Dyfi Winter Warm-up Race Report
We couldn’t really have asked for better conditions, freezing cold, but no wind and glorious sunshine greeted us for the first ever Dyfi Winter Warm-up at the weekend.
There were around 300 entrants starting from Corris Craft Centre. As well as myself this included the usual suspects that I ride with each week such as Dave, John and Dan, along with a few other regulars such as James, Simon, Mike and Shem, Tim as a newbie and plenty of others known to us from the local MTB scene.
After a quick descent to Ceinws it was the familiar long climb that starts the Dyfi Enduro. I had a sore throat and a cold so wasn’t sure how well I’d go. I started with Dave and John, but was soon on my own on the climb and then surprised myself when I overtook Simon on the climb too. At the top, rather than drop down a little descent there was a bit of a sting in the tail as we had a little technical climb going backwards around the 2nd from last ClimachX section and then an icy, rocky descent back onto the fireroad. We then joined the laps and dropped down a little descent before heading down the Builth Descent, climbing back to the top, dropping down the 3 in 1 descent and then onto the finish line.
I was going well, the climbing felt good, I was fairly fast on the descents first time round and finished the first lap (including the ride down from Corris) in 58 minutes. Decision time for time me as we could choose to do 1, 2 or 3 laps and it was onto a 2nd lap. The climb back to the top was OK, although I didn’t like the bits where we had to get off and push!
The 2nd lap was good too, the 3 in 1 descent had become a little slippery and I came off at one point though. I passed the finish line at 1:48 and decided to continue on for a third lap. I starting lapping people on the first climb after the finish line so ended up pushing along behind them for a while as there was nowhere to overtake, and then continued on my way. I lapped Tim up over the top and then headed onto the 3 in 1 descent for a final time, not looking forward to it after the 2nd time around. I made it unscathed this time, but descended very gingerly as it was even more slippery this time round.
And that was it, onto the finish line in a time of 2:44 and some well-deserved flapjacks before a gentle ride back to Corris with Dan and Tim who had done 2 laps. A good day out in the forest, but it’s a shame they weren’t actually timing people as it means there won’t be any official times.
Here’s the video I made on my way around!
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good vid!
Love your video. Please tell me, what was the music?
(currently stuck in the Middle East – how I miss those crisp cold Winter days!)
…PS I know one one of them is a version of Vivaldi Four Seasons ‘Winter’ but by whom?
I hoped someone would ask that as I used some bits of music by a friend and ‘rock-legend’ Uli Jon Roth. Now that you’ve asked I can plug his CD’s and hopefully someone might buy them.
The track names are shown in the top left of the video. The first is: The morning of Forever from his Metamosphosis album, The second is ‘War of the Winds’ from the same CD.
There’s also a very brief excerpt of Air De Aranjuez from his Transcendental Sky Guitar album.
Al.
Not long now until the 2012 Dyfi Winter Warm-up. The date this year is February 5th.
Who’s you doing it?
Al.