Archive for June 2006
Tony impressed the hell out of me last weekend. As I mentioned last week, we were racing in the Saab Salomon Mountain Mayhem 24-hour mountain bike race. And while it may not have been held over real mountains, there was certainly plenty of mayhem. I had the dubious honour of going out on the first lap, which entailed an 800m run to our waiting bikes. We were told that the start of the race would be marked by 'an explosion of some sort', and sure enough, after a colossal bang, I found myself in a mad scramble for the line, dodging elbows and breathing clouds of light-brown dust.
As none of our four-strong team had test-ridden the 7.2-mile route, I had no idea what to expect. It soon transpired that the course's designers subscribed to Marx's view that 'the only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain', as the event delivered equally hefty doses of both. The climbs were hellishly long, 'granny-gear' drags that wove through impossibly hot patches of breeze-free air, and the descents (eye-wateringly fast, crazy off-camber turns, huge bumps baked rock-hard in the midday sun) would have had your average kamikaze pilot thinking twice.
Anyway, back to Tony. He'd never actually raced a mountain bike before. The week before the race, I found out that pro rider Jenny Copnall had described the 2004 Mountain Mayhem as 'one of the most extreme experiences I have had on a bike'. Tony and I do most of our training on the road, and our lack of technical bike-handling skill soon proved a big disadvantage. He crashed hard on his second lap, headbutting a tree. I'll let him describe what actually happened, and I was hugely happy (although hardly surprised) to see him carry on for another 18 hours of racing.
It was a wonderful event, and I was utterly humbled by the gang of solo riders that spent the whole 24 hours lapping the course alone. Worryingly, I seemed to get stronger as the race (and the lack of sleep) went on, and I'm now toying with the idea of doing a few solo events after SOUTH. The chances of me matching the lap times of some of the top team riders is slim (there were two Olympic athletes and a T-Mobile pro in attendance) but I reckon I'd be competitive in the solo category. Of course, it'd also give me an excuse to buy a camper van as well…
{ Filed under Cycling, Training on June 28th, 2006 | 5 Comments }
A couple of months ago, on the spur of the moment, I decided to join good friend (and Cornish pasty-munching Ironman triathlete) Rhys Ellis-Davies in entering the Saab Salomon Mountain Mayhem 24-hour mountain bike race. In fact, I decided to enter Tony as well, despite the fact he's never raced a mountain bike. I think the last time I did was eight or nine years ago. To add a little spice to the challenge, Tony no longer even had a mountain bike, and mine was stolen four weeks after entering the race. (The fourth member of our team is Tom Longland, grandson of 1933 Mount Everest hero Jack Longland.)
It dawned on me one afternoon in Greenland that although the event was fast approaching, neither of us had a set of wheels. After a few abortive attempts at getting sponsored bikes, I spotted something promising on eBay. A couple of days and a few emails later, the bike's owner brought it round, and it was love at first sight. A fairly vintage Specialized S-Works M4 (either 2001 or 2002) that, to my delight, hadn't seen much in the way of use. Sadly, it hadn't seen much in the way of love, either - it was covered in grease and dirt and my fingers looked like I'd dipped them in tar after putting the chain back on. I felt like I'd found a starving thoroughbred racehorse living in a garden shed, or a mistreated Siberian husky chained to a pole in a dusty yard with an empty water bowl. I simply had to buy it, and give it a better home.
Once in the safety of my living room, I took it apart and inspected the damage. I'd been assured that the tyres had 'plenty of life left in them', but the back one had a hefty rip in the sidewall. There was a sizeable dent in the rear rim and one of the spokes was completely loose (although the wheels still ran perfectly true). It had no brakes, no grips and no pedals, so I drew up a shopping list and raided both the Fulham and West End branches of Evans Cycles, and after a bit of nifty spanner-work (and some nerve-wracking, sweaty-palms hacksawing as I cut the steerer tube down) it was time for a bit of spit 'n' polish. The results were startling - with a bit of love (and a full bottle of degreaser) lavished on it, the bike looks like new.
