Beskidy MTB Trophy 2012

4 day stage race in the Beskidy Mountains of Poland on the border with Czech and Slovakia. www.mtbtrophy.com

 Not often that one hopes for a mechanical to get out of a race but that is what I was hoping for 30 minutes into stage one of Beskidy MTB Trophy 2012. Riders were passing me in droves, add to this that I finished on the podium in my category last year (and therefore felt I had to perform); stage one was supposedly the easiest stage and you can imagine that I wasn’t in the greatest place mentally.

One of the reasons I was struggling so much on the climbs was the extra 6kg I put on since getting married 2 months ago, or so I was convincing myself. Perhaps the extra weight wasn’t due to married life but my lack of self control when it comes to Hotel Chocolat and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Anyway, married life is fantastic and I would put on 10kg gladly if it was a requirement.

The few days before the race was spend enjoying the beautiful countryside around Istebna. Worth a visit in summertime if you are into hiking or for some skiing in winter. The hotel we stayed in had a health spa with a ‘doctor’ from China doing Chinese massages which was an interesting experience especially when he started massaging my breast bone to the point I thought he was going to break it.

Two days before the race the heavens opened up and I was getting a bit worried as my Crossmark tyres aren’t ideal wet weather tyres but luckily most of the course drained quite well by the time we started the race.

Back to stage one and my struggling getting my overweight body over the various mountains. One needs to appreciate that this race is all about hard climbs being rewarded by great descents. For instance, on day one’s ‘short’ 66km stage we ascended 2,320m. In the end I managed to finish the stage after 3h 42min in the saddle and just to rub salt in the wind another rider managed to sprint past me on the line to drop me even further down the list.

A glorious sunny day greeted us on day two which helped to lift the spirit after the previous day’s hiding. I managed to pace myself better on the climbs and started to settle into racing mode slowly but surely. The switchback descents were great fun and reminded me what mountain biking is all about, however the last climb of the day did have a bit of sting in the tail as it ramped steeper towards the top.

Day three and I was settling into a rhythm as some other riders were starting to pay the price for going out to hard in the first two days. Unfortunately I followed the second group of riders down the wrong decent after we crested the first climb of the day. By the time we had climbed back up the valley we were at the back of the field which made it interesting passing the more cautious riders (walkers) down the descent. The rest of the day was spent slowly crawling my way back up the field which did help with the motivation.

The last day is normally the fast and fun day but unfortunately the weather didn’t play along with the previous night’s rain, making for a wet and muddy course. Strangely I enjoyed the wet weather and was having my best day this far, that was until I punctured after the last feeding stop. At this point things started to go pear shape. With the mud and a stiff tubeless tyre it took me over 30 minutes to fix the flat. In the process I also lost a tyre lever when it shot off into the long grass. By then I’d decided to enjoy the ride and not kill myself to make up one or two places. In the end I managed to end with a big smile on my face knowing that I have persevered and that we were privileged enough to have done some proper hard mountain biking.

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