Wednesday 23 March 2022.
What’s that? A race during the week? Perfect for freelancers, skivers and those with funny working shifts.
Maxine Filby was the first to suggest it: “It will be fun,” she said to me, “You’ll be fine on your hard tail.” I like fun so I entered. We thought Daphs couldn’t make it due to a driving test, but she’d got the day wrong so all three of us headed to Bike Park Wales in the sunshine. Daphs also passed her test in case you were wondering.
What a glorious day out! It was sunny and hot so the tracks were dry and fast but the climb back to the top a little bit more challenging. Run as a mash up style event there were no practice runs, you just did as many as you could/fancied in the five hours of racing. But no uplift, and if you have ever ridden to the top of BPW you’ll know it’s a lot of up. Add that to the effort of riding hard back down and that’s where the fitness really paid off. Or showed itself completely lacking in my case.
Four sections: one from the top of the hill to the bottom; one from the top to the middle; and two from the middle to the bottom. A goodly amount of climbing whichever combination of tracks you chose. And all runs on the technical red sections of BPW, rather than the flowy ones. A lot of challenging riding.
How did we get on?
Daphne
On Wednesday I travelled down to Bike Park Wales for my first enduro of the year. There were four stages that were all on different red tracks and each track had different challenges. Stage 1 suited me the best with it being a long stage and being very pedally. I found stage 4 challenging as it was made up several features which pushed my ability but I’m very happy with my race run down it as I got down with no stumbles or falls. I came away with 2nd in the U19 girls so was very happy with the result and it was super fun day riding and racing bikes in the sun with awesome people.
I will definitely be back for some more enduro later on in the season.
Maxine
Also got second in her category and was only beaten by Tracey Moseley whom you may have heard of before – she’s won one or two things before. Max also had a very big silly grin on her face at the end of the day so the thing about it being fun must have been right.
Hannah
Another second here as well, although in fairness there were only two 50+ women. My first race as an over 50, and my first enduro. While Max was right about it being fine on the hardtail, it certainly wasn’t the easiest option on the rocky sections.
On the track named ‘Rimdinger’ it wasn’t just my rim being dinged.
I haven’t ridden this hard in years and had forgotten quite how much fun it could be. Max keeps saying something about ‘a more suitable bike’ now but I’m ignoring her. A great, challenging day out in the sun riding bikes with good people.
What more do you need?