At least it did, until I took it for a burn around Richmond Park this morning. It's now caked in orange dust…
{ Filed under Cycling on June 17th, 2006 | 2 Comments }
A couple of rather cool things popped up on my radar today. Admittedly, I'm a little behind the times with both, but I'll blame that on a month offline on the Greenland icecap.
The first is the dinky Panasonic SDRS100 camcorder, a three-chip (ie broadcast quality) camcorder that uses SD cards (removable, solid-state memory chips, about the size of a postage stamp) rather than tape. I'm amazed I haven't spotted this before now - this looks absolutely perfect for filming in expedition conditions, and I suspect Tony and I will be packing one each when we head to Antarctica in October. It's tiny, it weighs way less than similarly-specced Mini-DV camcorders, and it has next to no moving parts. Brilliant! I'll try to get my hands on one soon…
The second (and, being a Nike athlete, you'd have thought I'd be at least testing a prototype by now - sheesh!) is the Nike/Apple collaboration known as Nike+. The first product they'll be wheeling out is the 'Nike+ iPod Sport Kit' that, via a dinky sensor, connects your running shoes to your iPod(!)
Apparently the iPod Nano is then able to track data during your workout - pace, time, and distance show up on the Nano's screen, along with vocal cues on your pace etc played through the headphones at the touch of a button. Get home, have a shower and sync the iPod with your computer, and not only can you download and analyse workout data; you can share it with other runners around the world via the Nike+ website. Sweat, sync, social networking…
After getting over my initial 'Whoah! Must get one!', I'm now only partially jumping up and down with excitement about this. Hopefully I can persuade Nike to bring out the Ben Saunders Signature Edition later this year, with some kind of heart rate monitoring, and GPS-based tracking (rather than the perhaps-not-so-accurate accelerometer that the device currently relies on). Still, it's a very funky piece of kit.
{ Filed under Training on June 15th, 2006 | 4 Comments }
Phew. Where do I start? Returning from any expedition is always a bit of a shock to the system, but this time has been way off the scale. Ironically, Tony and I are in superb physical condition after four weeks on the Greenland icecap, but I don't think we quite realised just *how* much work was waiting for us back home in London (where the current heat and humidity is feeling rather oppressive after the crisp Arctic breeze). The amount we want/have to achieve between now and October is unreal - one part ridiculous, one part scary and one part the most exciting thing I've ever done.
My to-do list is behaving like a time-lapse fim of bacteria in a petri-dish; every time I cross one item off, about twelve new things pop up around it, instantly. It's overflowing out of my desk diary and onto scraps of paper, Word documents, mind maps, backs of envelopes and the big file in my brain labelled 'procrastinate'. If it wasn't so much fun, I'd call it stress. Stress verging on burn-out. And that's the way my life seems to be panning out: burning and freezing. Burn, freeze, burn, freeze, yin, yang, peak, trough.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating - the next few months are going to be crazy. There are times when I'd rather be in your shoes, watching it all unfold like a reality TV show on steroids - no script, and the longest unsupported polar expedition in history. And there are times where there's nowhere I'd rather be than in the thick of it, whether that's battling hunched into a screaming whiteout, swearing at the wind, or sat here in front of a laptop at 3am with the to-do list from hell…
[Last up, BenSaunders.com is now a member of the 9Rules network - 'a community of the best weblogs in the world'. It's a new departure for me - I know Ed's not a fan, but it'll be interesting to see how things pan out. I'll keep you posted...]
{ Filed under Greenland on June 14th, 2006 | 8 Comments }
After a spectacular helicopter flight through the mountains, we touched down in Tasiilaq, a small fishing village on the east coast of Greenland, a few hours ago. I'll write more after I've had a few hours' sleep!
