Last November, I had a stupid idea. I was due to be in the Lake District to take photos of the World’s Biggest Liar competition. Doing some research, I realised the pub was practically at the foot of the Wrynose Pass, the infamous ‘final kick in the teeth’ of the Fred Whitton sportive, which I’d photographed two years previously.

Naturally, I decided to take my bike. Considering it was November, there was a rather large amount of blind optimism involved. Luckily, I managed to go for a ride on the only dry day in the lakes in the past three months. I decided on a 35 mile route that took in the Honister, Newlands and Winlatter passes, starting and finishing in Keswick.

After the ride I had a sudden realisation – I wasn’t totally knackered. In fact, it seemed my body had barely noticed it, despite the fact I was riding 25% inclines with a 34-25 bottom gear (I’d been racing at Hillingdon – pretty much the opposite of the Lake District). While this sounds impressive, trust me, it didn’t look it. At one point I might have been doing 3kph – essentially a very painful trackstand.

On the descent back into Keswick, my mind started whirring. If I could do that ride without lactic acid burning my legs into submission, stick some appropriate gears on, give it 6 months of training, and I could do the Fred Whitton. This started me thinking – which would be harder, the Fred Whitton, with it’s short but vicious gradients reducing your legs to jelly, or the slow attrition that is climbing in the Alps?

After a call to editor Rob Spedding, I was committed to a Fred Whitton/La Marmotte double. It was at this point my friends started calling me crazy.

 Three months later…

I knew this couldn’t be good for me. It really, really couldn’t be good for me. The world looked different from down here, and I was viewing the tarmac rushing by from a new and interesting angle. I’d just hit a patch of diesel at 60kph and was sliding along on my shoulder. I don’t know how long I slid for, but I know it was long enough for me to look around while I was sliding. Luckily, my winter jacket was astonishingly sturdy (Altura, my skin salutes you!) The windproof front panel was not even affected.

The same could not be said for my winter tights, however. It turns out, I’d put my knee out to control the slide (imagine a superbike rider in a corner). There was a large patch of road rash on my shin, but that didn’t worry me. It was the hole in my knee that concerned me most. It was about 10-15cm wide, and was a few millimeters deep. All hint of skin was gone, and I can only describe its appearance as ‘fleshy’, with a long strip flapping about at the bottom of the wound. Years of BMX had taught me to fall properly, and I have that experience to thank for the lack of broken bones.

After posting this image to Facebook, a BMXer friend of mine (a man who considers roadies with the same disdain that Dennis the Menace has for Walter and the Softies), made the comment ‘Oh dear, you’ve laddered your tights!’

Then I thought about my bike. My brand new Boardman SLR 9.0, which has been loaned to me by the good people at Boardman Bikes for my endeavour. When the front wheel started to disappear to the right (it was on a long and gentle right-hand corner), I’d compensated and gone into a two wheel drift, causing the bike to spin around and fall to its drivetrain side.

Not Tom’s Boardman, not yesterday…

As the road rapidly approached, I’d tucked into a ball, braced against the coming impact without putting an arm out, in fact, sliding along the road, I was still holding on to the drops. The long and the short of it, as my clubmates inspected my bike, was that the only casualty was the mech-hanger, which had been scraped along the tarmac.

After a long, expensive taxi ride back to my home in Peckham (Sunday, rail replacement buses, don’t ask…) I dressed the wound and even took a quick bike ride to Dulwich Park for a coffee. I’d been lucky and I’d be over this quickly, I thought.

Waking up in the morning, however, I realised that while the former was true, the latter certainly wasn’t. My entire leg had swelled up to double its normal size and couldn’t be moved. The Fred Whitton was looking incredibly unlikely. A quick scan of the UK sportive calendar however, and I saw the Wiggle Dragon Ride. While the gradients may lack the vicious punch of the Lake District, the 130 mile length could make up for it.

A month after my crash, I’ve started riding and training again. Thanks to the wonder that is the hydrocolloid gel patch, my knee is almost healed, there’s just a scab the size of a 10p piece left, and the road rash is almost completely gone. After a week taking in around 250 miles, I feel I’m back to the level I was at pre-injury – even better perhaps. And now I’ve just got three short months to build the endurance necessary to ride the 130 miles of the Brecon Beacon’s vertiginous slopes which make up the Dragon Ride. Bring it.

Issue 274 on sale now! Subscribe to Cycling Plus here! Or find us on Apple Newsstand, Zinio, Google Play and search for us on Kindle Newsstand!

Kurt Sorge might have stormed to victory at this year’s Red Bull Rampage, but the most viewed run has perhaps been Cam Zink‘s, thanks to his massive bail halfway across the massive Canyon Gap – from 80ft. He was lucky to walk away from that one – respect!

When searching YouTube for ‘Cam Zink Crash’ however, we realised quote how many massive offs he’s had – there were a fair number of videos of his crashes in big comps. So we thought we’d share them.

