2012- The Brecon Beast

We did think about camping but I really couldn't face not sleeping in my own bed and I did have lots of stuff to do on Saturday anyway. So the downside was I'd have to be up at 4am. Back in the Summer when my baby pheasants first arrived, 4am starts with 11pm finishes were common but for the last month, I had been getting up nearer to 6:45am but I needn't have worried- I was so excited I woke up five minutes before my alarm.
Cramming some wheetabix down my still-asleep throat whilst the toast cooked, I checked over my stuff. 3L Camelbac filled with water, 500ml water bottle filled with Tomato Soup (thats 3 of your five a day right there ) and the 750ml bottle filled with Lucozade Sport. 


The night before, I'd gone out to put my bike rack on the truck and found this:

Now, having had a puncture in the week, my first thought was that I must have missed a thorn in the tyre. However, it was a funny looking tear on the inside of the aged tube. So I mended it, reinflated the tube to check it, refitted it and re-inflated the tyre. Then "psssssssssssssssssssssst" it suddenly deflated itself.
Stripping it out again, I found another totally random split. It was looking like the tube was knackered but I persisted one more time. The same thing happened.
Ok, no biggy, I had a spare tube so I fitted it and brill, everything stayed up.
The downside was obviously we were now doing the Beast with one spare tube between us, not two. The upside was, I had room in my tool pouch for a mahoosive grab-sized bag of peanut MM's

By the time we reached Brecon, I had a fair few butterflies. The moutains looked big and combined with Lewis's stories he was recounting from last year I thought I definately wasn't going to be fit enough to push for the kind of time I wanted. I'd jokingly text him all week about a target time of 4hours!!! Having now done it, I know that 4h could be within my grasp but also not for reasons i'll mention.

Arriving at the carpark, there was a nice chilled out vibe and some serious £££££££ of kit on display. Shimano XT cranks goaded me from every bike rack as if to say "how dare you insult our mechanical perfection by bringing some 10 year old deore shit to this prestigious event!" however I pretty soon learnt that a guy with strong legs on a crappy old GT can outrun many a fancy Kona, Cannondale or Cube.

The organisation was faultless. Much better than anything comparable from other sphere's that i've been to (horse shows, dog trials etc). All the marshalls were so helpful and friendly- a real credit to the integrity of the event (all the proceeds go to charity). With our numbers issued without a hitch, we scrawled our emergency contact details on the back and went back to get the bikes out of the van. Lewis was constantly taking piss out of my bottle of 'Tommy soup' (I thought it was inspired genius!) 

The weather was awesome. Bright, with the feel of a good day ahead but not too hot and this was true most of the day.
We were here, we were ready and we were on time. We rode our bikes over to the sports pitch for the start and it was still only 08:25. The tannoy was quite hard to hear if you weren't actively listening for it and we got chatting to a couple of guys who were there individually and looking for a bit of company to help the nerves. At this point, I flukely overheard the announcer say that the Beast was starting from the layby, not the sports field this year so I got Lew's attention and suggested we got up front. Last year, him and his brother made a decision to start right near the back 'out of the way' and paid dearly with hold ups at the first off road section. 

So we blagged ourselves within 10 people of the front:

2012- The Brecon Beast is calling

14 years later.......

Last year, my friend Lewis decided on a whim to do the Brecon Beast after seeing a sign whilst in Brecon with his girlfriend. He managed to pursuade his brother to do it with him and they rocked up without too much preparation and despite the rain, mist and killer winds, they did it in 6h15 and had a great time.

He didn't even mention it to us until after he'd done it. Straight away, I was interested in doing the 2012 one with him and said as much but really didn't think I would ever get around to it. Then, in the Spring, my other friends all decided they were going to do it with him. Everyone laughed at my mate Seb who whilst naturally fit and active, is more into roll-ups and cider than energy drinks and cereal bars. I kept hmming and arrrrghing and kept making excuses about how busy I was at work to train.
Meanwhile, all these (I now think fictional) tales kept coming down the phone about the many training rides they were going on.

