January Southwest Downhill Trip

Three days, seven riders and some of the best DH the southwest of England has to offer. Even a nonchalantly absent porter and a wrong turning leading to a detour through the steepest roads in Dartmoor couldn't dampen our spirits as we headed down to Devon to ride the tracks at Tavistock Woodlands. The weather was cold but dry, giving some of the best riding conditions you could reasonably expect in January. Crash of the day goes to Pete for landing on his head off a two metre drop.

Day two saw us joined at Gawton by Bill and friends in his well-travelled camper van, complete with generator powered cheese toastie machine in the back. The tracks at Gawton were a good as ever, and we treated all three to repeated runs. No signs of the rumoured forth track spotted yet though...

Finally we headed up to Triscombe for the much delayed Round 2 of the UK Bike Park winter series. Well done to Pete, Callum and Rob who spread themselves throughout the Senior Men's field and Ant who tackled the course in the hardtail category (http://www.rootsandrain.co.uk/race282/2011-jan-30-10-ukbp-winter-2-triscombe/). The rest of us had fun sessioning some of the other tracks to be found in the area and watching the race runs.

So, there we go. What did we learn? That sometimes my minibus driving leaves something to be desired? Yup... That Saltash Waitrose shuts at 7pm not 8pm? Yup... That three consecutive days of pushing up and riding back down is pretty tiring? Yup. Bring on the next uplift day :)

Strathpuffer 2011

Lisa won the female solo category! She was 5 laps ahead of 2nd place female and placed 8th in overall solo, which includes all the men. 

Female solo results:

1st Solo F Lisa Kamphausen - SUMBC 18 laps 24:35:17
2nd Solo F Julie Nimmo - Walkers CC 13 laps 23:15:02
3rd Solo F Kate Cheesewright - SS32 12 laps 21:15:53
4th Solo F Fiona Walker - Walkers Cycling Club 8 laps 22:26:18
5th Solo F Isabella MacLeod - Square Wheels Tea Girl - SS16 6 laps 20:35:04
6th Solo F Anne Metzler 5 laps 24:04:52

Top 10 overall solo:

1st Solo M Mike Hall - Bikeshed Wales 24 laps 23:41:09
2nd Solo M David Powell - Team JMC/Ragley 23 laps 24:13:19
3rd Solo M Luke Morris - Ison Distribution/Lightshed Wales 22 laps 24:37:27
4th Solo M Gary Tompsett - Singular Cycles - SS44 21 laps 23:58:14
5th Solo M Phil Simcock - Team JMC/Ragley 19 laps 22:36:21
6th Solo M Huw Davies - Team Aardvark 19 laps 24:29:22
7th Solo M Rhys Lodwick - Onefgear 18 laps 24:12:28
8th Solo F Lisa Kamphausen - SUMBC 18 laps 24:35:17
9th Solo M Graham Hill - Team Bikegoo 17 laps 24:05:42
10th Solo M Drew Thomson - Walkers Cycling Club 16 laps 23:13:23 


Well done Lisa! For her account of the weekend see her note on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/notes/lisa-ka/strathpuffer-2011/489293778460

Merida Brass Monkeys #1 - 29/11/10 - Porridgepot

A bitterly cold but bright day greeted the SUMBC XC contigent who took on the fast and very dry trails at Porridgepot.

In the 4hr Male category, the winner was fought out between two of the top XC riders from Torq, with reigning 24hr national champion Matt Page in 3rd. Rob lead the SUMBC contigent home. Tom Roberts nearly finished in the top third in the 2hr race, an impressive result given the quality of the field.

4hr Male: (98 finishers, winner Tim Dunford (Torq), 7 laps in 4:01:23)
Rob Collier - 47th - 6 laps in 4hr 30:14 - 00:41:00 00:40:37 00:42:13 00:45:59 00:47:33 00:52:52
Tom Bentley - 66th - 5 laps in 4hr 05:16 - 00:40:21 00:40:52 00:47:14 00:53:07 01:03:41
Tom Bandy - 69th - 5 laps in 4hr 19:04 - 00:41:14 00:59:50 00:49:19 00:54:08 00:54:32
Steve Burnett - 86th - 3 laps in 2hr 25:07 - 00:46:27 00:48:48 00:49:52
Dave Mills - 96th - 2 laps in XXXX - 00:44:20 XX:XX:XX*

*Dave retired after the end of the second lap after a bearing failure, for some reason the second lap time wasn't recorded.

4hr Female: (11 finishers, winner Jo Munden (Cycle Kingdom), 6 laps in 4:12:52)

Lisa - 7th - 5 laps in 4hr 03:16 - 00:45:04 00:45:50 00:48:18 00:50:32 00:53:32

2hr Male: (94 finishers, winner Richard Mardle (Felt), 4 laps in 2:11:44)

Tom Roberts - 37th - 3 laps in 2hr 11:15 - 00:40:31 00:42:59 00:47:45

Gawton and Tavistock DH Trip

Five of us piled ourselves, our bikes and our kit into two cars and set off on Friday evening to spend the night in Saltash Travelodge. After arriving and not quite managing to sneak ourselves into one family room we passed the rest of the evening with a bottle of Jura and episodes of Robot Chicken.

