TIMBER trail pixie and forest litter "fairy" Moe writes about how he got into Mountain Biking...

If it had not been for cycling out of necessity, a daily commute of seven miles, I am sure my eventual entry at the age of 36 into the world of running may never have gone past the first couple of weeks, I’m positive the base fitness afforded by the regular morning and afternoon seventy miles a week allowed me the ability to get up to speed (relatively speaking) on two feet much more comfortably than if I had not.  In the following years I continued cycling to work as well as getting out with friends on the road and exploring Somerset, Dorset & Devon on trips that were often a case of chance more than planning to where we might end up! (sorry Liz) but all the while my first love was running so cycling I viewed as a cross training exercise.

Having landed in the middle of East Anglia in 2006 after living my whole life in Somerset I found a vast new landscape, 60000 acres of forest with a distinct lack of stiles and gates ….. or roads!  I had owned a mountain bike for quite a few years but rarely used it for it’s intended purpose other than popping down the shops or occasional outings such as taking it to Minehead for the Exmoor Stagger while injured and unable to run to follow my wife Tracey and other running friends around the course, normally though the bike rarely saw anything other than tarmac.

Quite soon after moving to the Thetford area I became aware of a very active Mountain biking scene in the local forest, mostly by the fact that every third car driving past where I live on a Friday afternoon had at least two cycles attached to it!  The MTB race scene was also very active and having chanced upon an overnight twelve hour MTB enduro on the way back from an evening out my curiosity was well and truly sparked, this was amazing hundreds of riders tearing along fire tracks and singletrack through the woods, lights blazing!

My nature tends toward a lazyish attitude to motivating myself and doing things I often need someone else to give me a shove, that may seem strange from someone who has run marathons, ultras, organised events and even tailored trips to races in hidden away corners of Spain but once my enthusiasm is eventually rolling ……. And had it not been for going out for a run the following morning and following some sections of the previous evenings course I may never have done anything about it but one of my pet hates is litter, especially out in the countryside and what I saw on this course was lots of discarded gel packs, cereal bar wrappers, inner tubes and various other bits of bicycles, it was like a battlefield.   Once home I e-mailed the organiser with a ‘disgusted of Brandon’ style communication, the result was a very apologetic reply from Paul the race organiser, agreeing totally with my views and the promise that it would be done.  The following day I was out walking the whole twelve mile course with a bin bag and litter picker!!  Paul then kindly offered to enter me in the first of his Winter Series races free of charge!

The Winter Series races are daytime, either two hour, four hour or fun ride (two laps).  The idea being you get over the line as many times as you can before the allotted time and complete the lap so if you are a two hour rider and you cross the line for the second time at 1:59:00, you can then ride to complete that lap and have a result of (for example) three laps & 2:37:12.  I’ve never liked the term ‘fun runner’ so ‘Fun Ride’ being in the same category, the two hour event was where I placed my flag!

Arriving at the arena on the day I was met with a truly amazing scene (compared with the running events I was used to), a hive of activity, trade stands, food stalls and a guy (now known to me as Big Tony) in a pink tuxedo on the PA giving a non stop entertaining commentary and reminders of what was going on, as well as electronic timing with a large flat screen TV displaying live results as the race unfolds and first aid cover by a unit called Extreme Medics, quite obviously geared up for anything!  I went to sign on just like the Tour De France, queue up and sign next to your name, collect your number, get back to the car attach the number with cable ties and then spend a half hour marvelling at £5000 mountain bikes!!

By the time of the event my old Claud Butler had been consigned to a dusty corner and I had bought a hardtail Giant Xtc 4.5 with suspension forks and disc brakes, this it turned out (more by luck than judgement) was a very good purchase as the Xtc frame is used through the whole range, from my basic spec 4.5 at £500 right up to the Xtc 1 at £1500 with higher spec forks, brakes, drivetrain etc so it was an ideal candidate for upgrading and a good all round mountain bike.  Looking around the paddock there were a huge variety of bikes from the ultra racey carbon framed team jobs to the off the supermarket shelf £100 but these can be extremely heavy and hard work to haul around and also fragile so deciding on a cycle to suit your needs that fits you and is fit for the purpose you intend to use it is important, spend time researching and shopping around a good specialist retailer will ask questions and listen to your needs, not just try and sell you the bike with the biggest profit margin!

