Saab-Salomon Mountain Mayhem 2005
Pimpmaster Jazz

Short Version:
In a nutshell it was wet to begin with, but with some pretty nice stuff; lots and lots of off-camber greasy stuff, some wet wooden greasy stuff, a long wet, greasy gloopy baby-poo climb with 4-6" jeep ruts, some nice, flowing singletrack, the bombhole (whoohoo!) and a cool final descent into the arena.

Long Version:
Nelly 'Big Bear' Gordon and I of Nelly's Jazz Heroes turned up after a long week at the grindstone to find a rather damp race-site worryingly near the Welsh border. On arrival, we successfully grounded out the VR6 hunting for Andy, another Jazz Hero, who had secured us bivvy space behind the Shimano Service Centre truck. Andy guided us in, and after some quick faffing we headed off to find the rest of the Shimano staff / Jazz Heroes Support Crew, who had sensibly blagged a hotel room for the night about 10 miles away. We also were in pretty desperate need of food aswell. En-route it was decided to scrap the 'find crew' idea and concentrate on the 'find food' aspect, so we made a beeline for the nearest town with the idea of getting some pub-grub. Alas, it was not to be - the pubs had stopped serving food because it had gone eight, which meant that we had to resort to our original plan. A few frantic calls were made and food was ordered at our destination, which was great - all we had to do was find it! Now what was in theory an easy task turned into a bit of a nightmare, and somewhere around 21.30 - 22.00 we rolled in to find food, and more importantly, some beer-flavoured carbs. Yum! Last orders were called, the gorgeous waitress had headed off with a guy that was old enough to be her dad and it was past our bedtime, so we headed back to Eastnor Park to catch some zzz's.

Saturday broke in a rather damp fashion and, after securing some breakfast, I decided to make the SSC guy's day and fit a new Hollowtech2 chainset to the Cove. It was a bit of a baptism of fire for the new bike, which had only been built for just over a week (and had already been crashed on once), but fortunately everything appeared to be going to plan.

Two PM and the race starts - Andy is off first and takes well-over an hour to come round. We hadn't ridden the course as everyone that had was coming back looking like something from the Black Lagoon. Sure enough, when Andy reappeared he did also resemble a rather large mud-loving beastie. Great.

First lap went ok considering the conditions. I was out second and had to hike about 1/4 of the ten mile loop - riding baby-poo climb with other riders on it just wasn't going to happen. Climbing bloody hurt (500m per lap according to Garmin GPS people) on the mulch that was masquerading as a surface with added off-camber wetness and slime-coated roots, that were throwing people off left, right and centre. I found my Croatia / Chamonix head and was descending like a demon and overtook more on the downhills than the climbs, to make a change. Overtook one chap on a fast piece of single-ish track, continued hooning, binned it into the ferns, pissed myself laughing, got back on and continued without being caught up by my victim. Mwuhahahahahaha! People were descending like girly girls - they obviously didn't realise that momentum is the way forward! Tasty air out the bombhole (told you - Cro / Cham head!) complete with little X-up before railing like a beastie on rails through the final descent, taking lots more people. People helped = 1, possible broken ribs seen = 1, dabs = countless, stacks = 1, stacks seen = unknown, people whipped past = more than whipped past me. Roughly 1 hour 40. Heh heh!

Food, massage, vegetarian Portaloo violation and prep bike for night-lap.

Out at 10 for the first proper dark lap. Some bits had dried out nicely, but poo-hill was still the b!tch-wh0re climb from hell and about 2" deep in baby-poo soup. The single-ishtrack that followed on was still greasier than a fry-up at madam Greasy's deep-fried black pudding cafe, and again the off-camber stuff and wooden bridges were still claiming victims. Still descending like a hell-beast from hell with a rocket up its ass, except for when I couldn't see - I had cunningly rigged my Light & Motion light up with the battery cable running round my brake hose, which meant that as I was turning the bars it would slowly turn the light to the left. Not a massive problem as I still had 15w from my headtorch, but annoying when it was chucking out seriously good light in the wrong direction. I continued to manually adjust it with one hand whilst riding all through the lap until mid-adjust on a particularly greasy downhill I came off. Evil thing. Got back in (night time X-up through the bombhole - flashy lights everywhere! Whoohoo!) for 1 hour 30 something and felt like a very pissed-off mud-covered knackered thing.

Get in, clean off, prep bike, stretch, pasta, set alarm, kip.

Alarm goes, but there is something wrong - Andy (who's meant to be on the course) is snoring in the tent next to me. So I go to sleep again.

Wake up with Andy going "Shit! Shit! Shit!". Before he goes back to bed. His first 24 hour and the course is taking its toll. Get up and discuss tactics with other team members. I decide to get a massage and grub, let it go down and then go out. Andy decides to head out before me, so I have a little longer to get coffee for myself and the massage guys, pick-up a very nice retro Magura top from Magura to piss-off the Shimano pit guys (who had spent the night drinking Stella and taking a leak very close to my tent - someone then chundered in the middle of the tents behind the winny - I'm not pitching behind the Shimano pit next time), get a few copies of the Outcast complete with Dan's German report and a Singletrack mug (also filled with coffee - yum).

Went out for lap 3 at just gone 10 and it was great. Felt good, the jelly-babies were flowing (I was told on the Monument climb that they were very 'old-skool', to which I replied "I'm an old-skool rider..."), it was still mulchy, but tolerable. Tinker passed me (again), I overtook Jen O'Conner and gee'd her on, the poo-climb was more ridable, but still hard with people falling off left, right and centre, the second-half of the course had dried out massively and stutter-bumps were appearing going into corners, I was still dropping like a Stuka and pouncing on unsuspecting victims (and X-ing up through the bombhole), ss'ers were still whipping me up hills but it was feeing goooood - I was contemplating doubling because I had to ride back to base to hand over, and would've done if I hadn't run out of water. Got in, found Neil and handed over in the Shimano pit. Naughty. Nelly went out and I got ready to do our final lap. Not sure of time, but I'm hoping it was under 1 hour 30.

Got to the handover at 1ish and waited with Rachel Mountain (cool girl with a very apt. name - there are a pair nestling on her chest) of the Hill and Valley coffee team (mmm - coffee...) that I'd met in Cyclecare and over at Aston Hill, and chilled. 2pm came and Nelly rolled in. He'd loitered for 40 mins! So I didn't get my fourth lap. A little gutted, but we hadn't made any definite arrangements after the team-plan had gone out the window.

Packed-up, nicked Madison beer for the massage guys, had a beer myself, went to the presentation and headed for home.

Now tired, sunburnt and sitting behind a desk. Got to call Pace in a sec to get my forks sorted as the bushes are f*cked (four years of use with no love) and it's the only job I can't do myself. A little gutted I didn't ride more and a bit annoyed it rained as it would have been a cracking course in the dry, but a pretty good weekend all in all!

Our results are here.

Rarrr!

Need coffee.

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