Back to Inside Park for another 2.5hrs enduro ride.

Hopefully this time I won’t have any incidents like last time.

As for the mountain bike, it is now running like a dream.

It was the same format as November & I was wondering if I could possibly do five laps within the allotted 2.5hrs?  This time there were not as many competitors as the first event so overall it was a bit of a lonely race, apart from seeing Coach 2 then my dad.

Coach 2 had positioned herself at the gap jump for the first lap & then went across to see me through the bomb hole & then up onto one of the many climbs to cheer me on & to pass up gels & bars.  I managed to get to the end of the fourth lap when the timekeeper shouted 25mins to go so I made the executive decision not to finish then, but to go & do the fifth lap that I wanted to do knowing that it wouldn’t be counted in the results because anything after 2.5hrs is null & void so I persevered & cracked on & did my fifth lap, ending up at the finish line looking rather dirty but very pleased that I’d managed to do the five laps.  Then to my surprise, as I was enjoying tea & cakes afterwards, the race organiser announced that I had come second in the old farts age group & got a gift voucher for OffCamber Bikes in Blandford.  The only downside to this mountain biking lark is that it takes as long to clean the bike as well as me & clothing as it does to do the race ?.

As for my lap times

1 – 30:17

2 – 31:14

3 – 32:31

4 – 33:41

Overall race time was 2:07:44

Unofficial lap time for Lap 5 was 34:11