Yesterday I hopped down to Peebles to watch the fifth round of the Scottish Cyclo-Cross Series. It was nice to be a spectator for a change, even though it looked like great fun. I forgot my camera, and had Magnus (the dog) with me, so photographs were iPhone only, and thus not high-quality enough for posting loads of them.
The course was a cracker, and certainly lived up to the ‘Euro-style’ billing. Lots of muddy grass, steep run-ups following hurdles, more steep bits, and some super slippy off-camber descents.
Kenta Gallagher got off to a mega start, pulling out a fair gap on a chasing group of Iain Nimmo (Squatra Porcini), James Fraser-Moodie (Pedal Power) and Rab Wardell (Sandy Wallace Cycles). Around the fourth lap the chasing group was split up when Moodie decided to go off on his own, Nimmo dropped back a few seconds with Wardell a few seconds further back.
On lap six Moodie bridged up to Gallagher and pulled away on his own. He went on to take the win with about a 30s gap to Gallagher. Nimmo was in third, with Andy Wardman taking fourth.
It has come to my attention that a change to my comments system made two months ago didn’t go so well.
I had intended for all spam comments to be deleted immediately. This was happening, but a bug caused all good comments to be saved, but marked as spam.
Fixed now. Apologies to all those affected, I’ll reply as soon as I can.
You have to love GitHub! Just last week I was saying to Kamal on the phone that I now instinctively search for a project on GitHub before Google, because it’s likely to be there, and grabbing a copy or just browsing the source is made so easy for me.
What a shame it’s an extra few clicks to search it. Until now! Enter the GitHub Bookmarlet!
Install
Save the following link as a bookmark, or drag it to the links/bookmarks bar in your browser:
When you click on the bookmarklet, it’ll give you a text prompt. Type in the name of the project you want to search for, and hit return. You’ll be taken to the GitHub search page for your query.
Hitting ESC or Cancel leaves your browser in it’s previous state.
User Macro
Want to search for a user? Type in ‘u:’ followed by your query. So for instance to look at Kamal’s github account, I would type in: u:kamal.
Hitting Return or OK now takes you straight to the user’s Github profile, or shows you a 404 if there is no such user.
Code Search
As for user-search, but use the c: prefix. You can also use any of the GitHub macros as defined on the code-search page: http://github.com/codesearch. c: badger language:ruby.
Despite not riding cyclo-cross this season, I’m still hooked on it! I wait impatiently for coverage of the Scottish CX series, as much as the World Cups and Superprestige (Watch these live online) rounds.
When it comes to the bigger events, there is one man I’m sure we all idolize, Sven Nys! He’s a tower of power in a ‘cross race, and no slouch on a mountainbike either, scoring a 9th place at the Olympics this year.
Sit back and enjoy this awesome compilation of his greatest moments from last year, especially around 35seconds where he’s pumping his arm while running up some stairs.
This year I have been thoroughly put off from blogging about things in case I alienate readers, who are interested in one subject, by talking about another. Obviously those people with an interest in competitive cycle racing and ruby love this blog, but the others are sort of left with a bitter-sweet taste on reception of my RSS feed.
So, I’ve decided to solve this by having three categories, each with an RSS feed. If you are interested in my posts, but only one subject, you can now pinpoint what you want with one of the following three categories…
After winning the third round of the Inners TT Series, it made sense to try and do the same at the fourth and final round. A days rest after the last round of the SXC, and I was ready to go.
It was proper dark for this one, so I borrowed a nice bright HID from Tom ‘Wild Boar 24’ Owen. For the first part of the climb I didn’t need it, only the technical sections were worthy of it to start with. After the quarry I turned it off for the fireroad, so as to gain a small psychological advantage over those chasing. I started two minutes ahead of Andy Wardman, and looking back on the fireroad I could see he had already dropped time on me.
After the first bit of the descent it was back to ride-run-ride on the rocky old-skool section. There seemed to be a lot of traffic in this section, as people were having trouble with it. I had an over-the-bars, but got straight back up and off running.
