After the obligatory 40 min wait, the ever cheerful Tobin went off to make ‘the Exchange’ with Delaney, if Delaney had survived. McAuliffe and Richardson did normal CampMaster things, like patrolling the perimeter and checking the cargo licenses of passing freighters. It was noted that the tractors were roughly on track for 24laps in 24hrs, which was considered (by the tractors) to be ‘not bad’ for a fist crack at the ‘puffer. The Motorhome across the car park was full of a similar quad and buy full, I mean the whole team was currently in it. later in the event we discovered why. Needless to say even at that early stage, the Tractors were aware that this event is a hard one at the best of times but very very hard if you are struggling for any reason, and sympathy and respect is due to all competitors having a tough time of it.
As Richardson was illustrating the finer points of why McAuliffe perhaps shouldn’t have used Tobin’s new Ti mug as a fire poker, Delaney returned through the barbed wire.
in Wexfords version of Queens Irish, he disappeared into his office with a light sabre to fight the walrus hoards. 15mins later, Having completed his epic battle against his tripled hopped hangover and Diavola pizza, he emerged with a big grin on his face to tell us all about his lap. Delaney had learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed himself doing it. Despite the regulation offs and a few extra bits of walking than where perhaps necessary, he had got around in regulation time and was rightly proud of himself. Richardson, a sharped eyed young gentleman, asked his first question.
“How was the grip?”
In full PHD mode, Delaney gave a long and complicated answer about lasers, Christmas trees and orphaned lambs, which effectively boiled down to:
“Non-existant to Fucking Slippy”
Richardson then wandered over to Delaney's steed and offered up;
“and what pressure have you got in your tyres?”
Delaney then started to explain his tyre pressure choice by way of diagrams and a brief introduction to how gravity works, before tailing off as Richardson ignored him and just repeatedly squeezed his front tyre. This made Delaney concede;
“I had no idea so I just left it as it was”
What Richardson had noticed was that on Delaneys return to Base Van Camp, there was little ‘give’ in the tyres, on Delaneys rigid single speed….. In fact as a true trackie he had managed somehow to have around 50-60psi in them, both.
Laughing, Richardson informed him that he had about 16 psi in his front wheel and 20psi in the rear and that Delaney’s tyres “Aren’t tubs mate” Delaney, slightly embarrassed conceded that he probably would have found more grip on some Pista CS’s.
After all first laps had been completed, the routine of one lap each, 3 hours off was established. The 3hr gap enabled the tractors to do 3 things. 1 - get changed into all owned clothes again, 2 - eat as much possible because it was all dead good snack food and 3 - sit around, getting cold/hot/cold/hot depending on how much the fire was poked and how close it was sat too. McAuliffe had been a particularly verciferous fire poker, largely due to his feeling that, as the slowest member of the team, he had to ‘add value’ in some way. This had caused him to cover his face in quite a lot of ash and soot, obviously the other tractors didn’t tell him this and he did his next laps looking like he had added warpaint to his battledress. This coupled with his urban camo MTB shorts gave him the look of someone who might work in a shoreditch shoe shop, or be an anarcho-scummetal-squatter, but you can’t quite tell.
As the afternoon wore on, the sun started to recede from the heady heights it had never reached during the day and with it the temperature dropped. The weather at the Puffer is what makes it special. By all accounts its always an extreme of some sort, apart from ‘extremely hot’, but this years weather extreme could be classed as ‘chilly, with a hint of Artic blast’. Luckily the wind was light and even in the watchtowers of Festung VanMaster, it was just freezing and not bloody windy and freezing. Even in the inky afternoon sun, everything was freezing. Our water supply had to be kept either in the camp kettle, jet boil or footwell of the van to keep it liquid, our shoes were freezing if they were off our feet and most things became solid, with a layer of frost developing on them, within 5-10 minutes of them being outside of the van/our hands. Here an old soldier met its death. McAuliffe’s veteran campaigning FHHV water bottle gave up the fight, as he went for a swing and the whole mouthpiece cracked away into a thousand plastic shards. After a minutes silence and the Last Post, we got on with it. Its what Ze would have wanted.
