Our target Solo races next season are:
Twentyfour12 – the 24 hour and both of the 12 hour races
Mountain Mayhem 24 hour
National Champs 24 hour (if it happens)
Relentless 24 hour
Dusk ’til Dawn 12 hour
Torq 12 hour
Bristol 12 hour

As usual we will be doing a load of other enduro and xc racing in our build up for these target races.

Clive will again be racing all over Europe and working with a load of magazines, Dave going for a Guiness book of records long-distance offroad record and myself attempting to double-up the West Highland Way in under 24 hours and later in the season establish a new route (which will be the 7th ride in the Seven Deadly Spins series) and record for riding the entire length of the UK offroad.

We are also doing our usual work with the websites and magazines and backing all of this up by working with a UK based movie maker and filming the whole lot to make a DVD about our race season and the lead up to my route and record attempt (a bit like the U.S. movies “24 Solo” or “Offroad to Athens”).

You can keep up to date with the team on their website

Rich Rothwell is currently in Canada to compete in the 24 Hours of Adrenalin World Solo Championships and is writing about the experience for British Cycling. Read all about his experiences here.

Josh Ibbett recently completed a 5 day road stage race in South Wales, took 5th at the Thetford enduro a week later, and will this weekend be racing in the solo category in the daytime 12 hour at the Bontrager Twentyfour12. Dave will be there to support him.

Clive is in the Alps racing and took 8th in the Sprint Avalanche on Alp Duez.

Rob is going to attempt an out-and-back on the Pennine Bridleway which has started to get some coverage already here.

Dave Rob and Josh

Dave Buchanan reports on team IronHorse Extreme 7ds in the Bristol Bike Fest 12 hour solo event.

“Three of us did the 12hr solo at Bristol Bike Fest.It’s always nice to have a foreboding weather forecast and everyone was expecting a mud bath. They got it!

Rob, Josh and I lined up for the fisty cuffs “Le Mans” start in the wet grassy field. There were hundreds of us aiming to get away and pick up our bikes on a doubletrack 300metres away. The hooter went, and the friends that I had been standing next to dissapeared as I got engulfed in blood lusting, baying animals. I didn’t see them again and I got to our bike monitor (Josh’ Dad) to see that mine was the only one left, so I took it and got going.

This was going to be a proper muddy race. Some bits did dry out and some dry lines developed, but other parts stayed just as, if not more, slippy. It was chaos on the first few singletrack sections as normally happens at these events, but the mud compounded things.

People were falling off, usually due to the mud, all the way through the race. It was full of comedy value, but you knew fine and well that some of these guys were hurting themselves. Someone would slip on an off-camber sections as you rode around them on the outside (on a few really wide sections) and you could hear the air rushing out of their lungs as they got the smackdown treatment.

“You ok?” Well, you have to ask.

gasp, wheeze, splutter…

“Yes, keep going.”

So I did, about 150 times.

I’m so glad that I can handle a bit of mud and slime, because the bike hardly went straight for the whole of the race. Well, to be clear, it hardly went straight for the bottom 3rd of the course because it stayed wet and “exciting.”

Marvellous!

I was drinking too much for the temperature of the day and was stopping to pee every lap, so I revised my plan and drank a bit less. Perfect.

Hour 5 and my right foot felt all floppy. I stopped to have a look and was surprised to find that my cleat was loose. Really loose. I was close to losing it. 5 or so minutes later and I had fixed it back in place, rounded one of the allen bolts off and muttered a small and silent prayer that it would stay in place.

I’ve finally found my pace. Having talked to my Coach last week he had suggested a pace that I should aim for. But it made me ride ragged, and my legs hurt. So I dropped my pace by a bit and settled in. It was my 24hr pace, it felt good, and I got stronger throughout the race. At 8hrs my long distance gaze started- I was in the mode!

At 11hrs 30min (the race was started late due to traffic issues) I was just about ready to keep going for another 12hrs. Well I would have been if my upper body hadn’t been battered to pieces by the course.

Josh was 2nd solo, Rob was 2nd singlespeed solo, and I was 4th in the solo.

I think that I did 17 or 18 laps last year in the dry and superfast conditions that prevailed then. I did 17 this year, and that “could” have been 18 if I could have fished about 10mins back during the day, but hey!

Well chuffed.

Dragon Road Sportive next week. I’m not too great on a road bike, but it’s good training.

After that, a few weeks solitary training and then 24/12!

I think I’ll be ready, just don’t tell anyone else.”

Also Rob Lee was featured in MBR Magazine.

They have  kindly let us share a PDF copy of the article with you:

Rob Lee MBR PDF 1

Rob Lee MBR PDF 2

Rob Lee MBR PDF 3

Rob Lee MBR PDF 4

Rob Lee MBR PDF 5

South Wales Echo Article PDF

Scottish Herald Article PDF

Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember to check out the 7 deadly spins website (http://www.the7ds.com) for more info on this years event!

Rob Lee, of the IronHorse Extreme race team, has just announced that the Seven Deadly Spins project he and the team have been working at over the cold Winter months is ready to go live. Action kicks-off this weekend with a non-stop attempt at 7ds4 – a North to South crossing of Wales from coast to coast – and the launch of a new team and 7ds website www.the7ds.com.

New signing to the team, Dave Buchanan, will attempt to cover the Welsh C2C route that he designed in a time as close as possible to the golden 24 hours marker. He is said to be very pleased to be taking his part in the launch of the Seven Deadly Spins and can’t wait to get down to business this weekend.

The route starts outside the gates of Caernarfon Castle on the North coast and then makes it’s way across 214 miles of spectacular Welsh countryside to finish at the “Celtic Ring” in Cardiff Bay. Taking in many of the classic trails of the Welsh interior, combined with some man-made delights at various trails centres along the way, Dave hopes to have created a “must do” route that has something for everyone. Dave will attempt to ride the entire route completely unsupported and will carry everything he needs except for water, which he will collect from standpipes along the route.

Thanks to the latest project sponsors SPOT – http://www.findmespot.eu/en/ – Dave will be equiped with the SPOT Satellite Messenger and so the whole attempt will be available to watch live on Google Earth. So while you may not want to ride that far yourself in one go you may like to see just how far he’s got at some point over the course of the weekend!

Just one week after Dave attempts to ride 7ds4 across Wales, Rob Lee will be attempting 7ds2 up in the Scottish Borders. Rob will be looking to ride the 7 Red Graded trails of the the 7Stanes, and all the road sections inbetween, in a sub-24 hour time. To avoid the obvious possibility of congestion potential within the trail centres his ride is scheduled to start on Monday 30th of March and finish some time the next morning. Again, progress will be available for all to track online but, unlike the Welsh ride, will combine both Road and Offroad so Rob will swap bikes between the disciplines.

To celebrate the launch of the project the team are pleased to reveal the new website: www.the7ds.com which is being built for them by another new sponsor http://www.chichesterdesign.co.uk/. The new website hosts both the team IronHorse Extreme site and the Seven Deadly Spins and has already started attracting traffic despite being kept “under wraps” for a while.

Both Dave and Rob have chosen to use the IronHorse MKIII as their mountain bike of choice from the IronHorse stable and will each be equipped with the latest MaXx D lights from Exposure.

Keep an eye on the 7ds website www.the7ds.com for latest updates, the tracker page location will be revealed shortly before it goes live.