Saturday was spent riding the 3 tracks at Gawton. The weather was dry but the tracks were wet from overnight rain. Nonetheless they hold up well in all conditions and it was great to be back riding some much steeper and more technical terrain than Lordswood.

After another overnight stay at the Travelodge (in two rooms this time) Sunday was spent riding the shorter tracks at Tavistock Woodlands. This brought the blessing of a shorter push up. We had fun sessioning and trying to cram a bit of phototaking inbetween the heavy rain showers.

I think we all agreed it was a very enjoyable trip, and we plan to arrange another (and hopefully more popular) trip back in the New Year.

UK Bike Park Winter Series Rd1

The downhill contingent of the club descended on a cold UK Bike Park for their first race of the year this past Sunday. After collecting number boards and unloading the van it was time to put the mud tyres on for those who hadn't already done so before leaving Southampton. Although it wasn't raining at the time it had rained heavily overnight and it was clear that the course was going to be very slick.

The race track started from the large start ramp and began with an energy sapping, pedally slog along the flat. It was quite depressing having to roll through what would be some nice doubles in the dry on this section. The track then continued to traverse but with bit more of a downwards direction which allowed you to carry some speed without pedaling over some nice off camber roots. A left turn pointed you straight down the hill over a double drop and firing round a right hand catch berm in to the first switchback on the track. From here it was steep, off camber and rooty in places with lots of off camber switch backs. Lots of foot out dabbing action down here from all riders trying desperately to stay up on the off camber. Out from the last switch back there was a long straight in to a long, low road gap and then a long left hand berm to rail before a sprint to the finish.

Most got 3 practice runs in and then 2 race runs. In hindsight it might have been nice to arrive a little earlier to get some more practice in.

I think all that attended had good fun despite difficult conditions and we managed to post some good times, most noticeably Nick who was fastest of the club and placed 4th in Seniors. Well done Nick! And we even had a podium in the hardtail category with Ben Craig making a valliant effort and placing 3rd.

I'm already looking forward to round 2 on the 28th Nov!

Club Results   Nick Farley - 1:37.15  4th Senior
                          Pete Irwin -  1:44.38  11th Senior
                               Bill Bye - 1:51.59  15th Senior
                       Fresher Rob -  1:55.19 17th Senior
                     Jack Lambert -  2:02.18  19th Senior
                               Wizard -   2:04.04  20th Senior
                      Dan Ringrow - 2:25.42   23rd Senior
                         Ben Craig -   3:17.22   3rd Hardtail

October Afan XC Trip

It seems to be fashionable to start these entries with some comments about the weather, so I'll just mention that it we experienced a monsoon while loading up the van and minibus. The forecast lead us to expect a damp weekend so we were pleased to discover that this was the last significant downpour we experienced.

14 club members travelled up to join 2 old friends in our usual accomodation for the traditional first weekend XC trip of the year. Our riding plans were slightly disrupted by the closure if the Penhydd trail, so instead of starting at Afan we kicked the riding off at Glencorrwg on Saturday morning with a lap of White's Level. After lunch at the Drop-Off cafe we headed back up the singletrack climb for another descent of the black run followed by the shortest 'July' version of Skyline. A misread turning on a trail diversion saw us navigating a bog (some with more success than others), then sent us down an unexpected natural trail complete with running water, a pedal width rut to follow and rock steps. Great fun, challenging to ride fast and a change from all the manmade trails on offer. This brought us out at the bottom of the last fireroad climb on Skyline (a real grinder) and when we reached the top it dawned on us that we were back at the mid-point of the diversion. Still, the final three sections of singletrack descent more than made up for it.

Saturday evening saw a change from the traditional pasta to rice and chilli for dinner. XC Captain Rob ate way more of it than his stomach could hold down, while the rest of us were a bit more sensible but compensated by rehydrating with beer, cider or whisky.

On Sunday most people undertook a single lap of The Wall, following it up with a relaxed lunch while the keener (fitter) members went out for a second lap.

All in all a successful trip, and we took away from it a new name for XC Rob, a new song penned by Fresher Rob for Rich Hebb and greatest of all the experience of feeding Manbearpig as we left.

Gorrick Autumn Classic Rd 1

It was a bright and crisp day when SUMBC turned up to Swinley Forest on Sunday October 17th for the first in the autumn series of the Gorrick XC series. Six riders from the university went to compete with a great time being had by all. The sport category saw competitors take on three laps of a fun, fast course and was the first category that the university's riders were competing in. The bright and dry weather brought out a large field with 91 riders starting the race. First home for the uni in 36th place was Rob Collier, closely followed by Tom Roberts in 43rd spot just over a minute behind. Steve Burnett was third home from the university riders in 59th place with Chris Tyson following in 71st spot. James Gaffney rounded out the SUMBC riders in 80th position, however he would have been higher placed without a slight timing mishap. Special mention must also go to ex-student Matt Treviss who finished in 18th place. The sport category was one lap longer and Tom Bandy was the club's sole presence in this competition finshing a very succesful 18th position. All in all it was a great day on a well designed course and a good start to a new academic year's racing.