At 15km to go, I was literally like a drunkard, as coordination was impaired, i was in a filthy mood and I was dropping into survival mode. Somehow, I made it up the Legend Wall through sheer pride, but literally stopped over it’s crest. I hung on and gulped down full fat coke at the last feed with 10km to go and threw it all back up at 9km to go. My only comfort was picking off the occasional Granfondo riders who’d rejoined my race route and riding past the broken souls who’d run out of gas or broken their bikes.

At 3km to go, the route dropped onto a billiard table smooth tarmac road… I could see Capoliveri, I could hear the announcer, I smiled.

And then at the ‘ultimo KM’ flag, the course turned right up the Madonna di something or other. Another 25% climb over broken cobbles that had been washed out in the gutters.

“Io finito” I said. The Madonna herself must have helped me today.

I finished the race in 5:35:32 in 425th place from 1099 starters overall. I was 49th from 634 starters (425 finishers) in the masters.

The Day After

As I sit here on LS252 flying home; how do I feel about the CLC? Now the thumping headache of dehydration has gone and I’m feeling myself again – I’m utterly pleased I rode. The slow death of a difficult, hot race yesterday, maybe caused me to overlook that I started from the back of the back and rode my way consistently up through the field, in spite a far from ideal hydration situation. Above all, I exceeded all my expectations around technical descending and was able to recover when held up by more cautious riders. If I am to ride well at the Worlds next year, I absolutely must go there half a stone lighter as the repeated intense climbs truly wrecked me. As for the race itself, I would recommend it without hesitation. As for Elba, it is literally like paradise both on and off the bike. The mountain biking trails are surely some of the best in the world. The Italians call it ‘The Pearl of Tuscany’. It most certainly is and the slightly convoluted logistics of travelling there are undoubtedly worth it. The place almost has a mixed feel of a principality and Italian charm. The organisation around the CLC was astoundingly good and the measures around mitigating the risk of Covid were a real credit to those behind it.

You only have my word for it, but it’s such a shame I was the only person there from the UK. Recommended.

Lessons learned

The stiffest XC shoes might not be the most suitable for a five hour race as their soles become painful.

Rigid bike boxes are the ultimate in protection, and your expensive carbon frame will be well protected. There’s definitely no chance of damage in this Bike Box Alan, but this needs to be balanced with practicality. They are hard to lift into a hire car without catching the bumper and they can take up the entire boot space in a small hatchback… which can become a problem once the bike is built. They are heavy in comparison to the soft sided bags, but this is balanced against the extra protection. I did also find that they leave little scope for additional items once a full suspension MTB is carried, even a sub 10kg race bike; but then, I took the smaller of the boxes that BBA supply. However, as already said, the box even in this size was cumbersome at times, although it did afford ultimate protection.

I need to have a reliable means of inflating tyres that I can transport. I need to explore a Leyzyne. In saying that, I’ll be racing more of these – stay tuned!