Southern Enduro Mashup - Return to Head Down!
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| The Secret Weapons (Spencer, Will, Me, Darryl, Joel, Damo) and Simon |
Having spent the
whole season raving about racing Southern Enduro (SE) it shouldn’t have
surprised me when all the ‘Secret Weapons’ signed up for the Mashup
enduro. The fact that it
was an ‘extra’ race in the season already made it feel like a party but being
able to share it with my regular riding buddies was going to be awesome, just
as it had been racing with my local mate Tom in the last Round. Let me enlighten you as to what a Mashup
enduro is: it’s a free-for-all! Three stages, five hours and you can race them
in whatever order you like, when you like and with whom you like. Ride all
three stages at least twice and the fastest two runs on each are your race
times: job done!
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| Early morning coffee stop |
Getting up in
the dark, bleary eyed at 5am, the race-day banter between Spencer, Darryl, Will
and I got the excitement building as we prepared to set off for Head Down,
Hampshire and it didn’t let up all day. Damo and his son Joel had gone down the
night before and camped in the van; the rest of us car shared and drove in
convoy from our far corner of the South coast.
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| The Secret Weapons and Luke |
The Kent Trails Facebook
group was out in force including Luke, who had read my first blog on Okeford,
and foolishly mentioned to Damo that he’d like to try Southern Enduro. Before he knew it, Damo had signed him up for
Mashup too! Several of the SE regulars were missing including Nikki, Martin,
Maddie and John, not to mention Scott’s parents Denise and Mike and I really
missed them. However, this was a bonus for newbies like my guys and another
friend, Shaun, thankful to grab a slice of the SE pie!
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| Catching up with Emma, Sam and Tony |
Before long I was cocooned in the
Southern Enduroland bubble and was busily catching up with friends; after a while
Damo asked if I knew ‘everybody’ there?! I guess it’s the same for any Series,
be it EWS, UCI or SE; doing a whole season of races feels rather like you’ve
joined a travelling circus and you simply arrive in a new venue and race with
your mates (albeit mountain bikes, rather than unicycles, LOL). Pure magic!
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| Start of the track walk |
The Mashup rules
stated that there were no practice laps, only a track walk, so after we arrived
and met up with Damo, Joel and Luke we registered and headed up Stage 2 to see
what it was like. There ensued an hour
or so of slapstick comedy worthy of a Carry On film, as we slipped and slid in
our attempt to walk Stages 1 & 2 before the rider briefing at 9.30am.
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| Damo fell first.... |
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| Then me.... |
Scott
says that the worst time to ride Head Down is the day after heavy rain and
guess what happened the day before the race…? Wet leaves, chalk and loam equals
testing conditions, which even the more experienced riders struggled with, but the
unusually mild autumn day meant things improved as the day wore on. It
certainly wasn’t the mud-bath we raced in in Round 2!
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| Mass start at 10am |
After watching
the start at 10am we hurriedly got our bikes set up and pedalled up the
transition to get racing. The marshalls were brilliant as always, but the mass
start meant that there was more queuing than usual at the Stage heads. On the
up side the queues provided valuable catch up time with the girls, who had also
come with their regular riding buddies.
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| Fellow Kent Trails riders Rachel, Mark and Matt on the start line |
Riding
as a group, we decided to start with Stage 2 as it had the shortest queue at that
time. For me, it was the one with the most fun features and I was pleased that
as the track dried up I let myself enjoy them and hit all but the largest
double. I couldn’t believe that only a couple of months’ ago these jumps and
drops had phased me.
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| Darryl, Spencer and Damo queuing |
I found Stage 1 the same: at last the steep loamy
switchbacks and chutes were not an issue as I looked where I was going and
‘showed that berm my bum’. Cheers Lynne for that top tip (see the Air Maiden Coaching
at Chicksands blog)! However, I couldn’t make friends with Stage 3. Even though
it resembled our home trails – tight and twisty through the trees for a large
part – we just didn’t get on. Having done my 2 runs I abandoned it in favour of
playing on stages 1 & 2! Life’s too short and those two were so much fun!
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| Catching up with Jen at Stage 2 |
Whether it was
not having practice rides to get my get my head in the game and focus on the
race ahead, having my regular riding buddies there or the Mashup atmosphere I
have no idea, but I was far too chilled all day – several times I found myself
half way down a stage with my glasses hanging from the neck of my top and even
started the day without knee pads – LOL! Just as well it wasn’t part of the
series as I certainly didn’t have a race face on, just a very happy one!
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| Smiles for miles - half way through with Spencer |
There are
several things I’ll do differently next time I race a Mashup and the main one
is to have a race plan! Making full use of the time, I’ll try treating the
first few runs on each Stage as practice and session a particular Stage before
moving on to another one. And – I’m going to stop being so bloody polite and
moving aside way to early when I hear a rider approaching behind me. By the end
of the day I’d learned not to do this and outran the guy behind me on Stage 1! YES!
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| With friend and Vets winner, Renee! She's so fast! |
But what did the
Secret Weapons make of it all? They loved it – there are rumours of Damo and
Joel doing the entire series in 2018. Will came 4th in the Fun category and Spencer,
Damo and Darryl came 13th, 17th and 18th in Vets.
Watch out Super Vets, Spencer will be playing with the big boys next year! Joel and his mate Simon did well in the Under
18s too, inspite of Joel destroying his front brake in an off on the first run!
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| Job done: they loved it! Spencer, Will, Darryl and Simon |
