This article is written by Giant Store Rutland Ambassador Will Ewer
The annual Tweedlove Transcend festival is held at Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders. Branded as a 3 day “Peace, Love and Dirt” bike festival, Transcend offered 10 different events from a two day “Epic” up-lifted Enduro, to the more family orientated “Enjoyro”.
Alex and I set off on Friday morning for the 6h drive up to ‘bonny’ Scotland. His poor car was full to the brim as I was racing two different bikes this weekend, plus his own, and a ton of camping gear ready for anything the inclement Scottish weather could throw at us - she didn’t disappoint! The main event of the weekend was the Transcenduro race on Saturday and I would also be racing the inaugural British round of the Bosch eMTB Challenge on Sunday as well.
We arrived at the Festival at noon on Friday, and after a quick camp set up we geared up to get some practice in for Saturdays event. There were 5 stages in total with 3 at Innerleithen and 2 across the valley at the ‘Golfie’ above the stunning Innerleithen golf course. We ran the first three stages at at “Inners” and I couldn’t believe the length and ferocity of the tracks, I’ve raced similar in Wales but nothing as long and relentless as these. We were having to stop on the fire road crossings for a breather, and we soon realised we weren’t the only ones, these Downhill tracks are long, averaging 5 minutes in length, the longest of the weekend was 8minutes!!! We decided we’d had enough after 3 stages, we were In need of some food and refreshments so we called it a day, literally as we pulled in the campsite it started chucking it down, it rained solidly for the next 28h, welcome to Scotland, “drying weather” as one of the soggy marshals quoted. Saturday we awoke to, you’ve guessed it, heavy rain. So after registration and some breakfast we readied our kit and set off.
I was riding my Kona Satori 29er which was a Whitwell bought bike, still going strong and my go-to long distance bike, Alex was on his shiny new Santa Cruz Hightower 29. Another reason for me taking the Kona, just so we would be riding similar set ups. The Climbs were long and fairly steep and Alex showed his climbing prowess with some seriously steep “cleans”, where a lot of people (including myself) were getting off to push! Strategy wise I was looking to try and save some energy for the race Sunday, so I took a fairly relaxed riding style, backed off the intensity and concentrated more on staying on the bike in the slippery, muddy conditions. This payed off with a nearly clean race until Stage 5, 8minutes of full on, steep, rooty, arm pump heaven. I managed to catch a rider on track in some steep washed out gulleys and in the process of letting me past, managed to crash himself and wipe out my front wheel, leaving me sliding down on my back still holding onto the bars. Back on the bike quickly I managed to place 75th overall in a very large competitive field. We got back to the campsite wet and exhausted.
22miles and 4500ft of climbing had taken they’re toll and the pair of us were soaked to the bone and shattered, we repaired to the beer tent for some much needed food and hydration and to watch some of the epic local bands put on over the weekend!
Sunday decided to be a little kinder with the weather, blue sky and sunshine, although I was not fooled and I guessed the tracks were still going to be muddy I kitted up on the Giant E-Trance and made my way down to the race start. We were still unsure as to the race format for the day, the organisers announced that we would be racing a “blind” course of 35km. They then handed us each maps of the course with 5 beginner plus one advanced stage marked on. There were also 10 waypoints you had to check in to with your timing bracelets along the way, 10 seconds penalty for missing a checkpoint. The stages were organised with 3 uphill timed and 3 downhill timed, on the uphill stages there would be taped “no foot down” sections where you were observed and a 10 second penalty given, similar to trials! There was a good showing of pro riders including Tracey Mosely (5 times womens downhill champion) and Katie Winton (Enduro World Series racer) We all set off with 10 seconds between us, i had ridden the ‘Inners’ course a couple of times and had no problems finding the checkpoints to the start of stage 1, an uphill sprint for 4 minutes up a downhill track. With my lungs bursting out of my chest I reached the “no feet” section, a 10m near vertical gulley, unfortunately I couldn’t clean the section and dropped a penalty.
Stage 2 was a re-run of Saturdays stage 1 and I made short work of the fast, open turns with a decent time. Stage 3 was an up and down stage with slab steps to climb. I managed a decent time with no penalties. Stage 4 was another downhill re-run of the previous day and I cleared this with ease. Stages 5 and 6 were on the ‘golfie’ side so after a long transition we arrived at 4, the “push up” for Saturdays last section, there was a 30m “no feet” section with football size boulders, the torque of the motor was incredible and I was one of only a few to clean the section. Stage 6 was the super long 8 minute last stage, I managed to get to the bottom with the worst arm pump but thankfully no crashes. I was amazed as I was really running on empty by this point. At the finish back at camp I was told I had bagged 2nd in the Amateur class but as I had ridden the Advanced course (I was told I was Advanced at Registration) they moved me up and I finished in 12th. I was super pleased just to finish the course so no hard feelings! I will definitely be returning to this amazing event, everything was so well set up from the festival to the tracks and enthusiastic marshalls!
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