Back from MTB Heaven ! a week of Cycling on the finest trails in the Cote D’Azur in lovely weather. After spending time MTBing in the Esterel national park near Cannes in the early part of the week we headed off the St Raphael to do both the Roc D’Azur MTB Marathon (87KM with 2500 metre of climbing 95% off road!)) on the Friday – one the hardest events we’ve done (particualrly for Abi as her rear shock malfunctioned fairly early on which meant climbing was difficult) and the Main Roc D’Azur race on the Sunday(58KM) the worlds biggest MTB race.

Abi racing in the company of the likes of Alison Sydor and Paola Pezzo came in 32nd (out of 40) in the womens category in the marathon in a time of 7hr hampered by a dodgy rear shock while I managed 6. 30 and 186th position out of 370 in the Vets Category despite a monumental stack on some technical single track descent ( one of those crashes where you get up dust yourself off and marvel how the body can withstand such abuse without crumpling into one bloody mess – Right upper leg 90% bruised!)

Anyway I’d recovered in time to post a good time in the Roc Dazur on Sunday 4.37 – 491st out of 3440! in the Vets cat. (5000 entered the event!) but this time it was my turn for rear suspension turmoil as my shock literally snapped in two 10 Km into the race – on the trail repair job got me through though) while Abi completed in 5hrs 34 (27th out of 48 women). As we were in one of the later waves of riders to set off (waves of 500 every 15 mins) we were both caught up in a major single track tailback of around 1,000 riders caused by a crash 30 K into the race which meant we spent about 20 – 30 min walking slowly along very narrow single track – still it was time to take in the lovely scenery around the massif de Maures around which the Roc takes place and to chat to friendly French and Italian competitors all taking the hold ups suprisingly well. In fact Abi witnessed spontanious singing (something from westside story)by a group of Italians clearly in no hurry to finish the race.

Oh what fun and roll on next year! 4th – 8th Oct 2006 – mark it in your diaries

Christphe Sauser (Siemans Cannodale) won the event in 2hrs 21!

see photos of the winners and full results

Veteran +50
69 Chris Reed 27th