St Ives CC Press Report

19th July 2010

St Ives Cycling Club rider, Steve Halsall, picked up his first win of the season at a rain soaked mountain bike race in Scotland on Saturday. Riding in a 10 hour endurance event, the appropriately named '10 At Kirroughtree', Steve battled against 126 other riders in the toughest solo category.

Based at the 7 Stones Trail Centre near Galloway Forest Park just outside the small town of Newton Stewart, the course has a reputation for being very technical and more challenging than other endurance circuits. This year a new section of undulating single track had been added with difficult tree rooted descents and plenty of rock and shale to test skills to the limit.

Unlike last year, the Scottish weather played its part in adding to the race atmosphere, heavy rain on the 5th lap made the conditions very hard going and gave the technical riders like Steve a distinct advantage. Even for the top riders, lap times slowed by around 4 minutes, although Steve enjoyed himself in the tricky conditions; "Having been here before I knew what the course was like, it's so much tougher than some endurance events, which I love, that's why I keep coming back" he said afterwards.

Steve was loyaly supported throughout his 10 hour ordeal by his partner, Emma, who was on hand at the end of every lap to administer fluids and energy gels; "Emma was amazing" he said, "Every lap she would be ready with the bottles and a bucket of water to throw at the bike to clean the mud off. I would have been completely stuffed without her".

As dusk fell Steve had completed his 9 laps in 9 hours 36 minutes, just two minutes ahead of 2nd place rider rival Richard Rothwell, riding for Enigma Exposure.