On the descent I kept missing corners, and had to stop at one point to tuck my keys back into my top to stop them whacking me in the face as I went over the drops. Definitely some time wasted there.
I got to the bottom in one piece, phew! Andy Barlow had decided to ride his ‘big’ hardtail today, and even stopped to lower the saddle for more control on the descent. I beat him and Andy Wardman by a single second, taking the series win also, by one point!
Thanks very much to Helen and Steve for all their hard work organising the series, and thanks to all the folk who turned up for all the great banter.
Here’s hoping the rumoured winter series is as good…
Since I hadn’t finished a race at Glentress at the last 4 attempts, I had to give this round a go despite only ridden one other round at the beginning of the season.
The course was a less climbing-centric version version of last year’s, with a superb new rooty singletrack section that skirts the skills-area. I’d done two practice laps on the Saturday, and after a bit of tyre-pressure experimentation, I was ready to go.
The start was pretty brutal, big-ringing it up the fireroad. I was pretty near the back already, completely lacking in the power required to keep up. Once off the fireroad, things settled down, and apart from dropping my pump near the end of the first lap, I kept a steady pace.
By the end of my 4th lap my legs were really feeling the effort. A look at my watch told me if I wasted 6 minutes, I would get lapped, and thus could record a finish without doing another lap. After some soft-tapping, Gareth came past on his way to the win, leaving me to just cruise in. A little sprint with Richard grabbed me the second-last finishing place.
I realise this wasn’t up to my usual standards, but all I wanted was the finish, especially after a fairly sparse year as far as racing goes.
I did the Penrith Merida last year, so had a fair idea of what to expect. Or so I thought!
This year I got onto the front row, so as to avoid the three minutes waiting to get past the finish line. Conditions were wet under-tyre, but sunny, and thus dry from above.
The first main climb was the same as last year, about an hours worth of granny ring climbing up a bumpy grass , followed by a great fun descent. The second main climb was a reverse of what we did last year, complete with the stolen signs at the top. I made it all the way to a summit with one other guy ahead of me before we realised the error. There was about 20 people following us. 20 minutes wasted.
From that point on I was pretty demoralised, the walk up to even the point of the missing sign was a bit OTT for a mountain-bike race, and it was followed by a walk down too! The remainder of the route consisted of about 50% road, and a little bit more walking.
I soft tapped for a while, and chatted with Stu. Then I got a second wind and put the foot down again, totally motoring the last 10k.
I enjoyed the mud, but not the walking or road so much. Steven Hallsal entered on his ‘cross bike, finishing about 10 minutes behind me due to a puncture, so it wasn’t really a proper mountainbike course.
On the plus side, I did get a small t-shirt at the end for the first time ever (which was conveniently in a paper wrap so I didn’t get it muddy like the last 6 times), and a Gore Sportive Buff.
I might go back next year, but I’ll need to be pretty keen. Or take a ‘cross bike.
Vo an I decided to have a little tour up north for the weekend. Not having an appropriate touring bike, I whacked a rack on my winter bike (as well as some 10spd Campag niceness) and made do.
Day 0
Train to inverness two hours late, passed time with copy of new scientist. Girl across from us thinks she’s Juno. Staying in Inverness SYHA, nice enough.
Day 1
Vo’s not feeling well, so he has sleep while I do a 30mile loop of the Moray Firth. Went back to meet Vo, and in the afternoon we scooted down the road to Fort William. Staying in Glen Nevis campsite. 102miles.
Day 2
A late start and two punctures for me meant we had to go over the Rest and be Thankful in the dark. Going north-south the climb up the back is one of the dullest roads imaginable. Descent super interesting with just little road lights in the pitch dark. 98miles.
Day 3
Raining today, so after cycling round Loch Lomond we decided to bail on the last 40miles and just get the train home from Stirling. 50miles.
