AFan monster, that was an EPIC enduro.

weeksy59

Well i'm back from the Afan monster and it was an epic adventure and excellent weekend.

Met up with Kron the night before for a few beers in Neath... that's a weird town... Like a poor mans seaside town with tonnes of totty in tiny tiny dresses. Sadly a decent percentage of them were WAY to big to be in that sort of dress anyway. Filled up with a lovely Italian and then an early night.

The day of the monster was cold crisp and ideal riding weather. At the 7.45am start there was only 15-20 people getting out for first doors and we cracked on. Set off at a great pace feeling strong and happy. Some nice downhills of The Wall and the Meta was absolutely brilliant. Soaking up the rocks like nothing i've ridden before... Although the forks were a bit too soft and i'd left my shock pump in the car.
Lots of new stuff to ride, some good and some bad... although mostly it was UP... then more up... and a bit more UP. We climbed at times for 45 mins solid !!!! Fire road...fire road... climbing climbing.

I was all set for the 100km route at this stage but somewhere before the 2nd food station i and my legs knew that 100km wasn't going to happen. I was sitting at the side of the trail with massive leg-cramp and couldn't even stand up !!!! Bit of stretching and writhing about and i managed to get going.. Pushed on more and more and more... more climbs... more descents and more epic fire roads...

Got to the 60km cut-off point, apparently 2.15pm and was given the option of 100km or 75km... i took the 75km. I was honestly bitterly disappointed in myself but the legs had nothing left. The single chain-ring on the front left me struggling on the long long fire roads and i had sod all left to give.

I eventually reached the end of the 75km and over the finishing line, somewhere approx 7hours 35mins. It was a truely truely tough ride and i'd given all i had to get to the end.

Well impressed with the new bike... although possibly it could be a little heavy for this sort of event and a lighter frame machine would be a good plan i think. Will also be running a small cog front ring next year... then.... i'll be going for the 100km

springtide9

Sounds like a great event and day out.

Sounds like a pretty tough event. If I'm fit enough next year, I might even give that event a go

Top stuff and well done!

weeksy59

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/5046 ... s_ss=email

Some GPS info from one of the boys

robmccreedie

was a great day out.

here's my gps of the 100k

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=824476

only one twisted chain and a snapped rear mech for me :?

chronicus

Me and my Brother inlaw completed the 100k ,think we were the last two home but we took in an extra lap of the route just for fun ( got lost ). Legs, backsides, necks arms hands and just about every other part of bodys was in agony but what a great feeling to cross the finish line.
All in all a fantastic ride with some great climbs and drops, we just didnt think it would be that tough.
Met some nice people on route, fair play to all who took part and thanks to all the marshalls and other people ,drink stations etc for making it a superb event.

Here is a link to my Garmin route
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/5047 ... =yahoomail

robmccreedie

chronicus wrote:

an extra lap of the route just for fun ( got lost ).

It looks good on the gps route almost as though you got back to the feed station and thought let's do it again

chronicus wrote:

Legs, backsides, necks arms hands and just about every other part of bodys was in agony

agreed. I feel even worse today after playing 5-a-side last night :?

rhyko7

i did the easy version -75 km

4 of us started together, one of us had a puncture after 10 minutes, he said carry on ile catch up

i set out at a fair pace which became faster and faster as i got carried away, i then locked my forks out for a couple of climbs, forgot to unlock them and blew the front tube out and punctured the rear after just 45 mins i had used both my spare tubes.
a few minutes later my 2 mates caught me followed by the other shouting "what goes around comes around"

i carried on at a good pace for another 2 hours after swapping tubes. after about 3 hours my legs started dying and i had run outa fluid-didnt bother stopping at the first station because i felt fresh as a daisy.
i stopped fro a quick breather and let the legs recover for a while, as soon as i sat down i heard the dredded hissing sound-two more punctures, and no tubes or repair patches.
i was fortunate to have stopped with a stunning view in front of me, i sat their for a good 20 minutes begging for patches or a repair kit. luckily someone stopped that had a repair kit, i quickly fixed two punctures, by the time i pumped my tyres up my friends had caught up. i decided to ride the rest with them at a really gentle pace, as i got within 10 km of the finish some descents finally arrived after an eternity of fire road, right time to pin it, i passed a few guys down the natural descents and started chatting with a guy at the bottom of one as we cruised along, i looked back and my frinds were still only half way down so i thought sod it and carried on with the guy i was chatting with at, a fair pace we pushed on.
we soon caught up with a couple groups as i trailed him for a couple km closing and then him pulling away.
we soon passed the group and my speedo was telling me i had done over 40 miles so i thought may aswell have a fast finish, i then increased the pace little by little until i found that sweet spot.
we soon enterd into the woods i could still hear him behind me which was confirmed by a minor off i had trying to unclip for a corner. we both had a quick rant about spd's as i laughed and got to my feet with a determined midset to have some DH fun. i quickly slapped my Kindshock post down and continued to pin the down hill sections with a big grin on my face, as ever on this enduro ppl generously jumped out of my way as they heard me coming or me shouting-none of them really caused me to slow much which was awesome.
i soon ended up on a road then back onto single track thinking i was dropping back down to the finish line.
my face must have looked so bad when the horror struck in that i had one last fir road climb to tackle-my speedo now read 48 miles and i knew there was a long fire road ahead.
i struggled up that last climb to finally arrive at the jet wash and then claim my Tshirt. 49 miles complete _approx 79 km, although i did take one wrong turn for 10 minutes due to a poorly located sign that pointed right when it should have pointed straight ahead.

over all i enjoyed the ride, but would have had more fun if it was shorter without all the fire roads-i think they wanted it to be of a certain length and added the fire road boredom to achieve this.
speedo riding time 6hrs 5
actual time 7 hrs 20 (mostly fixing punctures)

miss notax

I'm quite interested in this....

Are they doing this again in 2011? What trails does it take in and what technical level?

I'm happy on most Afan trails although i'm not the fastest, but quite fancy this as my next challenge! I did the BUPA Great South Run this year and i'm never EVER running that far again :shock:

weeksy59

The trails from a techincal perspective are only standard Afan runs of Skyline and Wall. Nothing more techincal than that. Although 1 slightly tricky rocky descent, but not big boulders, smaller but lots of rocks... everyone made it, it looked more daunting than it rode.

I can't emphasise enough on CLIMBING... there's just LOADS of it.... forget going down, worry about going UP !!!! the decents are easier than the ammount of dragging your arse up to the top of skyline 4 times !!!!