1) Don’t Expect to Win

Though billed as a fun day out, the Hooper – like most races in the UK – is hotly contested, with pros dropping in to snag any cash, kudos or training opportunities. Not that the other competitors are likely to be slow either.

There’ll be dudes in their 50s who can tap into their inner Evil Knievel at any moment; women who might look like your mum but who pop doubles and nail rooty sections like they’re just off to Glenda’s for a coffee morning; and kids under ten who were literally born riding a full-suspension-set-up (by c-section, at Halfords, obvs). So yeah, turn up, enjoy the day, and aim for about second-to-last in the ‘shit’ category, if you have THE RUN OF A LIFETIME.

3) Don’t Just Turn Up On the Day and Have a Go

A friend used to say: “Piss-poor preparation prevents proper people from pucking pings up.” Or something like that. In fairness it just sounded like he was stammering and I never really got past the first few words. But the point remains – go a day early, and have as many runs as you can squeeze into the practice sessions.

Because no-one ever failed because they’d tried too much. Except quicksand victims. But let’s not dwell on that. After ten goes, we just about memorised the course, working out where all the tough bits were, which lines to take which rocks we might be eating for lunch, and which trees we could realistically grab on to on the steeper sections. Not even joking either.

4) Don’t Expect to Not See Some Epic Riding

Apologies for the title, what we mean is – expect to see some great riding. Watching a pro tearing up a course that we – mere mortals – screech down with our brakes locked-out (with teeth grimacing under our full-face helmet) is an awesome sight.

“Watching a pro tearing up a course that we mere mortals screech down with our brakes locked out is an awesome sight.”

Being course-side as Ben Deakin pedalled his Santa Cruz Bronson at full strength (yup, evening pedalling in the air) was like watching Planet Earth II last Sunday if there’d been a segment where David Attenborough narrated footage of your neighbour mating with your wife: utterly majestic, and yet – at the same time – somewhat demoralising.

6) Don’t Expect to be in your Comfort Zone

Even if you’ve watched a course preview on YouTube, don’t expect to be anywhere near your comfort zone. Like getting an invoice from a plumber, expect the actual run to be twice as scary as you thought, to take three times as long, and to be four times as steep as you expected.

And even if you are comfortable on gap jumps and coffin-drops, the adrenaline will kick in and you’ll be taking on the obstacles with more speed than you’d ever normally consider. Some of the sections may have features that you’ve never encountered before.

The Hooper course had a section called ‘Mini Morzine’. To get through it I had to ride with my bum scraping on the back wheel for more than a hundred metres, the seat of my kecks rubbing on the nodules of my maxxis tyres creating a sound not dissimilar to the fake motor-bike noise you can get by jamming some playing cards into the spokes of a Raleigh Grifter.

When the steepness calmed down my arse was virtually on fire and my entire back, shoulder, arm and finger muscles had seized up from gripping too hard. Which you don’t get at apres ski. The point being, what that has to do with Morzine is anyone’s guess.

7) Don’t Ignore the Tension

With a fair bit of waiting around to be done, strangers talk to one another about the best lines through sections, about their bikes, about the weather even. It may come across as camaraderie, but what everyone is trying to do is to ignore their fears. Hard to do when the sound of chainsaws is in your ears.

What to do about it? Nothing – enjoy it, recognise it, realise that this is how it must feel before a group goes into battle. Or shout “noggin” at everyone you see and give them a friendly headbutt with your full-face helmet on. Especially the race marshals. They love that.

8) Don’t Hit The Brakes at Crucial Moments

Let’s face facts: Mountain Biking is basically a massive list of counter-intuitive movements and actions. When you want to get in the air, push down and compress; when you want to go down steeper stuff, push the front of the bike away; when you want to go over a drop do a little jump; and when you want to brake, don’t.

It’s the last one that’s the most important. Just never brake. Ever. We’re not even sure why bikes actually have brakes. Ok they’re there. Just don’t ever use them. Especially don’t jam that back one on just as you’re going over the coffin drop.

Or else expect to go nose-first into some serious trouble – like Zlatan Ibrahamovic leading the group into the strip club at Wayne Rooney’s stag do. You know he likes grannies Zlatan, so you should know that statistically it’s unlikely to end well.

10) Don’t Expect Not To Want to Do It Again

Would we do it again? Well since our motto is ‘Never Say Never’ (which incidentally is a phrase that is 66% contradiction, and certainly a command that would elicit the ‘error’ sign if it were inputted into a spreadsheet cell as a format) let us just say that we are very much open to the idea of heading back to Tidworth for the 2017 race.

However, that is not a binding contract, and we reserve the right to check our sugar sachet levels at crucial decision moments in the run up to next year’s race…

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