{ Filed under Greenland on June 10th, 2006 | 10 Comments }
A slightly alarming start to the day; we called Air Alpha, the operators of the helicopter we'd chartered to pick us up tomorrow, to be told that as of June 1st, they were 'no longer operating in East Greenland'. Hmm. Thankfully, after a few frantic satellite phone calls, we managed to sort things out - it seems we're being picked up from the same location, at the same time, by the same pilot, in the same helicopter, but by Air Greenland. All very confusing, but the good news is that the weather's been perfect today and the forecast for tomorrow morning looks good.
The weather was, in fact, so good today that rather than resting (as any sensible human being would do after dragging sledges and lugging rucksacks for ten marathons up and down the same stretch of featureless icecap) we decided to build 1) a giant windbreak that we could read/sunbathe behind and 2) an icy multi-gym. A day without some form of exercise just didn't feel right, so I dug a giant hole in the snow, Tony built walls either side of it, and we slung a combination of skis and snow shovels between the two walls in order to do chin-ups and parallel bar dips (as gracefully demonstrated by yours truly in the pic - note my natty 'Muhammed Ali' silver inner boots). A fierce competition for the remaining chocolate rations ensued, and we're now lying here with full bellies, stiff arms and sunburnt legs.
On a slightly more serious note, this expedition has been a key testing phase for SOUTH later this year, and I wanted to give a quick shout-out to two people that have gone way beyond the call of duty. The first is my incredible assistant, Natasha Montrose, who has been running both my and Tony's lives while we've been in icy isolation (and dealing with an avalanche of spam email that I seem to have triggered by setting up an 'out of office' autoreply thingummy). The second is Pete Barr-Watson. I've not yet met Pete (although I now owe him several beers and a slap-up dinner) but he stepped in to host this website when the original hosts went a bit wonky last year, and he's provided us with a huge amount of techy support over the past few weeks; you wouldn't be reading this without him. You're both stars - thank you.
{ Filed under Greenland on June 8th, 2006 | 1 Comment }
"Look",Tony yelled out of the tent door at the wind last night, "either crap or get off the pot". I cracked up laughing at an expression I hadn't heard before, but I agreed entirely with its sentiment. As we turned in for the night, I think we both hoped the weather would give us a decent run for our money rather than continue with the dreary whiteout conditions we'd spent the last few days in. Failing that, it should shove off and let us enjoy our last few days on the icecap.
Surprisingly, the wind took absolutely no notice and we awoke to the same horizontal snow and zero visibility that have been our constant companions of late. We set off for the final push back to our coastal base barely able to see each other. At one point I stopped to readjust my backpack and looking up found that Tony had almost disappeared ahead of me. Losing each other was a distinctly unpleasant prospect as, though I carry the tent, he has the tent poles.
At our third break, about four hours in, we huddled with our backs to the wind, the snow creating mini-vortices around us and blowing back in our faces. We discussed the tricky upcoming task of navigating the narrow strip of ice between a crevasse field and a sheer cliff without being able to see anything, when looking up from my half-eaten energy bar I let out a cry of disbelief (with perhaps a rude word or two thrown in for good measure). Where seconds ago, there had been nothing behind us but swirling white, now there was a mountain range, vast and majestic. We could see again. Greenland, it seemed, knew how to make an entrance.
The next few hours were an unmitigated delight. Being able to see a path ahead made a huge difference to our collective mood, and the descent as we wended our way towards the coast made for some hair-raising skiing moves. As we closed in on our base camp, the mist from the sea rose to greet us, creating phantom mountains and cauldrons of valleys. Wisps of fog hurried across our path, as if late for a meeting, and the snow became laden with moisture.
We reached our destination about an hour ago, awarded ourselves extra chocolate and are now lying cosy in our tent. We can't stray too far from this area over the next two days because of the uncertainty of our pickup time. This depends largely on (you guessed it) the weather - we'll be keeping our fingers crossed for clear skies and helicopter-friendly winds on Friday…
{ Filed under Greenland on June 7th, 2006 | 1 Comment }
Ben Saunders is the youngest person to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton.