Mad Jack

I never intended to ride/enter the 2013 edition of the classic Mad Jack audax, but with the cancellation of Hills and Mills due to snow, Andy Seviour kindly offered to swap our entry across to this event.  Great!!

The reason I didn't intend to ride it mainly because its too bloody hard and also because the weather is always crap (making it harder), but being tight, I couldn't let my entry fee go so easily.

I retired the bike from Cyclo Cross duties the previous weekend when it was running perfectly despite the grotty weather and mud and and made it ready for its audax debut (swapped the cross tyres to road tyres).  A gear cable outer split in the week so was also swapped for new, meaning the gears which were perfectly indexed running through rusty split gear cable outers would no longer work (how does that work?).  You may notice a gear related theme following Micky's earlier post.

I downloaded the route onto the Garmin the night before and Amanda and Eva very kindly offered to give me a lift to the start in the morning.  Following weeks of crap weather it was great to wake up to sun, hardly any wind and it wasn't even raining.

A quick group photo in the car park and we set off.  The garmin instantly got confused  telling me I was at the end of the route and so didn't give me any more directions.  I rode with Micky and John for a bit, but they started to edge away on the steeper bits, Rob came past giving chase and so I was on my own.

I thought I new the route so expected to regroup with the mighty 3some at the top of the next climb.  The climbs on the Mad Jack are relentless, steep and almost always start immediately following a steep descent, meaning its necessary to get as much speed down as possible and maintain the speed through the transition before getting the gears right to ride up the climb.

Unfortunately most of the descents were smashed with pot holes and at the bottom there was often a large sized crater to overcome, as I prepared for the final big climb before the first feed I hit one of these craters and immediately felt the rear wheel complain.  I wasn't sure what was wrong it just felt odd.

I continued on the climb and soon had the noise of a puncture added to the thud of the rear wheel.  I realised at this point the course had changed as no-one was coming back down the climb and there was no feed at the top.

I stopped to change my tube at the top and checked the rear wheel, which felt okay except for a few lose spokes.

James Ryan kindly leant me a tube (saved me using a c02 cartidge) and we set about chasing the riders that had passed, James was riding like a machine, but my legs were really struggling after the stop.  Worse still, the garmin was still showing the route on the map but the nature of the course continually crossing over and looping out of Battle was such that I couldn't tell in which direction we were meant to be going.

We stopped at a lovely little cafe/sandwich stop in Battle and I considered my options, how would I continue without knowing the directions, I hung around for a bit and opted to follow Tony Gale and Chris Hough.
I assume Tony had one of these clever new integrated garmins as I couldn't see any maps, directions or route sheet, yet he was calling out directions in good time even explaining how the route change would affect the distances we would face each of the main challenges.

We rode a nice big route out towards and round Burwash, a quick stop at a BP garage for a banana and we were off again.

We saw the Midge out on his bike as we headed back to Battle, but I was in oxygen debt at the time so I didn't realise it was him until he had passed us in the opposite direction.

Back to Battle just as Sam Ramsey was leaving, he had a Garmin so I opted to join him.  Sam's garmin was working perfectly, but his gears were not.  We made good progress and started picking off riders in front.  We saw Rob, John and Micky ending their Fairlight loop just as we were about to start the really hard part of the course, Doleham Halt and then the horrible climb to Fairlight.

I had packed plenty of food in my pockets but was getting thoroughly fed up with malt loaf, I thought wrapping slices in tin foil would make them easy to unwrap and eat on the bike, it didn't, it was a struggle to unwrap them and a struggle to chew them.

I was a little gutted there was no food at Fairlight, but the ride back to Battle included some nice flat bits which we used to good effect.   I grabbed a tuna salad roll from the cafe at our final visit and we set off in search of Hailsham.

The route doesn't let out and even heading for home there a few final stings in the tail, one such steep climb seemed to get the better of Sam and he loudly voiced his concerns at his ability to keep going, but keep going he did.

With the good weather the views had been stunning all day, but the ride had saved the best to last with simply beautiful views around Bodle Street Green and Stunts Green. Views which are normally shrouded in cloud.

We caught a further 2 riders, but somehow it seemed rude to overtake them so close to the finish, Sam said he would be fine on his own and to go ahead alone, fine except I still didn't know the route and I really didn't have the legs to go any quicker.

Sam and I rolled into Hailsham in 6 1/2 hours, tired and hungry but really pleased to have ridden the classic Mad Jack in extraordinary beautiful conditions and it was great for me to ride with so many Wombles.

Might even ride next year...