Pics © Jon Brooke
The Marin Racing Team, skippered by Paul Lasenby with Billy Whenman, Luke Smith and Matt Steven, had a good weekend at the recent Cheddar Kona Bikefest, winning the event outright. And second place went to the local Marin dealer Bike City of Wells, with a strong team comprising Ian Payne, Marcus Williams, Chris Cocknell and skipper Jason Lock.
During the main event Billy "the Whizz" Whenman established a course record, and then beat it again while winning the night-time challenge on his Indian Fire Trial.
"We were riding to get fitness for Dusk 'til Dawn and I'm very pleased with our win," Paul Lasenby said. "Having Billy and Luke in such great form and with Matt holding his own too, we proved much too strong for any of the other teams."
In fact, the Marin lads lapped every other team - some of them twice.
Bike City's Jason Lock added: “We were delighted with our second place. It's our local event and it was very satisfying to do so well."
It was a good day too for Whyte Racing UK's Kate Betts, scoring a superb victory at Cheddar - despite crashing four times. Here's her account of her winning ride:
The Le Mans start at 10am was a little chaotic to say the least. We had to run over the BMX course to our bikes - quite amusing with studs under foot. I made it to my bike in one piece and rode into the singletrack climb. I decided to try and get ahead of the masses and made a dash for it up the left hand side only to become entangled in someone's handle bars and end up on my knees in the bushes.
This was only 18 seconds into the race. The first climb seemed to go on for a while due to the number of riders trying to get up it all at the same time. The ground was a combination of slippery rocks and roots so there were many small calamities and it made for a slow climb.
This lead to a singletrack grass descent, through two small gateways and into a rooty descent, lots of fun. A couple of interesting corners, a right hand bend and there it was: the monster climb.
I've always believed that walking up a steep climb whilst pushing your bike is not the easy option and as my calves and hamstrings started to burn I made a pact with myself that I wouldn't be walking this climb every lap. Out of breath and finally at the top, I got back on to my bike to negotiate the slippery rocky, much gentler climb that led to the start of the legendary Witches Wood descent.
The laps were really short [a last-minute intervention by English Nature meant that the lap length had to be cut by almost half - Ed] and seemed to climb up steeply over difficult terrain and come straight down again. There was none of the ""free mileage we normally get in Enduros by way of fire tracks. This was hard work, from start to finish. And because of the terrain, a loss of concentration for a second and you were on the floor.
Des, my husband, was at the start/finish line every time I went through (about every 20-25 minutes) with a fresh bottle, an energy gel and a Myoplex energy bar so I had my pick of what I needed to keep me going. I tried to take a gel about every 45 minutes or so. During the eight hours I had two Myoplex bars and when I got hungry after about three hours, I had a Myoplex Meal replacement shake.
I'm unsure how far I rode as my computer was a bit temperamental but I rode to victory by completing 18 laps with a time of 7hrs 40 minutes. The comradeship from fellow competitors was wonderful and the memories will stay with me for a long time. It was great to hear the encouragement from fellow Whtye rider, Luke, and the Marin boys, Paul and Billy as they rode past me.
The general consensus was that the course was short but challenging with every pedal stroke and a great day was had by each and every rider. Many thanks to Whyte Racing and Rush Extreme Sport for their amazing support. Without Elite Fitness I'd probably only have managed a few hours let alone winning and without EAS, I would have been riding with inadequate nutrition and would still be feeling tired days after the event.
