding onto and dwelling on a mistake will only make it harder to race next time.  ‘So Let Go’ think of the positives and thrives on the good times.

4.     After a mild concussion I definitely need to buy a new helmet.

"You only achieve what you believe"

Well done to all the girls, women, mothers, daughters, aunts and grandmothers who took part.

 Thank you to Redbull for putting on a great event and to Rachel Atherton, her Mother and the GT Team for all their fantastic contribution.

A video of my race run: