Next up is Wiggle Sponsored MTB Endurance rider Matt Page who won Sleepless in the Saddle, TwentyFour12 and Dusk til Dawn this season.

Name: Matthew Page
Age: 23
Role: Endurance MTB racer
Miles a Week: Normally 200-300 (split roughly 70/30 in favour of road miles)

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Although I have been taking things pretty easy since Dusk ‘til Dawn with no planned training, I’ve decided to take 2 weeks off with no riding or training at all. I’ve got a couple reasons for this, firstly I can’t honestly remember the last time I took more than 4 or 5 days off the bike, but it’s safe to say its years, not months.
I don’t feel too tired, but total rest should leave me in a good position to start training for next year.
Another reason is that I’ve occasionally been getting some pain in my right knee, I want to give it some time to see if it will improve on its own, if not I’ll find out what the cause is and get it sorted out before doing too much damage.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing some really great riding. Mid October George Budd, a fellow racer came down to ride some of the Welsh trail centres that he had not done before.
Day 1 we rode at Nant-yr-Arian, the weather was a little wet, but the trails there hold up really well and we had a great time splashing through the puddles doing about 45km with a lunch stop in between.
The next day we headed to my local centre, Brechfa. The riding there differs from most other centres, more jumps and berms rather than twisty, rocky single-track.
The final day was spent at Glyncorrwg in the Afan Valley. The weather was great and we did some quality riding. Starting off with Skyline, before stopping at the Drop-off café and then doing Whites level, which topped off a great few days riding.

So after my 2 weeks off, I’ll do a few rides to get back into the swing of things before I start my training proper on December 1st. I am already highly motivated for next year, coming off the back of my most enjoyable and successful year of racing yet it isn’t hard to be motivated. I still have no firm plans for races next year, although it will be similar types of races: 12 and 24hr MTB races, some endurance races and also some road sportives to mix things up a bit. I have lots more that I’d like to do and win, so hopefully I can tick a few of those off next year.

Autumn for me is fantastic, it’s a season I love and look forward to. The weather can be pretty miserable and the nights are drawing in but it’s a time of year when my racing season finishes and I can chill out and enjoy riding without the pressure of training and racing.

Dusk ‘til dawn was the perfect end to a fantastic season for me, all the hard work I put in paid off and now I’m able to take some time out and wind down. I’m not planning any training, but I am still riding most days mainly because I enjoy it so much. I’ve been mixing it up a bit, doing some road riding, some mountain biking and a few runs.

I had a great ride at Cwmcarn recently with some of the guys from Wiggle, it was the kind of riding I don’t do enough of, just being out and having fun without pushing myself too hard. This week I’m doing a tour of some of the Welsh trail centres, which I’m really looking forward to.

I’m planning on starting training again in 2-3 weeks time, starting with lots of base training to try and replicate what I was doing this time last year as a courier. I’m more exited about next season than I have been about any previous season.

I’d like to thank everyone at Wiggle for all their help and support over the year, for supplying such fantastic bikes and kit which have helped achieve everything I have this season.
I’d also like to thank the people who have nominated me for ‘Rider of the year’ on the XCRacer.com forum. It is totally humbling to be nominated along side such talented riders as Liam Killeen, a double Olympian and the NPS XC Elite series winner Gareth Montgomerie. If anyone would like to vote for me, or any of the other riders visit http://www.xcracer.com/poll.php?pid=192.

Sponsored Wiggle and Focus rider Matt Page stormed to victory at the biggest endurance race of the season at Dusk til Dawn at the weekend! The podium topping performance is his 3rd major victory and the perfect finish to Matt’s debut season with us - congratulations Matt!

Epic, definition: very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale)

That was the word that I feel sums up Dusk ‘til Dawn the best. I’ve ridden my bike for longer and in worse conditions but this was my toughest race that I have ever done.

It didn’t exactly go as planned either, one week before I picked up a stomach bug which kept me off the bike for 4 days. I was starting to panic, but luckily it cleared up on the Wednesday before so I was able to go to the race and pick up my Number 1 board that I earned from winning in 2007. I did a practice lap before the race; it was dry, very fast and great fun. Rain was forecast, but I’ve never raced at Thetford in the wet before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. With that in mind and with my experiences from last year to build upon I made my tyre and clothing choices for the race and headed to the start line just as the rain started to fall.

The race got under way with a 1 mile rolling start behind a quad bike. It was pretty chaotic with people jostling trying to get towards the front along the narrow tracks, I was happy to get around and still be on my bike, but I was a little further back than I had hoped. I pushed hard as soon as the racing got underway and eventually caught up with the soloists ahead. At this stage there were 4 of us who formed a small pack with a few other team or pair riders. Whilst following a rider on a section of fire-road I got some grit in my eyes half way round the lap. It was quite painful but the main problem was that it started to affect my vision. I put up with it until the end of the lap, but had to stop then to try and remove it. It seemed to take ages, but I eventually cleared it and stormed off having lost 4 minutes to the riders in front. My second lap was a big effort, I knew I was pushing too hard but I wanted to get back in touch as I felt like I was on my back foot and not able to control the race how I like. It took until the end of my third lap, but I eventually caught up with Josh Ibbett and Anthony White who were ahead.

