jon ashelford photography: Platzangst RAM shorts - First look.

jon ashelford photography: Platzangst RAM shorts - First look.: A box of winter riding kit arrived on my door this morning. Amongst all the knee warmers, rain jackets and socks were these Platzangst "RAM...

What a month!

It all started with my return to racing after a long break caused by the cancellation of the Fort William BDS race and the postponement of the SDA’s Glencoe race. The fourth round of the SDA series was at Innerleithen in the Scottish borders where I’d started to feel quite at home after already completing three winter series race early in the year.

We arrived late and I walked the track by torch light as dad setup home in the paddock area. The course looked very fast and flowing on the top half with the usual more technical final half. I went to bed looking forward to a good race. Only my second on my 2011 Beefcake and my first SDA race on it. We woke in the morning however to find that overnight someone had cut through the 12mm steel wire locking my bike the caravan and it was gone. Someone must have loved it as much as I did because they ignored other unlocked bikes to take my lovely Beefcake. After hanging around for the polic

e to arrive we packed up for the long drive home feeling totally gutted. Just as we were about to leave another competitor, Tom Anderson informed me he had a spare bike I could use if I wanted. I was in two minds as I really just wanted to go somewhere and cry but I accepted and we unpacked again. The bike was a 2010 Empire and it wasn’t really very well setup for me and I struggled with it being too softly sprung and having little feel or power in its brakes. I was nice to see that there are still people like Tom and his dad around who were prepared to offer such generous help.

I ended the weekend still pretty low with only a 19^th place to show for it. I know I’d have been well within the top ten and strengthened by series position had I been on my own bike.

In the week that followed the story has appeared on BBC TV News, all over the internet and on countless facebook pages. We’ve emailed every bike shop in Scotland and all the big riding centres in case someone sees it. Finlay of Rose UK came through with the very generous offer of the return of the 2010 demo bike I’d had before my 2011 one arrived.

The old bike arrived on Thursday and was rebuilt and checked over on Friday morning before we set off again to the west coast. This time it was for the rerunning of the Glencoe SDA race. Glencoe is a very steep technical course that’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I love it.

The Indian summer that the whole country appeared to be enjoying had forgotten to visit Glencoe and we arrived in very heavy rain. I’d been told that Glencoe is a gre

at track in the dry but obviously I wasn’t going to see that this weekend. I woke on Saturday morning to find the rain had slowed slightly and had been joined by think fog, great!

My practice went well for about two corners when my deraileur hanger broke leaving me no choice but to push back to the start and come back down on the chairlift. Dad set off on the two hour round trip to Fort William in search of a hanger that we could use and I continued practice chainless.

All we could get was an emergency hanger that after a lot of work was made to hold the derailleur in a strange position that wouldn’t allow it change gear but did make it work as a chain tensioner so of I went for one last practice this time in single speed mode. I like everyone was having trouble seeing and running out of tear offs fast but I was happy enough with my last run.

Sunday was more of the same weather wise but I set off for a practice to make up for not getting much running on Saturday but burst my rear tyre on the first run. I just had time for another following a rushed repair and it went OK so I went in to race run one reasonably happy that I wasn’t going to worry the top few but should be in with a decent chance. It went OK for the fast top section then my chain broke and wrapped around the cassette. When is my luck going to change? Another quick repair and I was good to go for my second race run and again it was going to have to be an all or nothing. The weather was improving as I set off and for the first time all weekend the water wasn’t running down the track like a stream. This made visibility easier and I felt the first half of my run was pretty good. I didn’t make any big mistakes on the lower half I’m told I looked tired and maybe I wasn’t pushing as hard as I could have. I crossed the line in second place but knew that there had been some fast time on the first runs and some fast guys still on course. I finished in a slightly disappointing 11^th come the end but that was just good enough for me to keep my top ten in the final series results.

Given that I never actually got to ride my 2011 bike at a SDA series race I’m pretty happy with 9^th place in the competitive youth class. I still wonder how I would have got on had I ridden the new bike all year. I did only one race on it and came second at that one.