Just back from the 2007 OMM, the 40th anniversary event, held down the road in the Lowther Hills, by Drumlanrig Castle, scene of my ACE Race and Wan Dae events last year. In the end I wasn’t competing as my partner had realised it was his birthday party that weekend and fair enough was staying home on the lash. Anyway, feeling bad that my new AR teammates were all competing and were travelling the length of the country to get there I felt compelled to ride down there to see them at the overnight camp.

After parking up at Happendon Services I stupidly got on my bike and the problems began. The headwind was incessant and I was having to work damn hard to make any progress, so stopped briefly in Abington for sustenance before beginning again in the, now driving, rain. Shortly afterwards I got the thing I’d been fearing most, a puncture. Of course I’d left my pump in the car, so although I was able to fix the hole, I couldn’t get any air back in the tyre…

4 miles of walking/jogging later I got a bit of air from a bus garage’s air line, but it only lasted half a mile before I was back to walking. Luckily shortly afterwards I managed to flag down a passing car with bike on the roof, who pulled a pump from the back of the car and soon I was on my way.

Eventually after more than one spell of being barely able to turn the pedals on the flat because of the headwind, I made it into the overnight OMM camp, just as it got dark. Eventually after much to-ing and fro-ing and shouting of names I found Gary and John, then Nick and Warren. They’d had good days on the hill and the weather hadn’t affected them too much, but were now suffering in their mini Supair tents which flapped about in the wind all night keeping sleep to a minimum. Sunday was glorious though and they had a great time on the hills while I ended up helping a friend with the finish line commentary, cheering in the runners over the final kilometre and trying to spout out random info about the few names I recognised. Spent most of the afternoon chatting to Dougie Vipond from the Adventure Show, who were filming for the BBC. Thoroughly nice chap though will see how he is when we meet again as we both line up as soloists in the Strathpuffer 24 hour solo in January. This is the world’s only winter 24 hour mountain bike race and should be pretty epic if it’s anything like the last two years when the weather has been attrocious…

Training has begun in earnest…watch this space for progress reports