The Blast Review

Firstly well done to all 320 riders that traveled to Wiltshire bright and early yesterday morning to take part in the 10th annual Salisbury Plain BLAST!

The Weather was perfect with tempretures climbing quickly in the morning but because of some light cloud cover staying at a reasonable warmth for riding.  The course was generally reported as being "more challenging than expected", but everyone that said that was smiling at the time, so we assume that was a good thing!

The course consisted of a 25km route that riders had the option of tackling 1, 2, 3 or 4 times.  Those taking on 100km or 75km started first at 10am, with the 50km and 25km riders starting at 10 minute intervals after that to give some separation between individuals before they headed into the first bit of singletrack about 1km in.  The route then took riders up onto the Plain, back down and back up again on some wider tracks and fields and up through more wooded singletrack sections combining the faster hard tracks on the top of the hill with the steep areas on the edge of the Plain offering some technical but fun descents and some gruelling climbs. 

Despite the huge variety in the ability of the riders (from 1st place 100km rider, David Hayward completing his distance in 4 hours 14 minutes, to the 10 year old Lauren Baggot completing her challenging 25km in 3 hours 27 minutes), the atmosphere remained friendly both out on the course and back at the arena.  Finishing riders were welcomed by volunteers from Dorothy House (local hospice) offering teas and home-made cakes) and the catering van who had a good range of Jacket Spuds, Curry or Fish & Chips!

The SPAMBiking club riders had a great day, with 2 finishing in the top 10 of  the 100km category (Martin Disney and Nigel Brown) and a third completing 100km singlespeed (Pistol Pete Williams of course!), plus Julian Lye having a cracking ride to come in first in the 50km.  Well done also to Graham Heath, the first SPAM rider home in the 75km category and Nigel Sadd who also completed 3 laps.  Young riders representing SPAM also had a good day with Rosie Brown taking 2nd in the  women's 25km category and Tom Brown clocking up a very respectable 8th place in the men's 50km.

Finally a special mention to SPAM rider Phil Miles, who probably would have clocked up a reasonable time in the 100km, but his rear mech snapped on his first lap.  Did this put him off though?  No he returned to his car, drove the best part of 40 miles to his house and back again, returned to Erlestoke with a replacement bike, started again and completed 3 laps.  Be honest, most of us would have given up, wouldn't we?

As always our thanks go to the many volunteers that help run our events (many of which are also named above as they tirelessly work on the course, setting up, breaking down and still manage to ride a few laps in between!)  To the Dorothy House ladies, anyone that made cakes, all our marshals, our medics and the registration boys and girls, THANK YOU.

PHOTO LINK     RESULTS LINK

Profits from this event will be donated to local organisations that provided marshals and other local charities nominated by Club Members.  Thanks to all who took park that make these donations possible.