|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
RR: North Yorks Polaris (long)
Well, after coming last in the Isle of Man over Easter, it would have been
a shame not to have entered another Polaris, so myself and AMB's own Andy Chequer entered another one, this time in the North York Moors. The hills are less intimidating than the Manx ones, but there's more of them. Chequer's car wasn't too well, so transport was on my shoulders, or rather my parents, as my car is also not well. I headed East on the two hour drive to Bristol, taking remarkably few attempts to find my teammate's house. Having loaded Chequer's kit, and stopping off in a nearby Halfords for a new helmet for me (to replace the one sitting some 80 miles West of me at that precise moment) we headed North. The journey was fairly uneventful, apart from the first navigational cockup of the weekend. Chequer managed to lose the M1. ****. We've not even got the bikes out of the back of the car yet, and we're lost. Anyway, about midnight-ish and we pulled onto the campsite, setup the tent and cracked open the beer. Sleep was soon to follow, with myself and Chequer both waking each other up with loud snoring and the usual whinge of "How come I never wake up with a beautiful woman, only with you?" in the morning. Registering found many people approaching us saying "Hey, aren't you the guys who came last in Spring?". Wow. Fame. Heading from the start, the first checkpoint was a nice easy one. 10 points in the bag and then a climb. No, this is far too early in the morning. What the hell is this hill doing here? Still, there was a checkpoint at the end of the climb, a flattish bimble across the head of the valley and then a sharp plummet to the next checkpoint, the other side of a level crossing, which caused some riders to be held up for several minutes whilst they waited for a steam train to get out of the way. Several unexciting checkpoints intervened before one which tested many people, including Mr Chequer who managed to collapse in a muddy heap on the floor. Fair play to him, I was already shouldering my bike by this point. The advantage with being the navigator on an event like this is that during the muddy sections, you don't have to worry about not having a crud catcher on the front of your bike. The downside of this being that several square miles of the area is now an undecipherable brown smear on my map. Good job there's no checkpoints in that bit, I suppose. The next couple of checkpoints take us down tracks that are signed as bridleways. How this can possibly count as a bridleway is beyond me, given that in most places it's hardly a shoulder's width across. I ride on reflecting on how I'm sure that stinging nettles used to hurt far more than this when I were a lad. After grabbing an easy 50 point check, we sit down and discuss tactics. Probably for longer than was wise, but Chequer needed to have a fag, just in case anybody got any strange ideas about him being fit and healthy and all that. We head off to another check, this time my navigation fails us and we go hammering past the start of the track we wanted and down a large hill. Why do I never discover my navigation errors until they involve a really big climb to sort the mess out? We climb back up the hill and spot someone who looks like he knows where he's going. We try to follow and pretty soon lose our quarry, having to fall back on good old navigation again. Once again, I mess up and we end up staring at a 6' high locked gate. Fairly bad mistake, but not quite as bad as losing the M1, I say. Time was getting on, and we had about 15 miles to get back to the start. It was about this point that I ran out of water. Damn. After a few miles I was feeling utterly crap. After what seemed like an eternity we stopped at a petrol station to buy some bottled water and carried on with the slow climb back up to the finish. The water didn't help much, and by the time I got to the end I felt like death. Once again we'd managed to lose our entire day's score by deft of our lateness. Sitting back at the car (whilst Chequer cooked his Bacon Bhuna) we discussed the plans for tomorrow. I was still feeling awful, and Binkie, the pride of Chequer's life was having serious freehub ills. It seemed that out of the team we had one working bike and one working rider. Still, that meant we could get leathered that night. A couple of pints of some interesting real ale, with some interesting company, and soon the band wandered on. The band in question were Monarchy, a Queen tribute band and the subject of much heckling given that they were playing in front of several hundred mountain bikers and hadn't bothered to learn "Bicycle Race". The next morning we were up with all the people who hadn't wimped out as it's somewhat hard to sleep on the Polaris campsite at the best of times. We withdrew from the day's riding, packed the car and headed on the marathon journey South again. Huw "Sunburned, dehydrated, but still happy" Pritchard |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
RR: North Yorks Polaris (long)
Huw Pritchard wrote:
Huw "Sunburned, dehydrated, but still happy" Pritchard Excellent RR - highly amusing. How do you lose the M1, BTW? |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
