I've ridden D2D 3
times before but usually with a view to have fun rather than properly
race. This year I entered as a team of 2 with my mate Steve (Stumpy on
here) who I've done a lot of riding with lately and we were keen to do
as well as we could but realistically we had no aspirations of troubling
the podium or even being anywhere near it.
The weather had been fairly poor in the days leading up to the race and I wasn't looking forward to riding in the rain again (2008 and 2010), but on the day the rain cleared around 7am and it stayed dry and bright. We arrived at High Lodge around 5:30pm, too late to have a proper pre-ride but we got signed in and had a quick spin over the first couple of sections of the course. The rain had left a fair bit of mud, but there was considerably more fire-road than usual so hopefully it would hold up better.
I was volunteered to do the opening lap so queued up on the start line with Andy1 at around 7:30pm in the freezing cold. On the lead out section I managed to stick to Ady's wheel but misted up lenses caused me to faff my way through the first section of singletrack and he left me for dust, erm mud...
The "simple" course set-up meant I didn't see any of the queuing problems that there's been in previous years and my Racing Ralphs managed to cope pretty well through the mud (other than in one section that I doubt will dry up again this century).
I tried to eek 2 laps out of my batteries but unfortunately they both packed in about 2/3rds of the way through lap 2 meaning my Hope Twin was blinking on low power mode and my Fenix helmet light had dropped to it's dimmest setting. Somehow I managed keep riding with low light levels and despite the problems the lap-times show I set the overall fastest lap time for my category
I'd borrowed 2 spare Hope batteries from a mate, so with mine now on charge I used one of his for my 3rd lap, unfortunately it had been sat doing nothing for ages and it also died after about 20mins (despite me charging it the night before) and I had to survive on the 180 lumen helmet light alone!
The following laps were battery-problem-free but for the last mile or so of lap 4 I started to suffer cramp in my quads; a quick massage afterwards helped but the rest of my race was a balance between pushing on and fighting back cramping muscles.
Both me and Steve were managing approx 45-60min lap times which was just long enough in the pits to eat, sort out fresh clothes and batteries, service the bike and then wait for the next turn. The weather stayed dry but it was much colder than I'd anticipated fortunately the GRT boys and girls had a gas heater which was a god-send.
Unfortunately after my fourth lap I lost the ability to add up and somehow overestimated how much time I had by about 15mins and Steve had to come and find me and kick me back out onto the course...
Through the night we managed 7 laps each and we were constantly swapping between 6th and 7th place (of around 50 teams in our category). I made it back from my final lap at around 7:45am to find we'd dropped back to 7th. Steve went out for one final lap and he managed to bump us back up to 6th!
I'm exceedingly chuffed to have had a top 10 finish, it's by far my best result and is much better than we had expected we'd do.
Many thanks to all the TROG and GRT boys and girls for the hospitality, banter and support
and to TMTBR for putting on another cracking event. And well done to all the others for some excellent results 
The weather had been fairly poor in the days leading up to the race and I wasn't looking forward to riding in the rain again (2008 and 2010), but on the day the rain cleared around 7am and it stayed dry and bright. We arrived at High Lodge around 5:30pm, too late to have a proper pre-ride but we got signed in and had a quick spin over the first couple of sections of the course. The rain had left a fair bit of mud, but there was considerably more fire-road than usual so hopefully it would hold up better.
I was volunteered to do the opening lap so queued up on the start line with Andy1 at around 7:30pm in the freezing cold. On the lead out section I managed to stick to Ady's wheel but misted up lenses caused me to faff my way through the first section of singletrack and he left me for dust, erm mud...
The "simple" course set-up meant I didn't see any of the queuing problems that there's been in previous years and my Racing Ralphs managed to cope pretty well through the mud (other than in one section that I doubt will dry up again this century).
I tried to eek 2 laps out of my batteries but unfortunately they both packed in about 2/3rds of the way through lap 2 meaning my Hope Twin was blinking on low power mode and my Fenix helmet light had dropped to it's dimmest setting. Somehow I managed keep riding with low light levels and despite the problems the lap-times show I set the overall fastest lap time for my category
I'd borrowed 2 spare Hope batteries from a mate, so with mine now on charge I used one of his for my 3rd lap, unfortunately it had been sat doing nothing for ages and it also died after about 20mins (despite me charging it the night before) and I had to survive on the 180 lumen helmet light alone!
The following laps were battery-problem-free but for the last mile or so of lap 4 I started to suffer cramp in my quads; a quick massage afterwards helped but the rest of my race was a balance between pushing on and fighting back cramping muscles.
Both me and Steve were managing approx 45-60min lap times which was just long enough in the pits to eat, sort out fresh clothes and batteries, service the bike and then wait for the next turn. The weather stayed dry but it was much colder than I'd anticipated fortunately the GRT boys and girls had a gas heater which was a god-send.
Unfortunately after my fourth lap I lost the ability to add up and somehow overestimated how much time I had by about 15mins and Steve had to come and find me and kick me back out onto the course...
Through the night we managed 7 laps each and we were constantly swapping between 6th and 7th place (of around 50 teams in our category). I made it back from my final lap at around 7:45am to find we'd dropped back to 7th. Steve went out for one final lap and he managed to bump us back up to 6th!
I'm exceedingly chuffed to have had a top 10 finish, it's by far my best result and is much better than we had expected we'd do.
Many thanks to all the TROG and GRT boys and girls for the hospitality, banter and support
and to TMTBR for putting on another cracking event. And well done to all the others for some excellent results 