Tour de Ben Nevis
The weekend of the 24th/25th of September was my last serious race of the summer before heading back down to Glasgow to start my Masters year of Mechanical Engineering at Strathclyde. The Tour de Ben Nevis is a gruelling race that ‘takes mountain biking back to the mountains’. The loop that No Fuss uses starts and finishes in Fort William: the outdoor capital of the UK. It is about 72km long and takes riders through the mountains, over rivers, into the middle of nowhere, past the land of bog and then back again. 72km isn’t a huge distance but it definitely feels like it considering the rough land rover tracks and steep rocky footpaths that make up a substantial chunk of the riding/walking.
This year the organisers decided to have a stage event format. There were 4 timed stages (2 up hill and 2 downhill) that entitled riders to a certain amount of points depending on how well they did: 1st would get 400, 2nd would get 399 and so on. The whole loop also counted as a stage and the allocated points were worth 1.5 times as much as one of the other stages. I.e. 1st would get 600, 2nd would get 598.5 and so on. The overall winner at the end of the day was the person who had collected the most points.
The day started off cold and wet so I wrapped up warm. As the bunch got moving I soon started to warm up and as the sun came out I started to overheat. It is always hard trying to predict the weather at home and to dress accordingly.
Right near the start someone on an XC whippet bike made an early break and got away from the main group at the front. By the time we reached the start of the 1st stage everyone was pretty stretched out and I was riding in 3rd place behind local legend Ruari Watt. The first stage follows the West Highland Way walker’s path down to Kinkochleven and it is a fantastic mess of large loose boulders and big rocky drainage channels.
After this stage soon came the next. It was a big long climb along a loose land rover track. The track was a lot softer and slower than I had ridden on previous occasions and I struggled to claw myself up with my 9 speed 34T single ring set up. Quite honestly I felt wrecked after that climb and my legs were starting to cramp up with over 3hours of riding still to go! Ouchies. I knew it was going to be a tough day. To make my day even worse I rode past the crossing point on the river and crossed at the wrong point. Realising what I had done, I had to run all the way back to the dibbing station for the start of the next stage: the carry climb. To add insult to injury I also managed to get a puncture between stages 3 and 4 which didn’t help the cause. Luckily I had only dropped down to 5th position in the running order by the time I made it back to civilisation and the end of the race.
Normally I am ‘in it to win it’ but when I crossed the finish line I was pleased just to have finished. I was even more pleased when I found out that I had actually come 2nd overall in the points classification. Yeh Boy! Thanks to No Fuss for a well organised event, Orange mountain bikes for their support and photos and well done to Ruari Watt for taking the win.
Posted by James Shirley on September 30, 2011 at 5:44 pm | Race Reports