It’s been a bit of a sparse year of racing with race organising and other life things taking over a bit more plus a hand operation thrown in the mix. So in only my 4th and final race of the year I headed to Porridgepot Hill for the Gorrick 4 hour Brass Monkeys event.

I’ve raced here a couple of times and its absolutely jam packed with fun features all the way round with 95% of the course on singletrack. It also drains pretty well which is good given the weather of late!

I’d had some lurgy the week before but it seemed to have just about been clearing up in the couple of days before so having taken it seriously easy to recover based on coach Lee’s (Lee Eaton from Advance Cycle Coaching I was ready to give it a bash and see what happened. 

Disaster struck the night before when I couldn’t find my trusty pit table so I had to improvise with a bodged alternative. As it turned out I needn’t have bothered worrying about the seconds saved given what was to come. The course cut up pretty bad in places so a rinse of the drivechain was required most laps, so I was stopping anyway. Thanks to Squirt Lube though the mud easily washes off though rather than becoming grinding paste. 

I was clearly a bit out of practice from the off, not paying attention from the start gun, so was still chatting as half the field disappeared up the first climb. The plan was to start slow though to give the body a chance to not get into a state of shock given my recent illness. It seemed to work and I gradually felt my way into the race, eventually catching a few familiar race companions. This was a decent marker that I was going much better than I thought. It drizzled most of the race but it was pretty warm still and the slippy conditions suited my penchant for adversity, so I was enjoying myself. 

I managed to stay upright throughout mostly due to a Barzo tyre I fitted on the front midweek which turned out to be a sensible decision. A last lap push to catch some fast guy on a singlespeed failed but it was good to have that feeling of having pushed to the end. My hand was pretty achy throughout but healing is going to take a while yet. 

Post race I was in the car and away inside 10 minutes to get back to family duties but buzzing on having surprised myself given the less than ideal year behind me. It turned out I managed 4th in my age category and 13th overall. 

Hoping to get to the next couple of rounds of the Gorricks as they are belting events.