More Mtb'n

We are off to the 3rd round of the marathon champs this weekend to try and get some more points, which ain't easy. After that its only one week to the Sierrnevadalimiteroad which I think is going to be my toughest day on a bike yet.

Puerto De La Ragua report

I was feeling a bit to confident going into the race and didn't really allow for how much time I'd had off over the last few weeks and went off far to quick at the start and payed for it halfway up the first climb. I managed to calm down and get it back together getting in a descent size bunch to help me back to the finish and get home 6th in my category and 34th o/a so not all bad. I'm off to another round of the Andalusian mtb champs this weekend where I got 14th in the masters last year which I will be happy with again.

XIII SUBIDA AL PUERTO DE LA RAGUA

XIII SUBIDA AL PUERTO DE LA RAGUA
We are off to Guadix for the above race on Sunday. I had quite a good result last year so hoping for better this year. We ride over Puerto de la Ragua twice so its quite a tough one. I've got myself a new video camera to play with as well, so here's the first attempt coming down the Contraviesa.

11th Gran fondo La Sufrida

I took part in La Sufrida (the suffering) at the weekend in Ronda to see if we could take guests there next year. With 4,300 mts of climbing and 196km in length it was never going to be easy. 435 riders took to the line with nearly half doing the 117 km and the rest of us doing the longer 196 km. I got to the start line with 4 of my club mates to get our race passports stamped. We set off to a barrage of fireworks into the 20km neutral zone only for Andreas to get a massive slash in the sidewall of his tyre. As we where all together we all stopped to help but had to wait for the backup car which wasted us a good 20 mins. We worked together to try and catch the bunch but had to keep waiting for directions as the neutral zone wasn't signed. During a fast descent I was the only one who noticed an arrow off to the left which my club decided to ignore, as well as my shouts, and went straight on, at this point I decided to go it alone and just get my head down. I was ticking the miles off nicely passing people all the time but never catching any group to work with as the climbs had already split the pack. The heat was proving to be the usual problem as I was tipping more water over my head than down my throat which was giving me massive headaches on every descent, the fastest being 83km. At around 50km into the race we triggered another timing mat for the cronoescalada (uphill time trial), 13 km with 809 mts of height gain, very tough when you try and commit having never seen the climb. After that we had a huge descent before the relentless climbs back to the finish. I got home 64th o/a and 31st in my catagory not even achieving a bronze time, so unfinished buisness and back next year hopefully with a full house of guests to suffer with. 8000 calories burnt and 8 lts of fluid drunk and around 3kilos of weight lost told me how tough it was. The winning average speed of 32kmh also explains only half a dozen gold times.