I have just eaten this.
It was my second breakfast today. It was not as much deserved as required. And not as much required for refuelling purposes as on a creature comforts level. As I write this, it’s Hell of the North Cotswolds (HoNC) grand depart + 28hrs. And we’re all only just managing to talk about it.
“The horror, the horror”.
This was the 29th HoNC and my fifth or sixth. For those of you that may not know the less known cousin of the french classic Hell of the North, this one, although lacking in pave, derives it’s name from the similar all day grinding it out brutality, and this year’s event took the biscuit. The writing has been on the wall since the summer that never was to be honest. Nine months of rain a dry mountain bike loop does not make, but there was hope T-minus a week, when initial reports showed a miraculous drying out of the route. All we needed was no rain up to the depart and it would’ve been the plain (albeit slow) sailing of last year’s 100k all over again, home made bread pudding crammed in at halfway and a justified roast dinner at the end.
Alas, it was not to be. Rain up to the morning of the off then wind and patches of a strange yellow disc in the sky meant what had liquified once more, was now nature’s brown bridleway adhesive. Memories of the plasticine woods of Mayhem’s past came flooding back as we all topped the first road climb and headed off road to the front line.
At midday it became clear our Retrobike gang’s average speed of 6mph was going to mean a finish line of 7pm if we had no mechanicals. Then came the walking. Or rather it started as walking, but soon became carrying when the wheels would no longer turn on terra firma. Seriously, when a 32mm cross tyre clogs solid, no one’s going anywhere fast.
The only ones getting anywhere were the elite at the front, that had missed the crowds and cut clean lines through the then virgin plasticine. But even they were dropping like flies before too long.
The usual feeling of absolute tiredness, but a desire to finish at all costs, when halfway at the bread pudding stop, had fizzled into a longing for a ground surface that would shed mud and put to an end the misery being endured by my Easton EC90X fork and TRP CX9 brakes as they did their best at building primitive mud huts around the bosses from solid Gloucestershire earth and straw.
And so it was I headed back on the tarmac, timed out and reminding myself (for the first time) why it was I’d brought skinny tyres and drops and a big chainring.
Back at the car park, I swore I had had enough. I was retiring from off road riding in this country. By the end of the pre-booked roast dinner, I was already working out a mountain bike setup for next year. Such is the way. I can’t help it, as awful as the conditions were, I just want more. Or maybe I just want it to be different and to do that you need to hope. Whatever the reason, I reckon I’ll still be eating a breakfast of kings at my favourite b&b in the country this time next year.
Hat off to all those out there that entered and got out there in the mud. Hope you got your medal.
A fellow Retrobiker‘s lovely old Salsa A La Cart Jellybean before it turned brown…
And James from Forest Of Dean MTB Guiding foolishly opted for a bike with 10mm of mud clearance over the ’95 Indy Fab I was going to lend him (clean chain though)…
The irony…the only clean bit of the bike is the unused canti hanger because I wanted a brake that would stop me with force, not mud clogging…
I never seem to remember the old adage, ‘a saddle with a hole in means brown shorts’…I do love an SLR Carbonio Flow though…
Got to love a medal.
Big thanks go out to John and the organisers of the HoNC. As ever, they managed a thousand hopeful cyclists’ expectations and realisations really well and even had medals waiting for them when they got in, spent.
Also to the kind soul that gave up his map after I realised that I had not only left my sign in card in the car, but also the crucial route plan, hat off to you sir, whoever you may be.
And kind words to the chap I span back on road with for the last 15k. Good conversation, happy vibe and jelly babies made that possibly the nicest part of the day in the saddle.
Until next year…
