back to the new forest

glad to be watching james cracknell back on the road again, this time showing his 45 day prep for the marathon des sables. having spent 3 weeks in morocco and trained in the same area as this crazy event (6 marathons back to back), i have some idea of the environmental conditions he put up with. anyway, there's a lot of press about his exploits and it was interesting to realise that i would have competed against him when i was rowing for the 1st viii back in 1991 (yes, that's 20 years ago!!!) and i think i would be right in saying that they never beat us that year ;)

so, back to my training. week back from morocco, intense week in the gym, which included a session with leah down at the lea valley athletics centre and ended with a day down in the new forest on sunday. bike had been washed down, but that was it, so my poor old steed still had 20-50 car engine oil inside her. the battery was still flat, and the rear tyre still had an over inflated 21" front wheel inner tube in an 18" rear wheel! so after filling the tank with decent fuel, i kicked the engine over and so began a day of fun and games.

rob gave me a hand to clean and dry the still very wet plug and lube the cylinder with some bike engine oil to help the engine turnover. with a few kicks later the engine burst back into life, we're a go! well not so fast, jago's bike was also having problems!! so basically repeated what i'd done to my bike, however, it did not start quite so easily and need to be jumped. within 200m i was riding the bike sideways, the rear end was swinging round wildy, thinking i was just riding like a lemon i carried on for a couple of minutes before stopping and taking a look and funnilly enough i had a flat, so i head back to base to replace the wheel which had a moose. all good practice.

zippy demon-strating how to ride a berm!














back into the woods, a particularly gnarly climb challenged us for a while and certainly got the sweat going, and after a few laps, it also blew the rocker cover seal with a puff of blue smoke and a loud bang! so jago towed me back to base!!

why am i pushing?!














desert rose teamwork














ross giving it some!!

the next bike was not in fine fettle either and with fuel problems, required me to be constantly remain on the throttle, but this was hard to maintain, so i was quickly back to kick-starting! but, it did not stop the fun and so jago and i rode in tandem, swapping the lead after each lap until the end of the day. coming in late in the afternoon zippy sent myself, jago, ross and ben for one last climb and this finished us off!!

suspension was a little soft!




















pats and zippy are back in morocco supporting 9 riders in the tuareg desert rally so wishing them all the best of luck!

and a big hand to hein, who's about to start the uae desert challenge!