Beastway 2015

[Chris Clague]

It was one of those nights where they could have handed out finishers medals and it would have meant something.

I was puce by the time I got there after a slow spin up from the city and a whole bottle drunk. Crazy weather to race in. Decided to prove my point about the CX being the thing to start on by slotting into 4th behind Damian as we hit the first off road section, and to be honest that was more out of politeness and his earlier threat to use his elbows . MTBs on tarmac are funny to watch. Lost a place or two and heard Kev C rather optimistically shouting 'on your right' as the course narrowed. Then we traded places a couple of times when he went on the outside of a crazy steep downhill before realising that I couldn't possibly control the bike enough to get out of his way if he tried it, so settled for sitting on my wheel offering commentary instead for a few corners before sneaking through when I was on the very limit of traction. Lasted about half a lap when I fell into a crack in the earth which stopped my front wheel dead, ejecting me over the bars and removing a chunk of skin - I actually have an imprint of the curve of the bar on my shin. That hurt quite a lot for a few minutes as I sat on the roadway watching people file past. It was too hot and my knee stung so I settled for a nice cold coke and a slice of cake in the cafe. I was joined in short order by what looked like about half the field who were wilting under the conditions. Brutal. Again.

[JackCurzon]

Nice write up Chris. I decided my neck isn't quite healed enough for an hours hard punishment so went for a picnic instead. By the sounds of it I think I made the right decision!

[Steve Hanks]

I think I'm recovered enough to write a full description!

After seeing Chris go past and settling to about 10th place, I new it would be attritional so "settled" about half a lap earlier than usual rather than stay in the red. I'd passed Kev on the start and thought "whoop", but then he passed coming into the grass section, within which I caught Chris. At this point - and with the greatest respect - Chris was about 10% slower than I could have been at full chat across the dry bumpy course but I decided to take the "rest", in order to flatten out my endurance deterioration. This strategy worked, and as I rode somewhat selfishly past Chris after his fall* there was about 500m I think between me and Kevin and Damian.

I focused in on Kevins white top and maintained that position for the first three laps, but then AAAARGH - took a wrong turn out of the field and instead of going up the hill rode into the tape. In a mad panic to get onto the bottom chainring I dislodged my chain, and stood swearing trackside trying to get it back on as two riders passed me. I knew I had a lap and a half to pass them, and on the latter half of the penultimate lap saw they were sitting up a bit on the flatter trails, falling into my area of strength. So after closing slowly on them in the twisty's, as soon as the "flats" arrived I got on a big gear and rode hard around the pedal stroke. I caught and passed the first, but unfortunately came behind the second before a piece of narrow singletrack. I could though, hear him panting and his shoulders were rolling so I decided to sit noisily on his wheel in the hope he'd give up the place to psychological attrition before I had to be a dare devil - and he did!

I eventually rolled in 7th Vet, my best placing. I've got to say, the heat was massively oppressive. I was sweating from every pore and my kit was soaked at the end I could feel the energy draining from me. Numbers show a 14w less effort than last week, although my HR was 97% at or over threshold for 1h:13. I'm attributing my wrong turn to lack of focus brought on by the heat. Post race I downed two cokes AND a 500ml bottle just to be coherant again, it was that bad. Very, very hard.

*By way of slight apology to Chris for not asking how he was when he fell, I had explained earlier that I had deliberately targeted top 10 Vet at Beastway this year as a P2 goal. Positioned before the race in 10th Vet overall in the series, my sole focus in this final points scoring race was to finish in the top 10 and not let any riders "behind" me in the series gain ground. Provisionally then despite missing the long winter rides, 11 weeks training and the EIB diagnosis it was seems that I achieved my goal!

[JackCurzon]

Nice result Stan! Do you have a power meter on your mtb Stan and why aren't you 1x10'g it?

[Damian Robertson]

Good stuff Stan! Well done for a measured approach too! Very wise. Think my short lived jaunt (2.5 laps) was down to yeh going off too fast but moreover dehydration. Having ridden out there I hadn't rehydrated enough and was fairly barmy under the sun! But I enjoyed it nonetheless, sort of. Though if I were to choose a week to be idle and not bother going, like the previous few weeks, why didn't I choose this week?! Wow, what incredibly oppressive heat! The scorched earth sections in the middle lower field, where you Chris came a cropper, were worst I thought, though I imagined 29ers rolling over more easily? Yeh, so I got a good fast start and rode hard but half way round dropped away from Steve Mahon and there in began hoping that after the first lap or two I'd settle in as is usual. I might have done well. Alas, rather than settle in I felt sick and parched, abandoning and collapsing before two diet cokes brought me round. Beers on tuesday night after a fairly hard seventy km may have also had their residual effect? There are my excuses but good to take part! I lost my number card on the ride home - that might become my excuse for failing to attend next week, sadly. Pretty shameful effort from me at Beastway this year.

[Steve Hanks]

Final series results are up at http://beastwaymtb.com

Well done to Mr Clague jnr (11th) and to everyone participating and helping through the series. Certainly the LP colours were omnipresent this year. I get 9th, of which a top 10 was my goal before I had my pre season ailments and training loss so I'm chuffed to have got in their with less training miles and fewer road crits than I'd originally desired.

However, it's not over yet. Next Wednesday the 8th is a non series scoring round and the final round of 2015 - the racing will still be fast and furious - I understand BC points are still available. Stan jnr will be racing in the kids race, and if anyone fancies a more informal Wednesday evening riding/racing/cheering in kids or adults races or helping / spectating all the riders would love to see you supporting us at Hog Hill.

