Photos from my latest Mountain Bike race, the Convict 100, so called as its along the old convict trails carved out and made by the old convicts. I raced with mate Ian, we camped right next to the river in St Albans.

I didn’t take my phone on the race but here my notes:

• Long uphill at the beginning was a killer. Ian struggled due to him getting over a Flu 3 days before the race. Was so steep had to walk up several parts.
• The Kayak river crossing wasn’t as scary as I thought.
• Middle section had a great rocky (rock garden) long section across high ridges with lots of fog either side looking into the valleys, was beautiful.
• Long downhill towards the end gave the bikes a real hard pounding before finishing on a long fast tarmac section. Ian drafted me to keep up the high speed despite battling leg cramps.

Course map:

Course profile:The kayak bridge:

We finished the 68km offroad loop in 3:32. We placed 15th in our age category and 45th in the whole race. I think if it wasn’t for Ian’s Flu symptoms we would have done about 20 mins faster and finished in top 10 overall and maybe top in our age category.

After the race at the St Albans Settlers Arms pub for a well earned beer and some hearty hot vegetable soup.

2011

2016, can you spot the differences?

My Ibis Mojo Mountain Bike is 5 years old this April. Still going strong. Although its got 26″ wheels and the standard for mountain bikes is 27.5″ or 29″ now its still an incredible all terrain bike that takes all the punishment I can throw at it.

Put it this way the bike is a lot more robust than me, I always come off worse in a crash 🙂

Its had a few upgrades over the 5 years, swapping all the gears and pedals from Shimano XT to the top of the line XTR range to make it lighter and stronger, swapping the saddle for a super light (and uncomfortable at first) one and adding some lights for the commute to work and back. A MASSIVE improvement was a brake upgrade from the original Avid Juicy carbons to Shimano XTR, this was Ian’s advice. Wow, such an improvement in strength and feel. It feels like I have the accuracy to stop on a 50c piece now.

The best thing about owning an Ibis is as they are a low volume hand made bike by a bunch of mountain biking dudes in the US, is just how rare they are. A couple of times a month fellow riders who know how rare and high-end they are, stop me to ask what its like to ride and generally ask about the bike and say they never see them, I have to agree.

I myself have only seen, I think I could count 5 in the the 5 years I’ve owned one, 1 a year. Its nice owning something so rare and respected by fellow riders and something not costing the earth like a very fancy watch.

I hope to keep hold of this little gem of a bike for at least another couple of years.