RR: North Yorks Polaris (long)
On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 22:06:42 +0200, bomba did issue forth:
Excellent RR - highly amusing. How do you lose the M1, BTW? I really don't know; I've not had much cause to go up that way before, it was all Mr Chequer's fault. I told him how he should know his way around, what with being a Northerner himself, but he just muttered something about it being a "bloody large area". Huw "I was just driving, I wasn't looking where I was going" Pritchard |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
North Yorks Polaris (long)
Huw Pritchard wrote in message news Well, after coming last in the Isle of Man over Easter, it would have been a shame not to have entered another Polaris, so myself and AMB's own Andy Chequer entered another one, this time in the North York Moors. The hills are less intimidating than the Manx ones, but there's more of them. Chequer's car wasn't too well, so transport was on my shoulders, or rather my parents, as my car is also not well. I headed East on the two hour drive to Bristol, taking remarkably few attempts to find my teammate's house. yeah, I took some words away The next morning we were up with all the people who hadn't wimped out as it's somewhat hard to sleep on the Polaris campsite at the best of times. We withdrew from the day's riding, packed the car and headed on the marathon journey South again. Huw "Sunburned, dehydrated, but still happy" Pritchard You're a pair of nuts ya know? - Thanks ',;~}~ Shaun aRe - I found the M1 for you - it's in the post. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
North Yorks Polaris (long)
Shaun R says:
You're a pair of nuts ya know? If you think Huw's RR is a load of balls, why not just say so? ;-P``````` Steve home with a tummy bug today |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
North Yorks Polaris (long)
Stephen Baker wrote in message ... Shaun R says: You're a pair of nuts ya know? If you think Huw's RR is a load of balls, why not just say so? I said what I meant. ;-P``````` Steve home with a tummy bug today If I had a gut like yours, it'd bug me too. ',;~P```` Shaun aRe |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
RR: North Yorks Polaris (long)
"Huw Pritchard" wrote in message
news On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 22:06:42 +0200, bomba did issue forth: Excellent RR - highly amusing. How do you lose the M1, BTW? I really don't know; I've not had much cause to go up that way before, it was all Mr Chequer's fault. I told him how he should know his way around, what with being a Northerner himself, but he just muttered something about it being a "bloody large area". Huw "I was just driving, I wasn't looking where I was going" Pritchard If we were in my car, that would never have happened. Knows where it's going, that thing. Nowhere, that's where. In answer to bomba's question, it sold us a dummy going north towards Leeds. The swine. Andy Chequer |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
North Yorks Polaris (long)
Another great read Mr Huw, almost makes me want to have a go myself...
Steve. Do it. The summer one's not too taxing (unless you're Welsh) and the party's good afterwards. Andy Chequer, AMB Summer Polaris 2004, anyone? |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
North Yorks Polaris (long)
Andy Chequer wrote:
Another great read Mr Huw, almost makes me want to have a go myself... Do it. The summer one's not too taxing (unless you're Welsh) and the party's good afterwards. Andy Chequer, AMB Summer Polaris 2004, anyone? Hmm, maybe... -- a.m-b FAQ: http://www.t-online.de/~jharris/ambfaq.htm a.bmx FAQ: http://www.t-online.de/~jharris/bmx_faq.htm |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
RR: North Yorks Polaris (long)
Andy Chequer wrote: "Huw Pritchard" wrote in message news On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 22:06:42 +0200, bomba did issue forth: Excellent RR - highly amusing. How do you lose the M1, BTW? I really don't know; I've not had much cause to go up that way before, it was all Mr Chequer's fault. I told him how he should know his way around, what with being a Northerner himself, but he just muttered something about it being a "bloody large area". Huw "I was just driving, I wasn't looking where I was going" Pritchard If we were in my car, that would never have happened. Knows where it's going, that thing. Nowhere, that's where. In answer to bomba's question, it sold us a dummy going north towards Leeds. The swine. For local interest - If you'd looked over you left shoulder 1 mile before where you should have turned off (to stay on the M1) one of the houses on the top of the hill is mine. Phil |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Race report - first triathlon (long) | Chris Durkin | General | 10 | July 16th 04 05:00 PM |
lacking in leg strength and stamina exercises? | Yuri Budilov | General | 18 | March 23rd 04 02:42 PM |
First long ride on my new bike (long) | David Kerber | General | 17 | November 26th 03 12:59 PM |
Ride report: 28th Annual Jamestown Classic (long) | David Kerber | General | 2 | October 16th 03 01:05 PM |
Strange fatigue again...? (long) | Mitch Pollard | General | 42 | October 12th 03 02:41 PM |