So, after worrying myself far too much about it, I thought, if Seb can do it (he works almost as many hours as I do and has a hundred other things going on in his life on top) then I can do it. So, I brought my bike (£200 GT) back from the stables, pumped up the tyres and fitted an old unopened cycle computer I'd had in the shed for five years then stood back and looked at it.........and went back indoors!

Next evening, I got on. Hey, this wasn't so bad. Then I got to the first 'hill'. Oh sweet mother hubbard, I thought my legs were going to explode. I can spend eight hours a day walking but this was a killer. Quickly down-shifting all the way to bottom gear, it suddenly dawned on me, if I want to keep moving, I have to keep peddaling. Sounds stupidly obvious but its been my motto ever since and every time I feel my effort fading away, I remind myself.

At the top of the first hill and by now warmed up, I hit a nice flat section and pressed on. Reaching speeds of 17mph at times I was feeling great and wondering what all the fuss was about. Looking at the speedo, I decided I was going to get to 10 miles before I turned back. Luckily, this road (which later became a handy TT route to push and test myself) goes pretty much dead straight for an age. At ten miles, I stopped for a quick drink and looked at my average- 12.5mph - and turned for home. At which point, I realised I'd been wind assisted for the last 6 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The slog back was painful and by the time I got home, I was savage. This cycling nonsense was hard work!!!!!
Anyway, for whatever reason, I plugged on. In the first fortnight I was doing 20 miles most nights and then rode 50 miles round-trip to Marlborough that Sunday.

Meanwhile, the so called training regieme over in Wiltshire was a farce. In fact, it was non-existant. Chatting on the phone, Seb would casually say he'd ridden 14 miles the previous evening and taken him 'about an hour'. So, feeling inadequate with my now mid 13's average, I'd push myself harder the next night.

I suggested we all met on the Plain for a training ride mid August which was set in stone. The 6 man team was already down to 4 and off we went.

"Bombard OP"- a favourite Salisbury Plain photo spot:

I think we got about 9 miles until the other two, who'd been hanging back, suddenly piped up that Deano had to be in Bath for 3pm. This was the first I'd heard of it and tbh, it made me cross because it was a blatent excuse to account for their now starkly obvious lack of training!

So we went home.

Next day, Seb was moaning about an old knee injury that had flared up so needless to say, he was pulling out. So, just Lewis and I then.

A 36 miler on Salisbury Plain was rattled off a couple of Sundays before and we looked in good form.

With 475 training miles under my belt it was off to Wales to slay the Beast!

Introduction

Hi! Welcome to my blog.

My name is Andrew, I'm now 30 years old and I am a gamekeeper from Berkshire.

I guess I fall into the born-again cyclist category.

As a kid, my bikes were my toys, my transport, my hobbies and an expression of my imagination all wrapped up into one.

Miles were no obstacle but they were covered without analysis. No average speed, no cadence and certainly no heart rate. Speed was measured from poorly calibrated speedos and we took great pride in our 40mph top speeds obtained on the biggest hills in the area at huge risk to both ourselves and anyone else on the roads!

Our bikes too, were truly universal. Leaping over three of my cousins laid underneath a ramp one minute, bouncing down flights of stairs the next and churning out the miles on the back road to get home again.

My Nan's house was often a focal point and depending on who else was there, the loyal and humble bikes would be pressed into service as Harrier jump jets for our Falklands War based dog fighting games or John Deere tractors for our grain hauling games where they would tow imaginary trailers back to fictional grain stores and tip enormous loads of invisible corn into the wet-pit.

On other occasions, they would become Moab-style rock crawlers with tyres deflated to 10psi as we scaled steep slopes and slid down through home made trials courses. In our minds eye we were in the coolest Land-rovers and Jeep Wranglers ever built.

I actually found a picture of my first bike the other day and what a machine it was! Swept back bars and a nifty basket for supplies I was rocking a serious biker look back then:

I can't really remember that one I have to admit. I can't even remember the day my stabilisers were removed. 