Eating was going well. Tobin, after another consistent lap felt that we needed to eat and drink more than we thought we did. this was music to Delaney and McAuliffe’s ears. Richardson was off on a hot lap so the skinniest member of the team was missing out. Everything pasta wise was going in kettles, jet boils and Ti Mugs, and it was all delicious. The Tent Expedition meals lived up to their billing and with a bit of hot water and love, were turned into something that you would happily have at home. In fact Delaney claimed the last one at the end of the event while muttering something about “Date night” and “lucky girl”. The one downside to this pasta-in-everything maelstrom was that when you got a cup of tea, it tended to taste of pasta and have the remains of the last persons cup a soup in it. But if anything, it added to proceedings. We had been pretty good in having boiling water ready for the returning riders and everyone was content with their lot and the sterling work of the camp kettle
As we had all now done at least a lap and were either on, or heading out on our second, we were aware that the course conditions were changing. As we could now tell each other the truth, what we told each other became more valuable, at least in our minds. In reality, the conditions and course changed so quickly, and our different abilities, interpretations and ‘styles’ meant that whatever we told each other was academic and that we all fell off in different places anyway. The one thing we could agree on though was that it was fun and that even now, we would do it again.
Some rides haunt you afterwards and you eventually decide to do them again because of the afterglow and achievement, or guilt and burning sense of unfinished business. Some rides are just great fun so you will always do them again if you can. Some rides are so bat shit mental, challenging and unique that you have to do them again because they poke you in the eye and demand you do it again and how dare you think otherwise. The puffer falls into all three of these catagories.
As the sun was now decidedly on the turn, for his second lap, McAuliffe strapped on the USE lights as he would be riding the sundowner lap. After meeting Richardson for ‘the exchange’ he set off into the gloaming, cocktail in hand. The Fire road climb was still a massive party, someone had let a flare off on 80’s banger corner and there was ‘Build me up buttercup’ bouncing out of speakers and across the forest. Now armed with less confidence and more useless course knowledge, he was skeptical of his ability to master the first part of the course, but was looking forward to the second ‘easier’ section, post Bridge of Thighs. With the fire road climb negotiated, McAuliffe whizzed past the marshals hut and over the small bridge. The section of single track that had been a bus stop queue on his last lap was empty, so why not try and ride it, and so he did. Surprising himself, he rode the whole thing. Hauling up on the lowest gear like an ancient trawler and carefully selecting his front wheel placement, he dragged his confidence back onto the trail and started to inflate it. Even mastering the treacherous ‘Slab I would normally walk down’ section. (Admittedly by nearly falling off, but in doing so finding a new ’Narnia line’ through the trees to the left of it) This inflation continued all the way around until the Bridge of Thighs, when a poor overtaking (yep, overtaking) manouver meant a small rest on a snow bank and a run up hill with the bike, The Marshall at the top of the hill fairly and squarely stated “Its not fucking cross you know mate”, with a wink.
Now onto the ‘easier’ second half of the course and with 30 mins to make it back to get in under the hour, McAuliffe gave it the beans, sensing that this would be the lap when he managed to dip under the hour. Of course with great speed and great inflation comes great frustration. The back of the course had now become the section that was harder as darkness fell. Upon reaching Rock view, after following two single speeders chatting, as they tore up the single track slope, the massive lights were turned on and a new challenge found. Even with the incredibly powerful lighting, McAuliffe struggled and despite no get downs or hairy moments, it was a slog for the man with the Rambo face paint. Eventually tagging onto a similar paced group he wound his way back to the start, deflated and a bit dejected, the self imposed hour lap time passing away before his ashen eyes somewhere up in the trees above the transfer tent. Upon making ‘the exchange’ with Delaney he trundled home past lap boards and ‘do a wheelie’ signs to have a strong word with himself, a cup of pasta tea and good poo.
