The Gravel Rally: A mental battle with a surprise result!

I travelled to north Wales to take part in the Gravel Rally, an off-road adventure put on by the organisers of Pan Celtic rally. Though I’ve not ridden the Pan Celtic, I was drawn to this event by a sense it would be fun and friendly. The PC crew are no corporate entity and the lever of banter amongst organisers and riders was testament to this.

The route was really tough; long, looooooong timed off-road stages with transition segments through villages including Bets-y-Coed. There were plenty of gravel fire roads but also some rooty, narrow single track, chunky boulders, mud, grass and puddles. Obviously any descents and technical bits were my favourite…. the climbs, not so much!

I was in a bit of a funny head space for this race but I’m so glad I pushed on through that and finished the race.

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morning I hope you’re doing really really well I am in my van in North Wales just peering out the window at these ominous looking rain clouds I’m here to ride the gravel rally which is an event put on by the organizers of pan Celtic race and I’m well I’m feeling a bit weird about it okay hear me out so last night was the night stage and I had a few issues I didn’t film it for you because it just would have been just totally dark I mean it was actually pitch black for much of the race um and the issues were these I couldn’t mount a light on my bars because I couldn’t get a light Mount that would fit my Envy flat top bars so I had to just go with one on my helmet and unfortunately that one on my helmet was pointing far too much down I couldn’t just point it up whilst I was riding because it it was there’s an angle that they will go at and I couldn’t Flip It Up anymore so basically for a large percentage of the race I really really really couldn’t see where I was going I mean really really I was just basically riding blind down these big gravel roads in the forest and the only time I could see was if I managed to catch up with or be caught by another Rider and then I could kind of share the beam of their light I had to ride around like that with my chin up in order to try and see even a tiny bit of the trail needless to say it’s quite difficult to ride your bike like that the other issue was um for some reason I wasn’t getting cues from my Garmin so I kept missing the turning and then cuz it was also raining I found it quite hard to see the Garmin I just find it hard hard to nav anyway don’t I but I had a particularly difficult time yesterday this is a long- winded intro sorry hear me out the race went off hard I went as hard as I could at the start and I quickly felt like I wasn’t fit enough I wasn’t able to stay with the people that I wanted to stay with and this whole scenario started making me feel like I was just really rubbish so at the end of the race I checked my time it’s pretty pants and it’s just made me feel like I’m not very good and unfortunately my enjoyment of things is quite tangled up with feeling like I’m good at them and it’s put me in a bit of a bad State of Mind for today’s race which is annoying because it’s just meant to be fun so basically I’ve woken up feeling like I totally suck even though a large reason why I got such a poor time yesterday is because of my equipment my light and you know the nav and everything but yeah just woking up feeling a bit like Anyway now I’ve got that out of the way let me tell you about what we’re going to be doing today there’s a couple of route options there’s the long route which is 135 km with over 3,000 M of climbing and then there’s the short route which is 98 km and about 2,000 M of climbing now because I feel like I suck I think I’m going to do the short one rather than torture myself on the long one I think the short one will be quite um difficult enough it’s not looking like great weather out there and um I just want to have as much fun as I can without making myself feel like a suck so let’s get geared up let’s get out there and let’s see what today has for us hopefully I can get my brain out of this annoying place it’s wound up in yeah it is the mental side of stuff is something I struggle with to be honest don’t talk about it much on here maybe I’ll talk about it today we’ll see let’s just go ride bikes [Music] [Music] [Music] so the way it works today there are time stages which you can race and then there are transition stages which um will just take you from the end of the time segment to the start of the next one and the idea is you can ride those with your friends and then ride the timed ones that at your own speed so is this a timed bit oh God on it now just now saying that um we’ve hit the first time segment now it’s Upper Hill I’m not so good at climbing and I’m holding a camera that’s my excuse up up up I don’t know how long this stage is but maybe should have taken my coat [Music] off it’s so steep look could pedal so that was sector one I have very few good things to say about about that it was pure evil um I’ve got a 42 Toth cassette on the back and I was just wishing I had the 46 tooth I mean it still would have been steep but God my Cadence must have been about 40 or something yeah it was Savage anyway first one done possibly I’m a little overdressed let’s carry on [Music] the cener is incredible [Music] wow it’s really really really nice out here could have to stop and take a look around I was just chilling out and enjoying that here’s another time segment yeah I think I just like being out in the middle of nowhere not necessarily the racing part of this I just like the scenery but anyway let’s give it to [Music] go think I’m just going to ride it [Music] [Music] actually quite fun this segment cuz there’s some LLY downhill obviously I couldn’t record that for you though which is a bummer we’re climbing again my CP tonight there go oh my God this is so [Music] hard this is so [Music] hard oh God oh God oh dear this let’s [Music] on that little segment there oh good lord it was so so so so hard so so hard the absolute loveliest thing about it was there was a little cheering squad on the really Savage bit and this little girl was like go go go Aly Aly Aly do your best Elliot honestly it brought tears to my eye brilliant oh look here’s the end of the time stage what a shame my saddle bag fell off in the middle of it it’s a full body workout oh you’re very kind thanks thank you okay that was stage two and stage two was very bloody difficult oo a feed Zone pit stop whatever you want to call it hooray I’m toast I’m telling you got it thank you so much that’s my chair a bloody love too okay sector four it looks so so hard and I’ve just met a couple of mountain bikers who have written down this they said coming down down is fun quite technical going up well they think we’re crazy I can already see people walking I mean I can see so well yeah that might be me in a sec wish me luck oh yes Cy wow Savage I mean I’m not sure I could get up this on a mountain bike even it’s really steep it’s really loose ebike yeah I do it it’s hard just pushing actually [Music] woohoo this is so silly that was actually really fun got very wet feet now though [Music] [Music] update my um inser 360 is run out of battery so I’m doing it on my phone I have got snacks coffee and let’s see how far we’ve got left to go uh so we’re down 58 km 1300 M of climbing and I think the so-called short route is 95 km so we still got a ton of climbing to do um but there was the initial I’m going to do it every time we go up a hill I think oh I hate this because I’m so bad at climbing and then every time we go down a hill I’m like woohoo this is the best thing ever so yeah hopefully there’ll be some nice descends to follow well as you can see I’m no longer at the race after that clip on my phone that also ran out I know I am the least organized YouTuber out there but hey it was a blessing in a way because it meant I could just have a bit of time to focus on the race and the race continued in the same kind of vein that it had earlier every time there was a hill I gave myself such a hard time I felt like just I’m slow I’m out of shape and I just wasn’t in a particularly good head space that day um yeah comparison can be the thief of all joy but it’s hard hard not to compare yourself when you’re in a bike race right anyway so I finished the race it was very very hard and I’m quite glad that I didn’t do the longer route because it was long enough and when I got to the Finish Line I chatted to lots of nice people I had a beer I think and um then I went back to my van to just kind of have a bit of a rest whilst I was in my van I suddenly heard my name being spoken over a loudspeaker I listened again and there it was it was definitely my name being shouted over the loudspeaker so I thought what is going on turned out that whilst I was in the van uh the prize giving was going on and I didn’t know so I got myself up I walked over there and asked a couple of people what I’d missed it turns out that I actually came second so I won a case of beer and a hat which was very very welcome but more than that it made me realized that I just shouldn’t be so hard on myself so that was a nice little boost right when I needed one so I’ve taken away from that experience a few things the first one is that the gravel rally is extremely difficult but very beautiful and very fun and all the people involved are really really nice so thanks to all the organizers and to all the other races that I chatted to it was a really really great day out I also learned that I shouldn’t be quite so hard on myself just because I don’t excel in one particular area of cycling it doesn’t mean that a I can’t enjoy myself and B that I should feel bad about that um it sounds funny but sometimes when I am on a bit of a downer and feeling like I’m not very good at something I try and remember the things that I can do so if I’m say not very good at climbing a hill I think to myself well yeah but I can do a 360 on a BMX and that makes me feel a bit better about myself so I don’t know just a bit of a funny little tip there I suppose for those of you that struggle anyway uh that’s it from me from the gravel rally I hope this made some sort of sense or was entertaining I don’t know um let me know what you think of the video always nice to hear from you my next trick is to Scotland with Katie cerra fellow YouTuber so that should be fun um yeah I’ll chat you soon see you later bye