It alL started several months ago with my wingman Kevin Moreland – he of Walton St Cycles, a man with more bicycles than visits to the hairdresser’s.

A man so determined to have the right bike for the right occasion that he bought himself a sweet little Kona hardtail (front suspension only) especially for last Saturday’s Bike Blenheim Off-Road Sportive.

When he first suggested a 40km off-road loop from Blenheim via Charlbury I said “Why not?”

We never usually ride out west.

Then he said it was £28 each because it was an organised ride.

Hmm. I got caught up in Kevin’s enthusiasm and before we knew it, he had signed up me and our biking buddy, Simon.

Then Kevin announced he was going to the gym in preparation for the Charlbury race.

Race?

Who said anything about doing a race?

Whippersnapper Simon (not quite half my age but not far off either) was well up for it. He rides an agricultural-looking Scott full-susser meaning he gets more of a workout each time we ride than Kevin and I do put together.

I’d meant to get into training but, with the baby and so on, it never quite worked out.

Gradually I got excited about my first ever mountain bike race. The big day arrived.

The race started at 8am, which meant getting up before 6am – on a Saturday. There were 250 riders at the gate. We set off in the first wave, our timing chips activated as we crossed an electronic pad.

It was a glorious morning, but the fast pace along Blenheim Estate roads soon descended into chaos as mountain bike tyres slipped and span in the boggy Land Rover-churned estate tracks. Not much fun.

The pace picked up again on bridleways towards Charlbury, following the arrows.

Then it all went wrong. We were riding into Stonesfield when we were met by some Lycra-clad bikers – plus Simon – coming towards us.

They’d ridden three miles through the village and not seen a single arrow marking the way. We were lost.

We looped back a mile or so to the last marshall we’d seen but he didn’t have a clue where we were supposed to have come from.

After 10 minutes a race organiser came along and said we’d mis-read an arrow a few miles back.

Everyone argued the toss with him about the ambiguous the ‘go through gate’ arrow by the two gates. Forty of us had independently taken this wrong turn. We had lost the race of course, and wasted £28.

I was a bit miffed.

The ride outside the Blenheim Estate was fun though. I quite enjoyed the sense of gentle rivalry with other riders and was impressed that I kept up an average of 10mph for nearly three hours.

The only time I stopped was when we were all lost.

The last few miles inside the Blenheim Estate had been billed as thrilling fast single track, but in fact were slow, rutted muddy tracks, the worst bit of the ride.

My race time was 2 hours 45 minutes and I’d ridden 27 miles.

It was a bit of a shambles really, I only met two people who claimed they had done the right route. I’d do the race again if it was cheaper, if they could get you off the estate faster and not mess around on rutted mudbath tracks, and if they could manage not to lose so many racers.