Upon arrival through the airlock into Station VastermaN, he found Tobin and Richardson merrily wittering away about the crazy bikes that had been seen (twisted Ti Lynsky anyone?), Single speed Green Stanton man, how it was possible to be that fast on a fat bike, how great the event was generally and how we should plan the darkness laps. It was decided that as sleep should be factored in to the 24hrs, we would do two lap stints through the night. This would then go back to one lappers after dawn. This plan gave us all 6 hours to try and get some sleep, or poke the fire, find fire wood and talk about how cold it was. Delaney was out on the course so had no part in this discussion, but if you start TCR, its expected that you will agree with almost anything.
After the normal brew up and lap dissection, we realised that we were running out of two important things; Water and Wood. Water could be found up at the nice warm main tent, so that was easy to fix on a 5l bottle transfer, from incoming to outgoing rider, but wood was a bit harder to find. In the dark, in a car park, when its baltic and theres snow everywhere. Un-deterred, some building waste was soon found in a far corner of the site (Next to the portaloo and behind the full motorhome). This find of skirting boards, door surrounds and other bits of crap was invaluable. Some of the GluLam burnt with a blue tinge, but hey ho, it was warm and who needed lungs anyway.
A miracle had also happened. The walrus portaloo had magically found its flush, it would appear that what ever Delaney had forced down it, coupled with the temperature falling towards -10, had loosened the flush mechanism off and a blue chemically flood now greeted all our fear ridden ablutions. Wood finding and standing naked in a dark freezing van while swearing at socks had passed much of the time since McAuliffe has returned from his lap and Tobin had set off to meet Delaney for ‘the exchange’ that would set off the two lap stints. Upon his return through StarGate Van, Delaney was euphoric;
Once again Richardson and McAuliffe settled down to a good 15mins of animal noises and satanic screams from the portaloo. It was now properly dark, properly cold and properly funny.
@Rob
After the obligatory 40 min wait, the ever cheerful Tobin went off to make ‘the Exchange’ with Delaney, if Delaney had survived. McAuliffe and Richardson did normal CampMaster things, like patrolling the perimeter and checking the cargo licenses of passing freighters. It was noted that the tractors were roughly on track for 24laps in 24hrs, which was considered (by the tractors) to be ‘not bad’ for a fist crack at the ‘puffer. The Motorhome across the car park was full of a similar quad and buy full, I mean the whole team was currently in it. later in the event we discovered why. Needless to say even at that early stage, the Tractors were aware that this event is a hard one at the best of times but very very hard if you are struggling for any reason, and sympathy and respect is due to all competitors having a tough time of it.
As Richardson was illustrating the finer points of why McAuliffe perhaps shouldn’t have used Tobin’s new Ti mug as a fire poker, Delaney returned through the barbed wire.
After declaring;
“THATISFUKIN'MAZINWHENISMYNEXTLAPWHYHAVENTIDONETHISBEFOREHOLDONINEEDAPOO”
in Wexfords version of Queens Irish, he disappeared into his office with a light sabre to fight the walrus hoards. 15mins later, Having completed his epic battle against his tripled hopped hangover and Diavola pizza, he emerged with a big grin on his face to tell us all about his lap. Delaney had learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed himself doing it. Despite the regulation offs and a few extra bits of walking than where perhaps necessary, he had got around in regulation time and was rightly proud of himself. Richardson, a sharped eyed young gentleman, asked his first question.
“How was the grip?”
In full PHD mode, Delaney gave a long and complicated answer about lasers, Christmas trees and orphaned lambs, which effectively boiled down to:
“Non-existant to Fucking Slippy”
Richardson then wandered over to Delaney's steed and offered up;
“and what pressure have you got in your tyres?”
Delaney then started to explain his tyre pressure choice by way of diagrams and a brief introduction to how gravity works, before tailing off as Richardson ignored him and just repeatedly squeezed his front tyre. This made Delaney concede;
“I had no idea so I just left it as it was”
What Richardson had noticed was that on Delaneys return to Base Van Camp, there was little ‘give’ in the tyres, on Delaneys rigid single speed….. In fact as a true trackie he had managed somehow to have around 50-60psi in them, both.
