Honc 2013

**Stan** · 13-04-13, 15:13

Well, good luck to both of you for tomorrow.

**BHB 10.6.6** · 13-04-13, 16:55

If the wind and rain that went over Devon today has made it the Cotswolds so help you god.

**Alx** · 14-04-13, 17:52

Really enjoyed that. How did you get on Serge?

**BHB 10.6.6** · 14-04-13, 18:26

Congratulations, Huzzah, bravo etc

**Jen J** · 14-04-13, 19:08

Well done, Alx. Hope the weather was drier than we had up at Gisburn Forest!

**Nobby** · 15-04-13, 07:02

Yeah, well done.

**serge the seal of death** · 15-04-13, 10:27

did the 50 kms in 5 hours, legs lost it after 40kms, just no extended periods on the bike, maximum ride i have done in the last 5 months has been 1.5 hours.
i will be writing it up soon for Bike Magic.

**Eddie** · 15-04-13, 13:51

Great work Serge and Alx. How you managed with that wind I don't know, was on the roads at the weekend and felt like I was going backwards at times.

How bad/good were the conditions?

**Alx** · 15-04-13, 14:46

Cheers. Conditions were, well, a mud-fest. Problem was that the trails had been dry during the earlier part of the week, then had 3 days of constant rain, then nothing on Saturday. This meant that some of the mud was the part-dryed claggy stuff that stuck to your bike and clogged just about everything up. In lots of the other sections the mud had turned to the consistency of plasticine which just soaked up any momentum from the bike - in fact there was one downhill section that had to pedalled hard to keep moving! The easiest sections were the ones with standing water that you could plow through. The wind was also a complete pain. Having said all that, it hardly rained and the temperature was pretty good so it could've been a lot worse.

**Eddie** · 15-04-13, 14:56

That is a mightily positive attitude there

Fantastic work in those conditions. That mud you describe sounds just about as bad as it can get, but still it sounds like it was a blast.

**Alx** · 15-04-13, 15:04

The best bits were the slippery, sloppy downhills. I'd gone for a ralph on the front and a bonty xr-1 on the back to help with road sections, but in the mud had no grip whatsoever. Going down these sections I was just holding on for dear life with very little control of the bike whatsoever - great laugh

**serge the seal of death** · 15-04-13, 15:11

i managed some great speedway sideways controlled slides with a foot out.
that last decent with the speed humps was a largh, pop the front wheel and just wizz past everyone.