the beginning...

At the age of 27 i decided that i wanted to ride again.. it'd been a good 10 years since i last put tread to trail... i had just quit smoking and wasn't the build of your average racer...

It was agreed between my self and my now fiancee that a 'budget' bike was all that was allowed to see if i stuck at it.... Halfords + £250 = one average mountain bike.

I rode as much as i could, at weekends with a great group of guys from Mtb Britain forum... first few rides were par for the course.. pain and suffering a plenty and generally being crap. I rode more and more and eventually the bike exceeded its useful life...

Luckily this coincided with my desire to try my hand at racing... i had raced when i rode bikes in my teens, never really set the world alight but did enjoy the race within a race you would usually have with riders of equal ability...

The new bike was more up market hardtail.. delivered the week before my first race.. BHF chainbreaker 4 hour endurance... a field of about 80 riders saw a 10th place finish.. followed a few weeks later by Dusk till dawn 2006 12 hour race and a 22nd place...

Over the winter much training was done...

This year led to some road racing gaining my 3rd cat license, a great trip to race Transportugal stage race... 1000km in 8 days... after a crappy start managed 14th place, and many other races.. some good.. some really bad.

Up to the present... just 3 weeks ago i raced Dusk till Dawn a year on.. 3rd place in the solo category ( missing 2nd by 11 seconds)..

At the age of 29 i have returned to University to study an Msc... with a mortgage and bills all monies are spoken for... the plan was to hang up the race bikes for a year and pick up again after graduation but after having a couple of good results at the end of my season i just can't bring myself to sit back and let the racing world pass me by..

So the creation of the shoestring racing... this isn't a club or a team more a way of getting the job done.... just trying my hardest to get racing.. selling old to buy new, great friends and a supportive fiancee are allowing a start to be made.

This is a highlighted history of my riding which i may or may not ellaborate on further.. so many great people to thank so little time...

I will try and update as much as allows... training as always is being done and racing proper starts 11th November.. Thetford winter series beckons..