Sara Planta reports on the GS Avanti Ruff Stuff ride

After my first attempt of mountain biking at the Thetford race last weekend – half successful on the dry Saturday but pretty disastrous on the muddy Sunday race – I thought it was a great idea to swap my road training day to join Abi and David for the Ruff Stuff reliability ride. The day was quite wet though we didn’t get much rain during the ride. The course was 22 miles starting from Knockholt (Kent). London Phoenix rider Werner started in the first group but got lost a few times and had to stop twice to repair punctures (once was his bike and once his mate’s) so finished 13th. Abi and David started in the third group and finished 4th (the “First Lady”) & 5th. I started in the second group with Federico. The group kept together for a good while. When we started hitting the mud, we broke up a bit, but I managed to find two men (Ray & Chris) going at my pace, so we rode the rest of the course together, waiting for each other and enjoying the surroundings.

I didn’t find the course particularly difficult and was nice to be able to ride through most of the mud. Then lazy me got to a hilly bit and decided to push the bike up for a while… when I suddenly hear a very familiar voice at the back (Abi) saying: “get back on your bike Sara! Look up and go! go! go!” Guilty me went “Yes boss!” and here I am back on the bike riding up the hill with Chris behind me laughing his head off! The rest of the course was pretty easy, a few hills and more mud… which I kept collecting on every inch of my body. I finished the ride in 2h 30min. getting a 15th place, which I was quite pleased with as we weren’t actually pushing it too much.

It was great fun and made me realise that being on your mtb on a wet winter day, playing with the mud, is actually a very good way to fight winter blues… with a nice cup of tea at the end of course!