Laughing, Richardson informed him that he had about 16 psi in his front wheel and 20psi in the rear and that Delaney’s tyres “Aren’t tubs mate” Delaney, slightly embarrassed conceded that he probably would have found more grip on some Pista CS’s.
After all first laps had been completed, the routine of one lap each, 3 hours off was established. The 3hr gap enabled the tractors to do 3 things. 1 - get changed into all owned clothes again, 2 - eat as much possible because it was all dead good snack food and 3 - sit around, getting cold/hot/cold/hot depending on how much the fire was poked and how close it was sat too. McAuliffe had been a particularly verciferous fire poker, largely due to his feeling that, as the slowest member of the team, he had to ‘add value’ in some way. This had caused him to cover his face in quite a lot of ash and soot, obviously the other tractors didn’t tell him this and he did his next laps looking like he had added warpaint to his battledress. This coupled with his urban camo MTB shorts gave him the look of someone who might work in a shoreditch shoe shop, or be an anarcho-scummetal-squatter, but you can’t quite tell.
As the afternoon wore on, the sun started to recede from the heady heights it had never reached during the day and with it the temperature dropped. The weather at the Puffer is what makes it special. By all accounts its always an extreme of some sort, apart from ‘extremely hot’, but this years weather extreme could be classed as ‘chilly, with a hint of Artic blast’. Luckily the wind was light and even in the watchtowers of Festung VanMaster, it was just freezing and not bloody windy and freezing. Even in the inky afternoon sun, everything was freezing. Our water supply had to be kept either in the camp kettle, jet boil or footwell of the van to keep it liquid, our shoes were freezing if they were off our feet and most things became solid, with a layer of frost developing on them, within 5-10 minutes of them being outside of the van/our hands. Here an old soldier met its death. McAuliffe’s veteran campaigning FHHV water bottle gave up the fight, as he went for a swing and the whole mouthpiece cracked away into a thousand plastic shards. After a minutes silence and the Last Post, we got on with it. Its what Ze would have wanted.
Eating was going well. Tobin, after another consistent lap felt that we needed to eat and drink more than we thought we did. this was music to Delaney and McAuliffe’s ears. Richardson was off on a hot lap so the skinniest member of the team was missing out. Everything pasta wise was going in kettles, jet boils and Ti Mugs, and it was all delicious. The Tent Expedition meals lived up to their billing and with a bit of hot water and love, were turned into something that you would happily have at home. In fact Delaney claimed the last one at the end of the event while muttering something about “Date night” and “lucky girl”. The one downside to this pasta-in-everything maelstrom was that when you got a cup of tea, it tended to taste of pasta and have the remains of the last persons cup a soup in it. But if anything, it added to proceedings. We had been pretty good in having boiling water ready for the returning riders and everyone was content with their lot and the sterling work of the camp kettle
As we had all now done at least a lap and were either on, or heading out on our second, we were aware that the course conditions were changing. As we could now tell each other the truth, what we told each other became more valuable, at least in our minds. In reality, the conditions and course changed so quickly, and our different abilities, interpretations and ‘styles’ meant that whatever we told each other was academic and that we all fell off in different places anyway. The one thing we could agree on though was that it was fun and that even now, we would do it again.
Some rides haunt you afterwards and you eventually decide to do them again because of the afterglow and achievement, or guilt and burning sense of unfinished business. Some rides are just great fun so you will always do them again if you can. Some rides are so bat shit mental, challenging and unique that you have to do them again because they poke you in the eye and demand you do it again and how dare you think otherwise. The puffer falls into all three of these catagories.
As the sun was now decidedly on the turn, for his second lap, McAuliffe strapped on the USE lights as he would be riding the sundowner lap. After meeting Richardson for ‘the exchange’ he set off into the gloaming, cocktail in hand. The Fire road climb was still a massive party, someone had let a flare off on 80’s banger corner and there was ‘Build me up buttercup’ bouncing out of speakers and across the forest. Now armed with less confidence and more useless course knowledge, he was skeptical of his ability to master the first part of the course, but was looking forward to the second ‘easier’ section, post Bridge of Thighs. With the fire road climb negotiated, McAuliffe whizzed past the marshals hut and over the small bridge. The section of single track that had been a bus stop queue on his last lap was empty, so why not try and ride it, and so he did. Surprising himself, he rode the whole thing. Hauling up on the lowest gear like an ancient trawler and carefully selecting his front wheel placement, he dragged his confidence back onto the trail and started to inflate it. Even mastering the treacherous ‘Slab I would normally walk down’ section. (Admittedly by nearly falling off, but in doing so finding a new ’Narnia line’ through the trees to the left of it) This inflation continued all the way around until the Bridge of Thighs, when a poor overtaking (yep, overtaking) manouver meant a small rest on a snow bank and a run up hill with the bike, The Marshall at the top of the hill fairly and squarely stated “Its not fucking cross you know mate”, with a wink.
Now onto the ‘easier’ second half of the course and with 30 mins to make it back to get in under the hour, McAuliffe gave it the beans, sensing that this would be the lap when he managed to dip under the hour. Of course with great speed and great inflation comes great frustration. The back of the course had now become the section that was harder as darkness fell. Upon reaching Rock view, after following two single speeders chatting, as they tore up the single track slope, the massive lights were turned on and a new challenge found. Even with the incredibly powerful lighting, McAuliffe struggled and despite no get downs or hairy moments, it was a slog for the man with the Rambo face paint. Eventually tagging onto a similar paced group he wound his way back to the start, deflated and a bit dejected, the self imposed hour lap time passing away before his ashen eyes somewhere up in the trees above the transfer tent. Upon making ‘the exchange’ with Delaney he trundled home past lap boards and ‘do a wheelie’ signs to have a strong word with himself, a cup of pasta tea and good poo.
Upon arrival through the airlock into Station VastermaN, he found Tobin and Richardson merrily wittering away about the crazy bikes that had been seen (twisted Ti Lynsky anyone?), Single speed Green Stanton man, how it was possible to be that fast on a fat bike, how great the event was generally and how we should plan the darkness laps. It was decided that as sleep should be factored in to the 24hrs, we would do two lap stints through the night. This would then go back to one lappers after dawn. This plan gave us all 6 hours to try and get some sleep, or poke the fire, find fire wood and talk about how cold it was. Delaney was out on the course so had no part in this discussion, but if you start TCR, its expected that you will agree with almost anything.
After the normal brew up and lap dissection, we realised that we were running out of two important things; Water and Wood. Water could be found up at the nice warm main tent, so that was easy to fix on a 5l bottle transfer, from incoming to outgoing rider, but wood was a bit harder to find. In the dark, in a car park, when its baltic and theres snow everywhere. Un-deterred, some building waste was soon found in a far corner of the site (Next to the portaloo and behind the full motorhome). This find of skirting boards, door surrounds and other bits of crap was invaluable. Some of the GluLam burnt with a blue tinge, but hey ho, it was warm and who needed lungs anyway.
A miracle had also happened. The walrus portaloo had magically found its flush, it would appear that what ever Delaney had forced down it, coupled with the temperature falling towards -10, had loosened the flush mechanism off and a blue chemically flood now greeted all our fear ridden ablutions. Wood finding and standing naked in a dark freezing van while swearing at socks had passed much of the time since McAuliffe has returned from his lap and Tobin had set off to meet Delaney for ‘the exchange’ that would set off the two lap stints. Upon his return through StarGate Van, Delaney was euphoric;
“ILOVERIDINGINTHEDARKEVENWHENIFELLOFFILOVEDITINEEDTOGOFORAPOO”
Once again Richardson and McAuliffe settled down to a good 15mins of animal noises and satanic screams from the portaloo. It was now properly dark, properly cold and properly funny.