Being the biggest biggest, loudest, maddest, drunkest event in the UK racing calendar you’d expect us to really have made the effort to get to Fort William for the World Cup … and in fairness our team riders Alastair and Ellie did race and webdude Jim went up and photo’d.
Sadly, having been to Glencoe (20 minutes down the road from Fort Bill) and with work commitments in the week before … I was stuck down in the South West and missed out on the fun. I also couldn’t really bothered and just wanted to stay home and party. Slack eh?
Luckily, it was an excuse to do what is probably my favourite event of the year. The Bristol Bike Fest. A 12 hour team (or solo if you’re nuts) endurance race that’s held just up the road from my house. You race round in circles for 12 hours, heckle your mates, drink beer and get to shred your local trails. It’s pretty damn perfect.
Jamie, Jay and Ant – 3 out of 4 of Wideopen’s elite endurance team.
Given that the Wideopen Team are a dedicated, hard working, driven group of athletes I didn’t bother to invited them along to this event. Instead I recruited an ad hoc team of athletes that couldform a specialist endurance Wideopen race team. Riders renowned for the their love of beer, sitting, crisps and resorting to their granny ring when gradients got in any way slopey. A perfect Dirty Dozen style one-time-only crew to tackle the bike fest.
Jay is new to Bristol so team rules stated he had to lead the charge off the start line. Good lad!
We did 23 laps between us and rocked into 59th place – an excellent result I think you’ll agree! We also (almost) beat Phil Saxena’s Architrail team. They cheated though by using Martin from Hotlines who is a proper rider so we agreed that we won the moral victory!
Anyway, enjoy the video!
Jay’s light-weight XC machine.
Thanks to Bristol Bike Fest, Morrison’s Isotonic Energy Drink (the world’s number 1 celery based sports drink) and to Vito Sport.
