Dirtworks 100

5.30, alarm goes after a restless night in a cold cold tent. I momentarily toy with the idea of dencorubing whist in my sleeping bag. I start asking myself why didn't I challenge myself more when I was young and resilient rather than waiting until my 30's? After a few bits of fruit and a B&E roll I made my way to the start line for the Dirtworks 100km race. I was feeling strong.

The first 10kms was pretty flat and then the punishment began. I rode a small portion of the ridiculously steep first climb before running into a logjam of people walking up the hill. To be honest I was relieved to have an excuse to get off. Once of the top of the hill we were speeding along a ridge with fantastic views in all directions. Things were going swimmingly until the 32 km mark when my rear derailleur hanger snapped. Without a derailleur you don't have anything to tension the chain and you effectively lose peddle power. 32kms back to the start line or 18kms to the half way mechanic station??? I made the decision to soldier on to half way with the hope that they had a spare hanger. I didn't mind the uphills and of course you can roll down hill but pushing a bike along the flat with hundreds of people flying past sucks. Just under 3 hours and two massive blisters later I made it to the Mechanic station only to find that that had run out of the hanger that I needed. The only thing left to do was remove some of the links from my chain shortening it to get the required tension. The only problem with that solution is that rather than having 21 gears I now had 1.

With the 72km cut off time looming and with everyone else a good few hours ahead of me I ripped in to the last 50km hell bent on finishing the 100km. The one gear that I was stuck in was 10th/21 which basically meant it was too high for most of the hills and too low for the flats and down hills. I normally peddle at about 90rpm which equated to 16km/h in 10th gear so my top speed on the flats, with a rpm of 110 was about 18km as opposed to the usual 30-35km. I made the 72km mark with time to spare and lined up the next obstacle, a 50m long 1ft wide bridge. You had the option of walking or riding across. by the time I got there 60 of about 600 riders had ridden and 11 of them had fallen in. After double checking my phone and car key were properly ziplocked I set off at a leisurely 16km/h. It doesn't sound hard but keeping a bike straight for 50m is pretty difficult and for a few split seconds I thought I was a goner but fortuity I made it. Unfortunately 10th gear wasn't great for riding up the sand bank on the other side and the cheers of the onlookers turned to jeers as I pancacked meters after getting off the bridge...

The last 30kms was extremely gruelling and I began to cramp all over, even muscles that I didn't know I had began to cramp. I eventually rolled into St Albans 8 and a half hours after I had started. The sense of achievement was huge.