Recently in Mayhem Category

June 29, 2011 5:01 PM
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It's taken over a week to recover and one of our riders has been pretty bedridden since (we were that committed), but we did it.

2,400 miles covered, then the 24 hour race done (42nd out of 160 in our interestingly titled 'open men' category).  Almost £3000 raised for charity (and still growing - come on you can still contribute if you haven't yet).   A big thanks once again to our main sponsors Saab.

See the highs and lows of the race on Flickr.

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April 10, 2011 10:48 PM

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A weekend racking up the miles in the mountains of North Wales is great training, and we never expected 20c heat in early April in Snowdonia.   You'd expect a drenching at that time of year, but we got sun burnt instead.

Riding around the mountains on the Coed-y-Brenin and Coed Llandegla trails is an epic experience.  Stunning scenery and a fantastic buzz, with a great mix of fast flowing and technical rocky trails.  But after 40km riding Snowdonia's finest we returned back from the 'Coch' trail and noticed that my bike, my pride and joy, had a nasty crack in the frame above the bottom bracket.  A write-off.  Of two-and-a-half-grand's worth of bike.  Ouch.   

Now I had no bike.  Broken by the Coch,  or maybe it was Uncle Fester, Herman or Gomez (the Addams Family must be big in North Wales, judging by the number of trails named after them).  Normally I break my bones, not my bike. That would have almost been easier for me to take.

After a day of intense worrying about the cost of replacing it I returned back to London late Sunday to discover my warranty was still valid (5 years - not bad for something you chuck yourself down mountains on).   Phew.  Thank you Lapierre.  There's a lesson there - pay more attention to this type of thing when you buy stuff.

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Chris Heron
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April 5, 2011 7:21 PM
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Ok, so I was hoping the first blog post for our 2400 mile charity challenge would be more upbeat. But right now - after chucking myself head first into it and doing the 40 mile round-trip commute to Teddington and back on Day 1 - I've ridden in again this morning and I'm in trouble.  

Or rather my knee is and has swollen up wildly and feels as creaky sore as the rusty tin man from the cod liver oil adverts - before the cod liver oil kicked in. Even after smearing almost an entire tube of Volteral painkiller gel on the offending knee, I had to admit defeat to the ligament gods and sheepishly call my wife up and ask her to drive in and give me a lift home. 

I'm hoping a few days rest will do the trick but one thing's for sure, this isn't going to be a walk in the proverbial.  What have we got ourselves into?

Chris

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