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The Ard Rock Mountain Bike Festival took place over the weekend of 29-31st July at the classic race venue of Swaledale deep in the Yorkshire Dales in the north of England. This popular event brings mountain bikers together from far and wide to celebrate their love of riding while enjoying some of the most challenging races of the year on super-fun, technical rock-strewn terrain. Wheelbase were there for the duration of the weekend running our busy trade stand while cheering on all of the Ard Rock participants competing in various race formats including Enduro, Enduro Sport, Enduro Sprint and the full Ard Rock Epic. Wheelbase’s off-road racing specialist Lucy Bell was in action over the weekend onboard her capable Cannondale Jekyll 1, we’ll let her take up the story…
Photo by Phill Rodman @digital_downhill
Ard Rock rolls round but once a year and every man and his dog descends on the small Yorkshire Dales valley of Swaledale. I’ve been riding my Cannondale Jekyll loads and been doing some big days on my Moterra ebike at Golfie in Scotland to get my hands ready for the demands of the one mile-long stages of Ard Rock.
Photo by Jez Prout @hijinksphotography
I prepped my bike the week before, fitting some grippy new Maxxis DHR II tan-walls, which I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure about! But I think they worked well in the end and looked pretty stylish matched with the Jekyll 1’s iridescent paint job.
Photo by Phil Carr @unsponsoreduk
Unfortunately the optimistic weather forecast leading up to the event changed right at the last minute and there was rain, lots of rain. Practice on the first stage was a bit of a shock to the system after months and months of dry weather riding. The stages were a mix of off-camber sections, fields full of hidden sniper-rocks, steep rock-strewn gullies and wide open fells where the full effects of the challenging weather could be felt. They certainly got the name of the event correct, all of my friends and many others out on the hills incurred punctures in both the practice sessions and during racing; luck was on my side though and I enjoyed mainly clean runs with no major mishaps.
Photo by Phill Rodman @digital_downhill
My favourite stage of the day was definitely stage four, one of the three blind stages, which turned out to be my best stage result of the day. With all the rain over night and the earliest stages taking place from 7.45am the racing played out in super-slick riding conditions, however, the positive side of starting early meant that we were back in the race paddock early to enjoy the rest of the festival. With the guys from Wheelbase in the event village all weekend there was also plenty of time to have a proper catch up with a good beer!
My Cannondale Jekyll 1 performed flawlessly throughout the weekend, with my tinkering and fine-tuning before Ard Rock paying off. I’m also pretty pleased with how I felt out on the most demanding rocky stages, with all that riding up in Scotland on my Moterra e-MTB beforehand helping to prevent arm-pump and sore hands. I came 13th in my category out of 26th, which is a very mid-pack result and a little disappointing after the amount of time I’ve spent on my MTB in preparation for this event, but that’s racing and I am happy to come away unscathed from another epic Ard Rock. No doubt I will be back for more next year but I’m not thinking about that at the moment! It’s time to get back out on the trail and enjoy the rest of the summer; fingers crossed for the return of the dry weather…
Photo by Phil Carr @unsponsoreduk
Written by Lucy Bell
Photos by…
Phil Carr (see all of his Ard Rock photos here)
Jez Prout (see all of his Ard Rock photos here)
Phill Rodham (see all of his Ard Rock photos here)
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