ELBRY SANDLAND: September 2012

Monday, 17 September 2012

Mondraker Gravity MTB Rally epic timing fail

Another UK enduro and another timing mess.. Shame as the event was good fun, good stages just killed a little by a lack of times... Day one was an odd day, just one stage, but not a blind run, no take as many runs as you like, your fastest time taken? so it felt more like a dh race, still got up to the top and smashed a blind run in, wild but fast (2mph faster than i would do on my other runs on the fastest section) only to catch a girl mid run, still put the hammer down the rest of the run, Turns out my beep did not go off at the top so no time given... Headed right back up and hit it again, bit smoother, happy with that run. (would find out on sunday that the timer failed to take my time on the line and a time of 50mins was given,). Thinking one solid run was in the bank we hit the bar for a few drinks! in the afternoon we went up to do one more run, no effort on the up hill section, just to see if the track had changed as this would be the last stage sunday.. Turned out this would be the only time taken of my 3 runs.......(24th)

Day 2, heading to the first stage a large rock kicks up and hits my lopes mrp and takes out the bottom roller.. Stage 2 had a sting of a final section that would take a few riders out, i put in a quick but safe run not to drop my chain,with the next dh stage not timed? we walked rolled and put little effort in saving all we had to smash the last stage and make up time on riders that had not rested as well... No point by turn 2 of the last stage as my chain came off after smashing the top of the mrp to bits, mech/hanger and the rest bust and we ran the rest of the track in the hope that the first stage of the day had gone ok i would not have dropped that far down the order..wrong, because of the timing issues only the first days stage (what only got my slowest of 3 runs) and the last stage (what i walked and pushed the bike) would count (both these stages being the same track?).. so that was it from 24th after a slow day one to about 117th... what a f*ck up.. still good event and if the timing gets sorted and more timed stages added could be a an epic once a year event.