After week of the weather “Will it? Won’t it?”, the sun came out for this years Bristol BikeFest. Last year Bob and I wandered along on the Sunday to watch Neil plug around for 6 hours solo and walked much of the course – it looked quite fun, though there was little vibe in the pits, but Sunday is apparently always quieter. This year Bob anf Colin entered the Saturday 12hr as a pair and I went along to ‘bitch’ (pit-bitch – fix bikes, keep an eye on laps and change overs, etc). Owing to Bob and Col going to the Foo Figther’s gig on Friday night, we didn’t arrive ’til after 8am, for a 9am start…
This year, due to “wild flower damage” last year, the main arena was now right next to the camping site, which, when we arrived, despite paying for camping, was full. We managed to squeeze the car into a small gap and Col quickly sorted his bike and went off for the start.
All told it was a fun course, but rather to short (several people got bored on Saturday and went home early) with a lot of singletrack. Now singletrack is usually good, we mountain bikers like riding singletrack, but in a multilap event with a lot of different speeds of people in, too much is a bad thing, especially with a short lap. From speaking to many riders there were a lot of rude, arrogant tossers riding, who would not ask to come by, but would barge past with no warning, or who would refuse to let anyone else past, even when asked. This, for me, is always what lets XC racing down. I know I’m not fast uphill, so I don’t mind letting people by, but I am faster than most downhill… end result, roadies pass me uphill and hold me up all the way down.
Sadly it all ended badly for Bob, as one of the aforementioned tossers held her up for most of the lap, then when he did say “come past on the left” he cut her up and put her into a tree, without even stopping to see if the girl he’d just put into a tree, at some speed and who was now sprawled across the track, was even okay. Thankfully two chaps behind stopped, helped bob to her feet and got her bike straight (thank you gentlemen!). End of race for bob, so with Col tired and still no camping spots, we headed home.
All said, not a great event. It should be though, but sadly it wasn’t due to the overly relaxed organisation and XC roadie tossers who take life way to seriously.
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