Where better to start than with the Rampage crash itself? Cam said on Facebook: “I guess I’m doing OK if this 80ft bail to flat only bruised my heels.” That said, the Contour helmet cam footage of the crash is pretty terrifying.

Cam might have won the Rampage in 2010, but that wasn’t before a big crash during his first run of the finals…

And at the Crankworx Red Bull Joyride this year, he sent a backflip just a little too big…

The GT Mountain of Hell enduro DH race at  Crankworx Les 2 Alpes saw 700 riders fighting their way ice, snow and rocks as they dropped 2.600m in the space of the 20km!

Jerome Clementz took the win in the men’s race, which Anne-Caro Chausson was victorious in the women’s race, making it a French double – check out the video of the action below.

You can read all about MBUK writer Jake Ireland‘s experience of the Mountain Of Hell in a future issue of the magazine, and we’ve got a full feature on Jerome Clementz coming soon too.

Of course, our thoughts are still with Sam Reynolds, who fractured two vertebrae after a particularly nasty crash during the Teva Best Trick contest at the same event. Get fixed quick, Sam!

In this new video by Alex Rankin, Chris Akrigg talks about getting back in the saddle, slowly but surely, and what inspired him to ride bikes in the first place. He also discusses the frustration of his mind being ready to push thngs further when his body isn’t quite there yet…

It’s pretty inspiring viewing and brilliant to see Chris back riding his Mongoose. He has a clear idea of what he needs to do next to really put the crash behind him too.

You can see the whole video below…

Chris Akrigg – Mind Games from chris akrigg on Vimeo.

You can see all the gory Glory action in an MBUK headed toward a newstand near you soon. In the mean time though, I’ve got some serious TLC to administer…

Anyway, I’m back – as you’ve probably guessed. That was easily one of the best trips I’ve ever been on – no question.

We rode everything from SRAM’s test track to 15 minute long flat-out sand and rock terror tracks which spat us out onto full-speed road descents past ancient churches and right onto the beach!

The heat was head-bending though, 35 degrees plus most days. Shade was definitely a valuable comodity and come the middle of the day we had to retreat from the hillside to the relative cool of the communal pool.

The tracks are ultra-gnarly and require a lot of mental re-jigging. The loose, dusty surface doesn’t reward the British norm of ‘front brake on the way in’ braking and you just have to get used to the bike constantly flicking about – it’s tricky at first but really rewarding.

I also had two massive fails; the first was having a big old crash which left me with bruised ribs and a dislocated finger. The second was buying a six-pack of non-alcoholic beer.

It was hot. I didn’t speak the language and I was being rushed! Okay?! Anyway, Pete from Silverfish told me they were the best ones to get. He’d know.

Anyway, here are some ‘behind the scenes’ shots from the trip. You can read full details of our stay with Switchbacks DH in an issue coming your way very soon.

Gee Atherton (Commencal) took his second win of the season in Champery at the weekend to pull to within 13 points of Greg Minnaar (Santa Cruz Syndicate), who finished second.

The rain, which had turned the steep 1500 metre course into a slippery mud slide during qualifying, finally backed off for race day, but the damage had been done and, in some ways, the drying conditions made things worse. As the thick mud began to dry, it clung to bikes and turned to the consistency of peanut butter, doubling the weight of bikes and slowing forward momentum to a crawl.

“It was really tough,” said Atherton. “You know, some races you really enjoy, and others it’s a battle the whole time. This I was just fighting the whole way, the run was hard work; it was like a battle from top to bottom. It was a matter of just finding that line, hanging it out and having it pinned, and not pushing too hard and crashing. I guess I was right on that line and right on the limit the whole time. I was half crashing all the way down the hill, just holding on, and luckily I got it dialed.”

Minnaar had similar comments: “It was like Scalelectrix [model electric cars], it was one big rut the whole way down, so you just had to balance well and ride the rut as best you could.”

Only six riders occupied the Hot Seat during the race, starting with the first rider on the course, Ben Cathro, who held the lead for nearly a third of the field before being unseated by Ruaridh Cunningham (Chain Reaction/Intense). Cunningham knocked an impressive 16-plus seconds off of Cathro’s time, and was in the Hot Seat for 20 riders before his teammate Chris Kovarik bumped him by mere four-hundredths of a second.

“I’m pretty stoked to put that time in on that track,” said Atherton. “I knew Greg had the Hot Seat, and I knew I had my work cut out, and that it was going to be hard to knock him off. It is my second win of the season and I am over the moon right now.”

Minnaar continues to lead the World Cup standings with 830 points but, due to his poor qualifier and Atherton’s win and second place in qualifying, the British rider is only 13 points back with two races to go.

“I’m holding onto the [World Cup] lead by the skin of my teeth at this point,” commented Minnaar, “and with two to go, it’s not much of a gap. Gee and I will have to fight it out right to the end.”

For more race reports and results, go to Cyclingnews.com

You can follow BikeRadar on Twitter at twitter.com/bikeradar and on Facebook at facebook.com/BikeRadar.