Gravity Enduro round 5 Afan Forest

This is the final event in the 5 stage series, and as per the previous 3 rounds that I made it to this one is also looking like a wet and wild weekend.

Arriving a the event base on Friday afternoon I was greeted by a typical welsh valleys scene, heavy mist over the tress and wet sodden ground under foot.

Arriving early on the Friday the course was yet to be marked so I joined a couple of fellow riders (who had managed to track down the organiser and had an idea of the routes) and we went in search of the top of routes 3 and 4.

For this event I had adopted to bring my cross country bike, at the previous events I always wondered how it would cope and feeling that it might be a better choice than my all mountain machine. This dilemma seemed to be a common one for the event, what type of bike would be best, there seems to be 3 options to go for 120mm cross country orientated, 140mm light all mountain or 160mm heavy all mountain (with the number corresponding to the amount of front and rear travel available.) Each type of bike has it positives and negatives and to be honest here are also many in-between options available, so many in fact that there really isn’t a perfect bike. There are a few givens though – a seat dropper post is a must, enabling you to adjust the height of the seat post with the push of a button on the handle bars, Maxxis tubeless tyres – the only option in my opinion, and finally a short stem and wide bars - for fast reactions and a direct feel to the front wheel. My bike was a Cannondale Rush with 112mm rear travel bike and a 130mm travel fork up front. I didn’t have the time to adjust the chain rings to a double, bash ring and chain device set up but hoped the outer ring would give me an advantage on the faster section of the course.

Hitting the top of route 4 I instantly knew where we were having lived in South Wales I knew these trails well. The section was the top of the wall descent and involved a great amount of downhill and single track, I was starting to feel confident. Routes 3 was much of the same with a section across the ‘grave yard’ a short section of up ended rock slabs that resemble a ruined graveyard. This section needed a bit of finesse, timing pedal strokes with pointy rocks and severe differences in body position. But knowing the routes I was feeling happy. I had enough time to have a quick run down the qualifier/ route 5 which by this time had been signposted, all in all a great event was looking likely and hopefully a good final position for me.

The qualifier on the Saturday went smoothly I didn’t feel particularly fast but had a strong run, and was happy with a 3 min 55sec. I didn’t manage to see my final position and just went to the start line the next day at approximately the start time to our category, but I started to get real nervous when everyone else’s number was being called and mine wasn’t. Had I managed to mess it up and have not recorded a time, Eventually my number came up and I got a real boost I was faster than many top riders and this put me in a great mood to start the days racing.

Route 1 was uneventful, I managed to keep good speed, I didn’t catch the guy in front but he hinted he felt me getting close. Route 2 was a nightmare: steep, extremely muddy, full of fresh tree roots and I ended up running most of the section. Even though, I still felt pretty happy the running was not far off the pace of riding due to the tough course. On section 3 I had a stormer, I managed to catch up with the rider in front (who later I found out he was top level downhiller), I was psyched for route 4. Then disaster struck, it might have been down to not having a chain guide in place but I managed to break my chain near the top of the section, this lost me 2 ½ minutes and ended my chances of getting a top place. Thanks to the fantastic help of Bob and Ali Campbell my chain was fixed and I finished the event. But route 4 had scuppered my chances and I ended up in 43^rd. Pretty upsetting given the rider in front of me finished 20^th and I had taken 20 seconds out of him on section 3, who knows where I would have ended up maybe even a top 10, well there’s all ways next year.