Great weekend. It's quite an event, glad I went, if only to dissuade myself from ever considering entering
Myself and TK arrived just after 9 on the Saturday morning, parked up, grabbed our shit, hired 15 sherpas and made our way up to the luxury accomodation... which was unfortunately full, so we checked in to Kaiser's 'Gazebo of Mud' instead. Actually, can't complain about the digs - halogen heater, tea and coffee making facilities and camping gaz mood lighting for me to bang my heid on (bad mood lighting, bad). Braw.
Weather was great, positively tropical for the Puffer. I think we had light rain for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon, then again early Sunday. It did get down to around freezing Saturday evening, but I think it warmed up overnight, by Sunday morning it was up nearer 7 degress.
So once the racers were off, MacPitBitches got down to business and breakfasted handsomely on scrambled egg rolls. Then TK went and bought a bike, which he'll no doubt tell you all about. After that, we took some inspiration from one of the rider's dads, who'd just walked round the entire course in a couple of hours... So we set off to walk the course in reverse, TK driving his new herd of fat Caribou before him. We ended up heckling (badly) from the viewpoint (final climb before the last descent of the lap) for over an hour, and then continued on our way. 5 hours later, dehydrated, sair, disoriented and in the pitch black, we made it back to 'Chez Mudbath'.
While there, MacPitBitches wielded the chain-splitter mightily and bought unleaded for the generator, which was confusing since our accommodation was definitely 4 star. We refueled ourselves on venison burgers and chips, and with head torches on heids, set off for some midnight heckling back up at the view point. I think we called it a night at 1am, and stumbled back to our alpine lodge, dodging sleep-deprived, hallucinating Puffers hooring doon the final descent. TK kipped down at the gazebo, assuming team Macretro were still turning the crank, while I made for the car, because I'm a big gayer.
Before I knew it, it was 7.30, and oh dear, I'd had nearly 5 hours sleep. Whoops. TK stayed manfully at his post, even though (unknown to us), everyone had actually given up riding and buggered off to bed in the big 5 man tent at 1 in the morning.
So that was that, Kaiser got up early and did a few more laps. Myself and TK did bacon and haggis rolls with Jamie.
Great vibe and really friendly folks. Glad I walked the course - lots of nice looking singletrack leading off left and right, a lot like Pitmedden but a bit more open. The course itself, although short looks like really hard work. Have to say, got a new found respect for the riders that can solo that for 24 hours. Or even 2.4.
