WEll i guess this deserves a bit of a write up, i've been a bit busy so not had too much time.
It was a long long drive, 4+ hours but we made it up there and got out in practice. The climb up was around 15% for much of it and wasn't nice at all, but was do-able with a few walking bits for the boy, which in honesty i was glad about LOL. But at the top it turned into a lovely peak of fun.
2021-07-21_09-47-25 by
Steve Weeks, on Flickr
The trails were crazy steep at times, loose and powdery. Lots of grassy sections being torn up and lots of tree sections. A couple of bits where you're hanging on and hoping for the best rather than actually riding the bike. Well, for me anyway. Every trail we went down the boy blew me away, which was completely expected of course. But we got down for the 3 runs and despite my worries on a couple of the drop sections within section 3, it actually went OK... None of us crashed and we all went down happy.
Met up with one of the lads for beers and food etc.
2021-07-17_08-22-38 by
Steve Weeks, on Flickr
Onto race day and we got there in plenty of time, transponders fitted for timing and up the hill we go... again... and again... It was showing 29deg and as you'd imagine it was PROPER toasty !!!!
2021-07-18_09-42-39 by
Steve Weeks, on Flickr
The format was 'mash up' so you can ride any segments in any order you want, you need to complete all 3 stages to register a time overall though.
We went 2-1-3 I rode OK and was happy enough with things on stage 2, but felt i could have gone quicker, too much time spent hanging on and on the brakes, trying to pick my way down lines i thought were half impossible. It was right on the borderline of my ability at times this stuff.
2021-07-18_09-41-10 by
Steve Weeks, on Flickr
Looking at the times i got stuffed by my lad again of course. He was roughly 20s ahead of me.... But hey, that's OK.
2021-07-19_01-34-33 by
Steve Weeks, on Flickr
Onto stage 1 which has a techie drop line entry but was slightly more tame than stage 2 .... well, sometimes... Still steep and techie... but shorter. Considering the climbs, the end comes up sooner than you think. It also had a couple of pedally sections which i felt i could have gone harder on. As you'd expect i lost 20s to the small lad once again LOL.
Stage 3 is the biggy, it's the stage used for the Fox and Hounds, where one of the Athertons chases a bunch of people down the hill who set of before them. Steep and tech again but with some flat/pedal bits both in woods and across the rocks/roots. This time i took some of the drop sections a bit harder than practice day and it paid off, i put in a half decent time overall, but 40s down on the boy.
My target though wasn't my lad, it was 1. Don't come last... 2. Beat the other Singletrack forum guy.
Sadly i was 4s ahead on Stage 1 of him, 6s ahead on stage 3, but on stage 2 i was 15s off his pace !!! Wow... Don't know quite how that was.
We spent an hour getting cool in the car along with gallons and gallons of fluid and headed back out.
My lad was doing stage 3, i went for stage 2....
I took 5s off my time and beat the STW guy overall by 2.5s ! Yay me...
My lad crashed and was 9s slower down stage 3.
the fatigue, heat and the day had taken it's toll and we called it a day.
I ended up 32/36 and he was 20/38. Although the gap for me was a lot bigger to the leaders than for him. He was a little disappointed in his result i think, but he was in the 13-16 class and he only reached 13 the week before... So i thought considering that, he did bloody well.
I was in a group of 4-5 riders who on their day could probably beat eachother, but then the gap ahead to the next grouping is 1min... I don't know yet how 1min could be made up... I'd need to improve a tonne.
We're at Katy Curd training tomorrow, but i still think getting a minute off is somewhat optimistic !
Next race is Sept, it's a fully uplifted downhill race, which will please the boy, although with a £70 entry fee, i've not entered this one.
We've then got an other Enduro a little later, which i have entered this time.
Both bikes performed perfectly over the weekend, although my lad did have a little brake fade on the last run, needing a quick bleed before tomorrows course.
Good luck 
