Day 2: Black Mountains 3 Day

Two buses took 99 excited riders to the start of the first enduro of the weekend. It should have been a hundred but one poor chap’s alarm hadn’t gone off and he slept through, missing the start! There was a great atmosphere in the bus as riders chatted about the waiting trails. From the briefing, it certainly sounded like we were in for a treat over the day’s 60km of riding under blue skies.

After coming 2nd in the previous evenings time trail, I thought that I would take my chances and ride with the Torq boys today, but they were taking their time getting ready at the start. By the time they were ready to go, we were the last riders to leave along with a Belgian rider, Elias, riding a snow bike with massive fat tyres!

The first 5km was along country lanes, which should have been great as a steady warm up before hitting the dirt and the day’s first climb, but Ben Thomas (Torq) had other ideas. From the word go it was race pace, as we chain ganged along the road, Ben leading the way. Hitting the climb, the pace didn’t relent with Ben putting the hammer down and heading off the front. Not sure how my legs would fare after the previous weekend’s previous stage race, I elected not to attempt to stick on his wheel and stayed back with Josh and Elias and Matt Hart (Torq) choosing to stick at his own pace. With the day warming up nicely and the trails mostly dry, it was going to be a great day.

Those first few kilometres on rolling trails went by quickly, but the pace was soon slowed by a steep and narrow tarmac climb. Here I decided to take on an early gel but it ended up costing me. It got caught at the back of my throat, causing my airway to close up. I had to pull over, using every inspiratory muscle to suck what air I could into my lungs. Fighting to breath, I saw Josh and Elias disappear over the crest of the hill. After a minute or so, the panic subsided as my breathing returned to normal. With no time to wonder what just happened, I had a rider to catch.

We soon hit some sweet, open moorland rolling trails, leading into a narrow rocky descent. Great stuff. Popping out at the bottom took us onto a short section of road where I could see Josh just up front. He saw me, put his head down and pedalled hard. In his efforts, he failed to see the turning off right into the trees. I continued past the turning calling out to him, but to no avail. This was a sweet bit of trail winding its way up the hillside in thick woodland. The rolling terrain continued to the feed station at 34km with some great bits of singletrack and a steep descent with 2 rather unexpected stepped sections. Carrying too much speed to do anything but ride the steps at full tilt certainly got the adrenaline going!

Greeted at the feed by the smiling face of friend Mel from Bristol, I asked for my pre-filled bottles to swap out and go. Mel didn’t know anything about them as they hadn’t been dropped off! Ah well, plan B. Filling up with some fresh water and a couple of scoops of Torq powder, I then noticed the box of carrot cake, amongst all the other goodies. Being very partial to home made cake, it was a tough call to pass on consuming a couple of pieces! (one piece is never enough). That could have been fatal given the impending climbing.

Setting off up the brief road climb with another rider Grant Leavy, the ascent soon steepened as we hit trail. Ahead of us was the awe inspiring climb up to Mynydd Llysiau and I was soon alone in the deep valley. A tight left hander in the final 400m led up and over the ridge. From here on in the trail went down. The rock strewn, technical descent was followed by fast, singletrack trails winding their way through thick bracken. I did stop and double back at one point as I hadn’t seen any course markers for a while and a mistake here would mean a long climb back up! This cost me time, but at least I was happy that I was going the right way.

The grin factor was huge as we were presented with more technical singletrack descending before arriving at the hike-a-bike section. The head height bracken made for tough going, but I was quickly out of it and soon topped out, calves burning. From here though it was pretty much 10km of descent back to a hot shower and a chunk of the Luff Bus’s delicious tortilla.

Trying to multitask at speed (avoiding sheep with one eye on the awesome view and the other on the trail) doesn’t rank high on my skills and the final section caught me out a little, the short switchbacks dropping steeply onto the road. Throwing the back end of the bike around the corners, I almost took out Ed Rollason, the photographer, who had positioned himself half way down. I did apologise later! A couple of tarmac kilometers led to the finish where Ben Thomas was waiting to see who came in 2nd. Josh, Elias and Grant soon followed in behind me.

What an exhilarating day out on the hills and this was reflected in the evening’s enthusiastic banter around dinner about tough climbs, great descents and some choice singletrack riding. Riders were clearly excited about what the next day offer. Roll on day 3.

Read Day 1 and Day 3.