Arriving at the campsite 9am on saturday morning I was pleased to find a ridethelakes banner proudly displayed on the front of a large tunnel tent. Inside I spotted a few empty stella bottles and pretty much knew straight away pridds had been in the area..
 
1st surprise of the day was when Chris arrived and informed me that Stu had fallen ill and James had agreed to step in last minute. Remembering his performance at the GMBC the year before I was quitely optimistic (shame for Stu though - reminded me of my mystery illness before spain, is this the curse of ridethelakes?). Soon after Pridds arrived, armed with an entire workshop and James fresh from the train station, followed by Lee. We all said hello and had a wander to get registered and attend the riders brief at 12, with the ride starting at 2pm. The main message to come out of it was 'its steep, very, very steep in places, and extremely loose'. This had us all grinning madly!

 
So we agreed a strategy: 2 sets of single laps to take us up to 10pm (based on 1 hour laps), followed by a stint of double laps each through the night, and then singles in the morning until the finish. Running order was Chris, myself, James, Lee (for no particular reason other than Chris had 'volunteered' for the run to the start of the course). By 2pm we were all mad keen to get on with it and Chris lined up for the mile sprint up the dentist to get on his bike. Chris got off to a blinder on the 1st lap, setting a pace of 1h03 (including the run up!). We all then followed with little incident and a good pace all round. The 2nd stint of single laps went equally well, with Lee having to attach lights for his 2nd lap at about 9pm. At this point the course assessment was that there were some great bits of singletrack (footpaths that were used on GMBC), but too much fireroad, especially on the 2nd half of the course. To finish on the grandad and dad sections was very welcome though :o)
 
Pridds was doing a great job on the food/drink/bike maintenance front and kept everything running smoothly, including my high maintenance 5. It was nice to see Lisa pop over to offer some support and see how we were doing aswell. Following the fairly smooth day laps things were about to get more interesting with the night stints approaching. We kept to the same order and Chris set off for the 1st fully dark stint. The lack of light on his pace was almost negligible, setting a 1h02 followed by a 1h11. I was up next, and set off at 12:30am with slight trepidation for my 1st ever night ride. The 1st lap was great - singletrack has never been so sweet (at grizedale anyway), with a time of 1h09. However then things took a slight turn for the worse. My headtorch kept defaulting to the low power mode (which was next to useless), with a change of batteries only rectifying the problem for about 5 mins. So I carried on, with the temperature plummeting to 3 deg and a light rain setting in. Cold, tiredeness and cramp soon set in and before I knew it I was in the granny ring thinking about my sleeping bag. Soldiering on the arrow pointing to the last section was near ecstacy, until i realised i couldnt see a damn thing and promptly stacked it on the 'Dad'. Nevermind, with a few strange noises from the bike I trundled over the line with a time of 1h28 and handed over to an eager looking James.

 
No such problems for the whippet, he put in 2 cracking laps of 1h03 and 1h06 whilst i was busy crawling into my sleeping bag with some soup and a packet of jaffa cakes. Lee then set off for the dawn ride at approx 5am and put in 2 solid laps of 1h14 and 1h18.
 
So that was night over and done with and things were going well overall. I awoke at 7am to a bright blue sky and sunshine. Lee was just getting in and we were apparently in about 18th position overall, which was a pleasant surprise for us all! Whilst we were busy guzzling down Pridds bacon butties (and Quick Nicks who was helping out in the kitchen) Chris was preparing for his 1st morning lap, and put in a stunner of 55mins! This was almost matched by James with 56mins, who kindly agreed to take my stint due to me being 'not quite on top form', and having a bike which needed a new mech hanger fitting due to my earlier incident. This put us in about 15th place. I then set out for what I thought would be my final lap and put in a 1h06, followed by Lee with a 1h11. Despite the tiredness I think we'd all agree it was a fantastic morning to be out on the bikes. This took us up to 11:45am and in the closing stages Chris put in a 'best of the team' lap of 54mins 09secs, which was fantastic considering he had over 60 miles already under his belt before starting the lap (the laps were just over 10 miles plus the mile up and down the dentist before/after the lap!). Not to be outdone James went out and did a 59min lap, catapulting us up into 11th position. This took us up to about 1:45pm, and gave me time to get 1 final lap in to hopefully cement our position (and yes I did check with the stewards Pridds that it would count!! ;o)  Giving it everything I had left I got round in 1h11 min which put us in 12th position at the finish.

 
So, that was the end and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we had a great weekend. Thanks to everyone involved (riders and support!) and a mention for Phil has to go out aswell, who managed a frankly heroic 13 laps solo before a problem with his knee forced him off the course.
 
Maybe next year we could get top 10...

Jonboy