Ironhorse Rollapaluza night!

Last night was the event of the century. Roller racing came to Bristol for the first time and it was at MUD DOCK. When we first planned this we thought it was going to be a gentle evening of fun and frolics with a few of our friends and general public. How wrong were we, it was packed out! Ii have never seen the upstairs so jammed with people. An awesome night where the competitive spirit of every one came out. I had more fun in the crowd than when I was competing.

Picture this, A massive crowd in front of you, 2 bikes on roller jigs, lights in your eyes, your heart pounding, then the infamous countdown, 3, 2, 1, GO! 20 odd seconds later and your legs are like jelly and your lungs burning. It's Rollapaluza. The 500m sprint on a fixed wheeled bike is gruelling. the first 250m was hard and then the next 250 was just painful. Its all about technique not power.

The fastest time of the night was 19.75 seconds which is a fraction of a second of CHRIS HOY's time of 19.44 This was achieved by our very own MUD DOCK mechanic and DMR rider DUNCAN FERRIS. He battled it out through all of the rounds smashing his opponents every time. He made it to the final where the 500m bench mark was moved to 1 kilometer. Now it was about tactics. Duncan was in the lead to begin with but with 250m to go he started to fade and Marcus Mumford started to gain the lead. It was neck and neck with 100m to go but Marcus Mumford managed to edge his was to victory as they past the finish. Duncan got second but still he did manage to get into the top ten fastest riders ever to race. Out of 7000 contestants who have taken part in this event over the past 18 months only 9 people have gone sub 20 seconds. Duncan slots into 7th place and makes that number 10.

The women's event was won by Sarah Barber who stormed the rest of the competition. The final was just as exciting as the men's, gurning was also present!

Well done to every one who took part. And I hope that Sarah Barber and Marcus Mumford enjoy their new IRONHORSE TRANSIT track bikes.

It was an excellent night and I believe enjoyed by all, so when is the next one going to be I hear you say! Well, keep an eye on the MUD DOCK website for details.

I'm going to be training for next one: 23.17 seconds was a bit poor.

G