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25 – Sept - 2008

Just over one week to Dusk til Dawn now and I’ve finished all the hard training and I am into my taper. In terms of competition this will probably be the toughest race of the season. There are 230 solo men all looking for a piece of the £5000 prize pot and whoever wins will walk away with £1000, so there is a lot at stake. Looking at the entry list is a who’s who of the UK endurance racing scene, almost all the top racers have entered along with a few fast XC racers so it’s going to be an extremely difficult race.

As the reigning champion and with good form coming into the event I have as good a chance as anyone, I’ve prepared for it as best I can, so if it doesn’t go to plan it is not because of lack of effort. As far as I am aware, no one has successfully defended the men’s solo title in the 5 years the event has run, but I’d like to change that.

In preparation I’ve been doing a weekly night ride which has been great fun, I love riding at night and I’ve been getting faster and faster each week as I get more used to the darkness. I’ve also been doing some seriously hard core muscle workouts which have left me aching for days, but Thetford Forest is extremely punishing on the lower back so I knew that I needed to work on that area of my fitness.

I have an idea of how I’d like the race to go, but I never plan anything because too many things change and I like to be flexible. I’ll have Nia and Ben helping me out and they are going to be working non-stop just trying to work out which riders are where and giving as much info to me as possible, along with feeding me and keeping the bikes running. All I have to do it pedal… but lots of it! Being a flat course means no rest as there are no downhills, I will be pedalling non-stop for 12 hours!

Roll on October 4th, I can’t wait!

The last few weeks have been pretty busy with 2 events in as many weeks. I entered my first road sportive, the TransCambrian on the 7th Sept. At 89 miles and with loads of climbing around Mid Wales is sounded great. I planned to use it as training, but I have always wondered how I would go on the road so I was looking forward to it. I got pretty lucky at the start and rode with a few guys who turned out to be pretty quick. We shared the work, with me doing more work on the climbs and one of them pulling like a train on the flatter parts. I finished in a time of 4hrs 37min, which was good enough for a ‘Gold’ medal by 21 minutes and the 2nd fastest time of the day! Not bad for a mountain biker in his first road event, I’ll defiantly do a few more next year as I really enjoyed it….

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2 weeks have past since SITS and I’ve struggled to get back into a proper training regime. I had decided before that I would give myself the week after off training. I must admit I was pretty lazy that first week; I sat down and watched the Olympics most of the time!

I’ve also been having memory flashbacks from the event, in the first few days after I had very little memory from a large portion of the race, but slowly little bits have been coming back to me including some of the rather crazy things I was doing to keep myself amused and upbeat. One lap I decided that I would whistle the ‘Nelly the Elephant’ tune for a whole lap! Another lap I decided it would be fun to play I-Spy with some of the other riders: “I-Spy with my little eye, something beginning with M!” … “Mud!” Perhaps a little too easy given the conditions?…..

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Matt is our sponsored super-star MTBer and has recently topped the podium at both the Endura Sleepless in the Saddle solo and the Bontrager Twentyfour12 12-hour race solo.

He has been out meeting and greeting and recently met up with the guys from BikeMagic to give them a rundown of his ride - his carbon full suspension Focus First Expert…

Read the full article here

British Cycling have put a report of Sleepless in the Saddle on their website with a bunch of great pictures of the intense mud bath that Focus & Wiggle sponsored rider Matt Page stormed to victory at.

Here’s a few quotes from the report:

Read the full review at britishcycling.org.uk

24 hours is a long time. Perhaps not in the context of a lifetime or even a year, but try and do one thing for a whole day solidly and time seems to drift by much slower than usual as if your in slow-motion.

For the last few years I have been training hard for a single goal. To become a top class 24hr solo racer. All the hours spent as a courier, all the training I have done since moving back to Llandovery, all the sacrifices I have made but especially the sacrifices other people have made to help me achieve my goal. It is now, after this race that everything has paid off and made it all worth the effort.

After a tough 12 hour race only 2 weeks before my preparation was less than ideal! I had no chance to test my body out before racing, so I was just hoping that I had been able to recover quickly enough. I did however organise and plan everything in the same meticulous way I approach every event. My bikes were all working perfectly, we arrived on site early enough to get an excellent pit-area spot and I had a team around me that were prepared to sacrifice their time to helping me out.

The conditions on the build up to the event were OK, the course was pretty dry but the forecast for the event was not good. Heavy and consistent rain was due on Saturday with showers forecast to continue through Sunday. The forecast proved to be accurate and mid-morning Saturday the rain started coming down.

The race got underway with the familiar Le-mans style run, I paced it well and arrived in the arena at the same time as my main competitors. The first lap on the bike went to plan, the mud was very wet and I had no problems riding through it. At the end of the first lap my bike was wet but not muddy, at this point I had quite wide intermediate tyres on and although I knew mud tyres would be needed later I continued onto lap 2 with the same tyres…..

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