10 Under the Ben 2011

Better late than never, I suppose!
My rose-tinted specs are well and truly back on now, so I thought I'd better do a wee write-up on Maddy & I's race at 10 Under the Ben.

With last year's 3rd place female pairs prize sitting proudly in our trophy cabinets, we didn't want to settle for less this year. After all, the No Fuss prizes are just too good to miss out on! ;o)

So, in bright sunshine Maddy lined up with all the other first lappers for the usual Le Mans style start. No Fuss Frazer kept them all waiting quite a while though ......

Shortly after lap 1 the rain came on - and it didnae stop!

No Fuss had added a couple of singletrack sections to spice up the race route and these were riding lovely for the first few laps. Rooty and slidy with some new boardwalk. Unfortunately with the newness of the trail and the hundreds of bikers battering through it in the pouring rain, it got pretty beat up and soon turned into gloopy mud soup. No Fuss then rightfully diverted the course onto the harder packed World Champs course. Which was welcomed!

Maddy & I decided to stick to last years race tactic of single laps each, proabably the fastest way for us. But with the rain and the cold, I soon found that my off laps were cold and miserable and I couldn't wait to get back out and warmed up again - albeit soaked to the skin.
All in all, the course was enjoyable and tough enough in places as the laps wore on. I thought that it balanced out well, with the hard going stuff at the start of the lap and then the fun, swoopy reward in the second half.

In the end we managed 10 laps between us and, riding towards the finish line to Maddy's fantastic encouragement (SCX-ers will be aware of this!), I was delight that we'd maintained our 2nd place right through to the finish.

A Benromach miniature and a handshake from Frazer was dished out to every finisher.

No Fuss did another grand job and did really well to keep everyones spirits up in what was pretty unfavourable conditions. As miserable as I felt at times, looking back.....I actually loved it!