[DouglasBaker]

Orsum effat. I've been turning every pedal stroke with you. I am gutted I missed the Beastway this year but it couldn't be helped. In my back garden, in the shade, in a place that never gets direct sunlight, my very accurate garden thermometer showed 101.5f on Wednesday. Well done lads.

[Steve Hanks]

Well the last and "non scoring" race tonight. Well done to Jack who finished ahead of me and Chris (well, he has had about 4 months rest ).

Having started like a rocket even I was surprised. We sprinted up the Hill from right at the bottom for the start, and when I finally looked up as we passed the centre I could only see three riders ahead of me, crikey I'd started way ahead of my station. However, I had absolutely nothing in my legs after that, so gradually slipped backwards over the course of the race. No results announced yet but there were riders regularly placing 17th or thereabout finishing in front of me so I was well out of position at the end. Post ride data analysis reveals I didn't get over 168bpm and averaged 161bpm, about 10 bp down, so with illness in the family this week I guess I'm carrying / have carried something, Damn.

The other good news is that despite falling in the stinging nettles and therefore having a cry mid lap 2, Jnr finished his first race. He's finally sleeping now but has been asking to do the next race ASAP. He cracks me up - once the whistle goes his little cheeks go all red with exertion and he had a real serious look on his face. Before the nettle incident he was mid pack too in the U12's so looking good for a 6yo.

[Chris Clague]

Wasn't really in the mood for this last night - just feeling a bit run down. Failed to elbow my way onto the front row, so that pretty much ruled out getting the holeshot - particularly as the guy in front faltered. Stuck a wheel inside James on the twisty tarmac climb, but he saw it and closed the door so I had to brake and start again. Hauled past him and a few others up the hill and pulled alongside Stan. I tried to talk to him but he was already dribbling and well in the red by then. Remembering that I was "at least 10% slower" I decided to ride shotgun for him and fend off the attackers so eased up and dropped in behind. Lapsed into the usual rolling roadblock on the bumpy stuff and rattled round the first lap with Jack passing me about half way round. Stan was clearly having a bad day - I got to the end of the lap planning to pull over and have a cup of tea but he was up ahead and it was too tempting to pass so I did, along with another couple of guys who'd passed me earlier. Second lap much like the first, with me taking a nice slow breather all the way down Isaacs whilst listening to the warm breath of a huddle of MTBs behind knowing they had zero chance of passing me there. Got passed by one of the fast women just before the super steep climb over the camel humps - she got about 3/4 of the way up before grinding to a halt and blocking the trail. For a comedy moment I thought I was going to slide down and wipe Stan out as he'd reappeared behind me. Over the top and my shorts caught on the back of the seat as I remounted - steep descent was rather hairy (to put it mildly) as I tried to sort it out. From there I just rolled up the hill and went to the caff. Probably should have stuck it out to the end as it might be the last Beastway (but maybe they always say that?), but really I just wanted a lie down. It was bumpy this week, but not as bad as some of them.

[Steve Hanks]

... he was already dribbling ...

I seem to have picked up a Tony Martin style gaping bottom lip during this years hard Turbo sessions, now manifesting itself during focused periods during races.

[Steve Hanks]

8th Vet for Jack nice one! A surprise for me, as I was 11th, which on the back of that performance is OK, but behind 2 riders I've been finishing in front of all series though. Based on past performance i should have been up with Jack. Ah well, until next year...

[JackCurzon]

I enjoyed that much more than I thought I would. My Plan was to pace myself all the way round and avoid any efforts in the red and that's pretty much what I did - good thing too because by the end of the fourth lap I was beginning to struggle. If we'd done another lap I don't think my back could've taken it! Fortunately for my ego Stan was well off form and Chris is mad and rides a CX bike so was pleasantly surprised when I managed to slip past them on the first lap. Such a different experience to road racing and something I plan on doing more of!

[Chris Clague]

Love the logic Stan! Try not to over analyse - we all have good days and bad days. Sometimes we train, other times we eat chips and drink beer. Life is good.

[BruceMackie]

I'm pleased you all enjoyed it and thanks to LP for providing by far the best and most organised volunteer group.

Russ and I can't devote the same amount of time again next year (I'm doing about 4 days work a week on it) due to needing to earn some money apart from anything else. We have some thoughts about how to continue as I think everyone wants it to remain as inexpensive and accessible as it is. Courses were of about the same length and race times not too dissimilar to Mud, Sweat & Gears at less than half the cost, surplus looks to be about £250 this year. This is achieved by nobody even taking PDs out of race funds, so it's entirely run on volunteer hours which falls heavily on Russ, Michael, Jarvis, Noah & myself. After discussions with various people we're thinking that Kevin's suggestion of changing it to community organisation may be the answer (though perhaps not crowd sourced results). So everyone who races is required to do a certain amount of hours in the organisation, with each round promoted by a different person. It would end up a bit London X League chaotic, but at least everyone would end up racing. The plus side would be raft of new promoters which would surely be of benefit to racing generally. To facilitate this we'd need to write a race instruction manual, with clearly defined job descriptions, which shouldn't be too difficult.

Any thoughts please?

-

[JackCurzon]

Hi Bruce. Just a quick splurge of my thoughts:

The idea of everyone who wants to ride having to help seems like a good idea. However, I'm not sure if different people running it every week is. I think the presence of a regular organisational team is needed to ensure the quality of the event is maintained. If a model of different teams organising races each week is adopted then perhaps course prep the day before or using the same course layouts each week needs to be considered. Both these suggestions might also help with generally lowering the workload of the event organisers in general.

Also I wonder if having Beastway on a Tuesday night might boost attendance as it means riders wouldn't have to choose between it and the Thursday evening Hog Hill crits.

If I think of anything else...