My next one was a blue BMX. I can vaguely recall that one but no real adventures spring to mind. 

Next up was an Apollo Atomic. I remember it having five gears and I remember doing some cycling proficiency on it at school.

They kindly tied this in with the bulk purchase of a load of sexy Tuff-tops helmets which should have been enough to put anyone off of cycling:

I can remember outgrowing this bike and not being allowed another. Luckily, my nan stepped in, but only with a £99 special from Halfords. Despite my feeling that it was false economy, in the face of no other options, I did my best to be greatful.

It was another Apollo and one of those bright orange ones that has spoilt that colour for life for me! It was a rigid 10 speed with awful non indexed gears and caliper brakes- a retrograde step compared to the mighty canti's on my Atomic!

Anyhow, it was wheels and that's what counts. Unsurprisingly, I have no recollections of anything remotely interesting happening on that bike!

Next up, was another Halfords job, but this time a nicely specced Carrera hard tail with 21gears and good brakes. I was so pleased with that bike because I had earned the money to pay for it from my first job- a weekend job on a pig farm. The bike helped maintain my freedom to ride to and from my new job and I even treated it to some nice Michelin mud tyres. I think once again, I thought it was a Landy. 

I can't find a picture of this one either but it was a kind of tasteful brown I think. 

My next bike was a bit of a legend in its day and was the decidedly average yet cleverly marketed Raleigh Activator. I can't for one minute imagine that the spec was better than what I had but I became a bit obsessed with it. Freed by my small income into making my own mistakes, I palmed my Carrera off on my step brother and bought the bike of that weeks dreams. 

I don't have many good photos but do have this one:

It was silver and purple and once again received the Landy-a-like treatment. In my fantasy world, bar ends were bull bars, pumps were air compressors and pannier-racks were giant roof racks. I even later furnished it with a CB Ariel to really complete the look. 

Whilst not a natural athlete by any means, I did complete a cool feat on this bike. One Friday in September, it was the school sponsored walk. The best thing about this was that we were allowed to go home as soon as we'd finished. I hatched a plan to enable me to go 'beating' on the shoot where I had grown up.

Bright and early, I rode my bike to school which was a heady 7 miles along the back roads. I then ran the sponsored walk which was 14miles. Finally, I rode the 10miles to the farm where luckily everyone was having lunch! I'm not sure I could get the logistics right these days but when time had no meaning and the days felt longer, I never once considered the plan may fail.

To be fair, the Raleigh suited my needs. It was fast enough, comfy enough, stopped well enough and was tough enough to withstand some ham fisted bunny-hops, jumps, ditches and a few drowned ford crossings. 

Unfortunately for the bike, I was reading a few more magazines now and lusting after nicer machinery. 

Slowly, I was becoming a teenage mountain biker. I was wearing Rox shorts, Oakley copy sunglasses and pricing up some SPD shoes. 

I have no idea where the Activator went but in its place I bought a rather tasty Carrera Banshee. Brakes were fairly generic V Brakes but the chain set was not too bad Shimano. It had an Aluminium frame and RST forks. My accessories were a little more mtb'ey than faux-Land Rover this time although even the downhill style bars couldn't tempt me away from bar-ends. 

It got twin bottle cages, crud catchers, Shimano SPD's and accompanying suede green shoes and an awesome set of LX VBrakes at great expense.  

I can only find one picture of it and it's got my step-dad riding it:

That one was to last me until I was 16 and whilst I didn't race or anything too exciting, I did cover vast areas of Wiltshire on it including miles of great single track around Longleat and Shearwater close to what is now CentreParcs. 

The fad was coming to an end and I had my eyes set on a moped to enable me to widen my horizons. I do remember vowing never to pedal a bike again as I explored farther and wider than ever on my Piaggio Typhoon moped. The Banshee was sold for a pittance to a friend and it would be 14 years until I rode a mountain bike again.......