Soon enough I’m in the 2hr pen and just like in a running event everyone is friendly and chatty, cracking jokes and hiding the nerves.  With five hundred riders entered the classes are penned and started at intervals but the 2hr cat is by far the largest. At the gun everyone moves off at a relatively sedate pace, although I’m sure it’s a different story up front!  The first mile or two are fairly easy going as everyone is fairly bunched up, I was able to pass a few and a few passed me but once that was all shaken out the enduro bit comes in, then the realisation that enthusiasm  had overcome wisdom and that I’d gone off too fast!  Luckily for me the middle part of the course was fairly flat with flowing singletrack and fire roads so other than one little excursion into the undergrowth where I took a bend too fast and the front wheel washed out I recovered reasonably well.  Sections of the course had been given names such as ‘Dartboard’ and ‘Four Bridges’ some, like the latter descriptive and some like the former a little cryptic but in the last quarter of the lap was a section called ‘The Plum Buster’ and if taken at speed with minimal ability was to not heed the warning of it’s name, the fast downhill stretch with an ‘S’ bend halfway down and a few closely spaced whoops for good measure leading out onto a gravel fire track that then led uphill back to the arena.  The first lap I felt fairly good, grabbed a fresh bottle of water in the feed zone and headed out on lap two with Big Tony’s encouragement ringing through the forest, I crossed the line for the second time comfortably within the two hours and headed out for lap three this time though the front riders were starting to lap us and watching them breeze past and accelerate away was a sight to behold.  After the race I was buzzing I wanted more and promptly agreed to entering the following years Dusk till Dawn (the 12 hour event) with a female friend as a ‘mixed pair’.

I never in fact got as far as the 12 hour race due to a very small mistake which landed me with a trip to A&E and two months off work, mostly due to a lack of understanding of weight distribution and centre of gravity, two phrases came to mind – ‘as easy as falling off a bike’ and ‘no matter how high you fall, it’s only the last inch that hurts’.  It was a small innocuous accident and the consequence was a huge dent in confidence which I spent a long time attempting to overcome, with varied levels of success.  I could still ride and often quite fast but faced with slightly more technical obstacles or terrain the doubts still gnawed away in the back of the mind, all completely irrational as I knew I was capable of riding them.  During the summer the club I belong to (TIMBER MTB) set up some Monday evening coaching/training sessions which were a fantastic boost to confidence, even after just one session with basics like understanding where your centre of gravity is and how to lower it and become more stable in one simple movement? (answer – stand up on the pedals!).  The improvements were immediately noticeable but that was nothing compared to the confidence boost and the resulting added enjoyment!

The coaching sessions were a fantastic way of improving and the full results didn’t really reveal themselves until the first Winter Series race at the beginning of November.  Winter Series One for 2010 was at an area of the forest that has a few more technical aspects, including two huge ‘bomb holes’ (formed during the ice age by expanding glacial ice in the soft sandy soil) approximately 3m to 5m deep and 30m to 60m wide. Due to rain during the morning shortly before the start and a couple of days prior, the course itself was a little slippy and muddy in places.  Especially at the bomb holes but compared to my previous experience I was to find that I would have to learn a new skill, that of overtaking! For the first lap though I just tucked into the masses and used the available riders to draft especially on the fire tracks.  Neither of the bomb holes held any fear for me, I just chose my line and went in although on the first lap I witnessed the guy in front get into a huge ‘tail slapper’ in the bottom which he just managed to recover from before eating dirt!  The key was in carrying momentum through the sticky mud and be able to carry the speed to get you through the exit and I found I was actively and vocally encouraging the riders in front to keep going in the hope they would not cause me to lose any of the speed I had gained.  Passing slower riders was an exercise in decisiveness, choosing the spot and then giving clear instruction of what you intended to do ie, ‘passing on the left!’ although race etiquette dictates the lead rider is at liberty to keep to their chosen line and it is the responsibility of the overtaker to make a clean manoeuvre most riders are aware when the rider behind is faster, and do their best to allow others past, it is after all an endurance event not a sprint.  The event also prides itself on being a friendly event, open and welcoming to all abilities and any form of abuse or bullying is not tolerated any instances reported are actively investigated and any guilty parties will be disqualified.  On the whole though most of the top riders are so skilled and smooth as to leave you only feeling confusion for how they make it look so easy and fluid as they breeze by and accelerate away a whole lap (seven miles!) ahead of you!!

At the start line I had mused as to whether I should’ve entered the four hour but on crossing the line at two hours, twenty three minutes with three laps I did feel that I could have done another lap, but only another lap, two or three more was completely out of the question ........ for now!  The next goal will be to make that third lap within the two hours and make the fourth lap count!

I had always assumed that Mountain Biking was an ‘extreme sport’, expensive and elitist but it is just as open to all as running or any other mass participation sport, obviously the equipment required is a bit more expensive and extensive than just a pair of trainers but there is no need for it to break the bank, as long as your bike is up to the job and well maintained you will have a good chance of a trouble free new challenge. The rest is down to preparation of yourself physically and mentally, making sure you know the start finish set up and the course.  Arrive in good time before the start, carry a small selection of tools, spare tube, pump (or gas), spare chain link, some fuel (for you) and fluids.  As with all sports never try anything new on race day always try it and practice with it beforehand in training.  All I can say is the buzz of tearing through the forest on fast flowing singletack trails, railing berms at speed, flicking through the tunnels of trees and diving through bomb holes during the day as well as at night makes me feel so alive!

I’m still a runner too but mixing it up (sometimes literally with an MTB duathlon) is of benefit to both activities, now all I need is to find the time to swim properly!