Trans Wales MTB Challange 2008

What can i say that has not been said in many other blogs about the world.

Its tough as nails

It tried to break me

It failed
Day 0:
Ferry and drive via Scorchies in North Wales, pretty univentfull, but as became a theme for the week. It pissed it down when we got to Bullith Wells and the start venue for the race. Pitched up, wandered about and registered. Went to the race briefing and pasta party, which had shit food and worried about the fact that this may be what we were going to eat for a week :/ Early to bed and slept quite well, which was surprising.

Day 1: 73km link stage , 8km night special stage
First of the long days, didnt quite know what it was going to be like so just trundled along for most of the day! Hit a few trail centres and did allot of road and firebreak climbing. Little were we to know that this would be the mainstay of the week. Lots of up for some short quick downs. 5 mins out the gate and it started to rain. Spirits we still high but 7 hrs late when we arrived abck and it was still raining was starting to take the piss.

Night special stage was fantastic. Loud music, packed start finish area and the promise of a 3.5km climb to 4.5km decent got the racing nerves pumping. Was still not sure how hard i could go at night so just took my time. half way down the decent i started to open up and hammer the trail as hard as i could. Great race!

Day 2: 68km link and 10km special stage
Hell. very wet hell. It lashed all day, some exposed climbing and some exposed traverses had us getting raped by the weather. If it were not for the trails i would have gone mad. We made the mistake of rolling out late and hence the trails were cut up by the time we got to them. Never again. The campsite was simply a dive. 30 degree slope and it still managed to flood even at the top! If i had a get out of special stage offer when i rolled in i would have taken it.

Special stage it turned out was class! 10km XC trail and fast as hell. Decided that i would go out as hard as possible as tmrw we only had a link stage so opened up for the whole trail and put 4.5mins into Waggers and caught at least 5 people ahead of me. All at 20second gaps. Felt good. Oh it stopped raining for my run! It pissed for the rest of the evening though....

Day 3: 70km link stage
Lovely day...trail wise. Some fantasic climbing, some great descents and some moorland crossings. First propper river crossings and i no longer care about getting wet :) Felt good all day, strong and hungry for more. Day had to be shortend cause of weather and some trail that was apparetly quite tough to ride.... long story short we missed out on 5km of trail. Not happy, but so be it. Waggers developed a serious case of the squirts today. Pretty much spent the entire evening on the potty and he knew this ment no riding the day after. Solo for me!