FURTHER TRUTH: Race Preview
Another race preview? Yes.
If you didn’t hear what happened, I went on a nice round trip to Kyrgyzstan for Silk Road Mountain Race, deciding to withdraw before the race started as someone staying at the same place as me tested positive. Anyway, this was not my idea of fun and it has been a turbulent two weeks.
My shape for Silk Road Mountain Race (SRMR) was really good, perhaps not 100% as the injury I got in February flared up a few weeks before, but at that race you don’t need to be 100% physically, but mentally I was 100% invested. After withdrawing, I checked in on the race on the first day and saw the terrible (or in my mind great) snowy conditions and just had to turn off. I love to race in bad conditions and it was simply torture. I managed to get back home to Spain, having tested negative. In fact, testing positive would have made the whole ordeal easier to deal with mentally, however I am grateful it turned out this way and would make the same decision again.
I can’t say my motivation for riding my bike is anything but dismal currently. I have been out a few times since I got back but that is it. Feeling lost, I realised I had to do something, to drag myself from a potential slump. With Atlas Mountain Race having been postponed to February 2022 there was only one choice. Once again, as in 2020, Camille and his race Further came to save the day. I feel bad, as both times I have entered Further it has been because I have not been able to race SRMR. It’s not for any lack of desire to race Further, but simply because I have unfinished business at SRMR.
The Ariege-Pyrenees is one beautiful place
I love competition and I spent the week reaching out to a bunch of people I’d love to race. Thankfully Marin de Saint-Exupery was up for some short notice fun! I met Marin in 2019 sitting on the South side of Kegity pass in Kyrgyzstan on the first day of the SRMR. He’d in fact ridden his handmade bike from Switzerland to the race. This year he has won, and set the course record on the Hope 1000 in Switzerland. A fierce rider and a cool guy.
Sliding off Sector 14 in 2020
Further is a fantastic event. Comprising of around 500 kilometeres through the Ariege-Pyrenees, with a dozen or so off-road sections linked up with tarmac. The off-road is hard and the tarmac offers mild respite from the toil of pushing your bike. Plus, living in Girona, it is only three hours for me to get there. The complication at Further is the curfews, some sections have curfews placed on them and you cannot pass between 19:00 – 06:00. While I still don’t necessarily agree with the principles of the curfews, it is Camille’s race. The complication this year is in their placing on the route. Thankfully Ride with GPS just released their surface time on the map, so I have been able to use this to work out speeds and timings more accurately. In 2020 some solid riding on the first day got me past the first curfew. However, this year I cannot see any way to get past the first curfew, or the second. So I feel it will end up being a three day race, with 2 enforced overnight stops. Which, while perhaps annoying (I’d like to get it done), will mean I get to enjoy more in the daylight and get some sleep. I think this has the potential to make the final 130km run in really exciting racing, as no doubt we will both be sat at the curfew point waiting to cross as the clock ticks over from 05:59.
Sitting waiting to start the final sector when the curfew lifted at 06:00 in Further 2020.