Modern Cyclist Magazine Issue 3, November 2014 | 页面 22

MC going places

All biked up
and no
kit to ride

“O
In spite of a disastrous
build up, Paul Furbank,
who was the reigning
world champion until that
date, managed an eighth
place in the 55-59 age
category at the 2014 UCI
Mountain Bike Masters
World Championships held
in Lillehammer, Norway
during September. He tells
us what it was like.
Duelling with Jimmy Redman at the SA
Nationals. Jimmy also represented South Africa
at the World Champs in Norway. Photograph by
Raymond Travers.

ur flight was delayed,
so we ended up sitting in Dohar, Qatar for
hours. We then flew to Oslo via Stockholm,
Sweden, which also wasn’t on our
planned itinerary. So we missed our train to
Lillehammer. So instead of arriving early on
the Thursday morning, we arrived late in the
afternoon. Without any luggage. No bike,
no bags … nothing!”
Paul, who was accompanied by his wife
Claire, then received a promise to say their
luggage would arrive the next morning.
“So the next morning, at around 10:00, the
bike arrived but our suitcases didn’t,” Paul
explained, “and that wasn’t good. To keep
to the 10 kilogram limit, I took the pedals
and the through axle in my suitcase so I
couldn’t ride the bike anyway!”
So that Friday, South Africa’s national
masters mountain bike cross country
champion walked around Lillehammer, in
clothes that he’d worn for quite a while,
looking for a through axle and pedals.
“I finally found a through axle, and because
we had to go and register for the race,
I grabbed a pair of flat pedals,” Paul
explained.
He proceeded to complete two laps that
day, dressed in takkies and borrowed kit,
and repeated that again on the Saturday
morning as the shops only opened at 10:00.

22

ISSUE 3 NOVEMBER 2014 / www.moderncyclist.co.za

Cold and muddy racing.
Photograph supplied.

“I’d never ridden with flat pedals and
found that very difficult. It was bumpy,
‘rooty’, muddy and slushy. It was very
awkward and I got scars down my shins
from learning about flat pedals,” he
grimaced.
Not wanting to repeat the flat pedal
experience, Paul headed back into
Lillehammer that afternoon to buy shoes,
pedals and cleats.
“When I got back, I found that my suitcase
had arrived so I had to take everything
back to the shops anyway! The following
day I got it all working properly and did
one lap as we were racing the next day,”
he mused.
Paul’s story of woe continued when he
went for his warm up just before lining up
on the start line.
“I rode up the hill and got onto some
tarred cross country roads, so went out
there to do a part of my warm up and
I got caught in a torrential downpour. It
continued for about 15 minutes and it
included hail. So by the time I’d finished
my warm up, I was freezing,” he said.
For Paul, his race to defend his World
Championship didn’t start very well at all.
The venue was a converted cross country
ski park where a cross country MTB trail
had been created for the event.