Things started off well on the Saturday morning as Ray turned up at my house along with Steph. We had been short of a rider until that point but Ray popped along to Nirvana to see if he could get any of the Saturday riders interested in joining us and as luck would have it Stephania was free and keen.

 

So in the Knowledge that we now had 3 full teams I was more relaxed as we set off for Thetford. Mark took Wendy and myself with everyone else making there own way up there in pairs or alone. Things started to look more bleak again as the drizzle started to fall before we even left the M11.

 

Antony was ahead of us and arrived 1^st and got us a decent pitch. Not to much later we arrived along with Simon and Fi who we had been following on the motorway. Still the drizzle fell as we continued setting up camp. Antony had provided a pit area in the form of a 2 sided gazebo and Simons big tent was to act as the social area with sleeping to be had in the myriad of small tents that were appearing as more of us arrived.

 

Eventually we were ready for our practice lap; this was meant to be done at a sedate pace but ended up being about 54 minutes. We were all a little disappointed with the amount of fire track on the course and lack of bomb holes with only 2 this year compared with four or five in previous visits.

 

I think that the organisers were trying to minimise the potential problems which occurred with all the rain last year and as it turned out perhaps that was a good thing. Also Charlie was regretting his decision to bring a single speed as the course was really too fast for it.

 

Well, with practice lap done and the drizzle/rain still falling we couldn’t wait to get started. Last year was dry right up to the start then it tipped it down and the course was a quagmire within a couple of laps, surely that couldn’t happen again.

 

With all 3 of our teams having decided on race order it was Ray, Tread and John who were waiting on the start line for the off. All 3 guys did a great job on that opening lap before handing over. Lap two was to see Antony and Steph clock up as it turns out our 2 fastest laps with Mark who also went 2^nd for the other team getting the 4^th fastest lap, only Simon on lap 3 was to go quicker and that was by a mere 10 seconds or so.

 

As the race went on and the drizzle turned to rain so the course was slowly deteriorating again, not as quickly as last year but still quickly enough that the lap times continued to increase pretty much throughout the event.

 

Well after about 6 laps we thought it best to check on our team positions. Our number one mixed team which we had high hopes for was sitting in 5^th place, the other mixed team which included 2 girls one of which had ridden to a high level but the other who had never ridden at night before along with Matt doing his 1^st big race and John who at over 60 years old was consistent as ever were in 10^th out of the 17 mixed teams with our men’s team sitting a creditable 16^th out of 61 teams.

 

As the hours passed, and the rain fell and the course continued to cut up our positions just remained the same. Frustratingly we just couldn’t seem to climb up the rankings, still as the 12 hours passed Antony was 1^st to finish for our ‘Dorking Cocks and a Chick’ team and that confirmed a 5^th place with 12 laps. Next over the line was Toby in the men’s team ‘Dorking Cocks’ who had gained 3 places finishing in 13^th which we are well pleased with also with 12 laps. Finally John crossed the line cementing a really good 10^th place for ‘Dorking Cocks and a Chicken’ with 10 laps. And still the rain/drizzle fell.

 

Well, with the race all done and a bit of food stuffed in us we began to pack up and surprise surprise, the rain stopped the sky started clearing and even the sun came out. Now last year was bad, very bad, we only managed 8 laps on a horrendously muddy course but, at least it was warm dry and sunny right up to the start of the race and from daybreak onwards as well as being dry for much of the night.

 

This year, to me at least, just some what unbelievably had to be even worse, it was damp from the moment we arrived right up until the last hour or so when we packed up, granted we did more laps and the course was more rideable but I felt the overall continuous damp conditions made it feel even more of a slog than 2010.

 

Still, would I go back and do it again – yes, of course, roll on D2D 2012