United Downs

April 1st marked the second round of the Fully Sussed South West Summer Series down in deepest darkest Cornwall.
I was lucky enough to be allowed to ride the course on the Saturday with a few others and I took my Sister along and tried to teach her how to ride a bike a bit better technically.

The Course
The course was a mountain bike Harvey Dent. The first half of the lap was an old quarry which featured lots of super fun, super flowy single track with optional jump lines. The singletrack was broken up by steep 3 arrow technical sections.
On the contrary, the early part of the second half of the lap was gravely fire road and the end quarter of the lap was incredibly bumpy woodland which was difficult to keep speed over.
The best course of the season so far!!

The Race
Looking at the start list on the Sunday, I noticed the absence of big players John Whittington (3.5 hours away), Sean Frost (road racing) and Luke Eggar (being a Muppet)
This meant that I had the best chance possible of a podium in a South West series race. It would be a fight between myself, fellow team mate Harry Smith, good friend Steve Hodge of Shred Racing and James Horton from Cannondale Racing.

Harry was first into the single track after a loose stoney hill start, James Horton was 2nd, Steve 3rd and the Southfork Junior rider Ed Welsh pipped me into 4th. Thankfully for me he punctured about a mintue later so I didn't lose any time on Steve and James.
By the first technical section, Harry had a gap with me, Steve and James squabbling amongst ourselves.
It stayed like that for the first lap with Harry not getting too far ahead. Now that we had settled I was able to take the jump lines on the first set of single track to earn some air miles and have some fun.
We stayed stuck in our position until the second half of the second lap when James decided to bridge the gap to Harry whilst Steve eeked just far enough ahead of me to put some back markers between us going into the single track and escaped.

I carried on pushing hard but had a lull on the third lap and dropped 30 seconds on Steve but carried on pushing and perked up again, only losing 2 seconds to him on the fourth lap. However as predicted I lost 30 seconds more time on the last lap as my lack of race fitness kicked in.

Sherwood Pines - NPS 1

Ever since I started racing, the first round of the national series has been at Sherwood Pines without fail. Another certainty couples Sherwood; it will be my worst race of the year!
The main reason for this trend is that the course has always been road bike-esque; it is always a few tight twiddly bits in the trees with nowhere to pass where I would be frustration by the incompetence of the rider in front of me and then onto the long fire roads where I would struggle to stay in the slipstream of the rider.

I was very excited to hear that the course has been completely redesigned for this year!

Practice
Arriving late Friday evening in the campervan with my parents we rose Saturday morning, eager to get out on the course to size it up. My Dad tailed me for one lap so he could twig all of the sneaky lines I see.
The start was the usual sweeping bends around the field and onto the fire road. From then on the similarities ended! We only went half way up the long fire road before swinging left in to some tight single track, a bottle neck zone for sure!!
More nice single track was linked up with some sections of open track but not too many fire roads to speak of. There were a few very short, very steep tip ups that would again cause bottle necks for sure during the race.
There were two cool technical sections that although I found them easy, I knew other would find them difficult which really pleased me. Also there was a drop which wasn’t easy by far as it was a bit stepped and also a reasonable size log that could have (and did) quite easily claim riders in their red zone or tired in the last few laps.
All in all I was extremely impressed by the course. It wasn’t exactly Dalby or Newnham but was a heck of a lot more technical than usual which suited me down to the ground.


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Race Day
I started Sunday as usual, breakfast followed by going down to see my Mum start and watch the first two laps of the Elite Woman's race and cheer my Mum through once. What was amazing was seeing my Mum come through in 2nd place in the Grand Vets race on lap 1 and pulling out from the riders behind on lap 2 to earn a genuine podium!! Last year she was always on the podium due to lack of riders but on Sunday she beat 3 other rider! Cracking.

I started my warm up at 11, riding up the long forest road a few times at an easy pace to engage my muscles. After about 10 minutes I went back to the camper and had a good stretch out to loosed up all my muscles and then I went back onto the forest road for some more spinning with a few fast legs and power pedals in the mix to really get the muscles warm!

I was really satisfied with my warm up and although with all the standing around before the start and the gridding I cooled down a lot I knew I had my muscles pre-stretched and deeply warmed.
I managed to sneak onto the front row of the grid in 8th place which was ideal, a clear path off the start.
The start gun (literally a gun) went and made me jump with the loud bang. I found my left pedal at the first time of asking and powered away with a good start.
I heard the commentator say about a big crash behind me and I hope that anyone caught up in that was alright
I hit the fire road in about 14th place but picked up a place by diving up the inside going into the tight single track and then heard a big pile up behind me moments later when I think someone tagged a tree!
On the next section of fire road I got over taken by team mate Harry Smith who started from the back of the grid! But I overtook 3 riders to get myself to about 10th with Harry in front and Steve Hodge behind me. Entering the next section of singe track the unthinkable happened....

My rear mech just decided to fuck itself... Literally, there were no roots, stumps, branches, stones, anything for that matter in sight!!
The back wheel locked up so I thought I had somehow gotten something jammed in there; at first I thought it was a branch but as I said above, there were no branches.
I looked down to see my chain completely slack and thought ahh hell I’ve broken the mech hanger, only to see that the hanger was fine. It was then I noticed that the mech had completely broken in two and once I got onto the next fire road I discovered that the lower cage of the mech had deeply embedded itself in the back wheel. It broke two spokes, bending 3 others and wrapped itself around another.

It was my first mechanical failure in a race ever! I guess there is never a good time for a mechanical but I would have preferred it in a local race rather than a national race.
Due to my back wheel being jammed, I had to walk about 2 miles back to the arena carrying my bike; I’ll tell you now, 12 kilos gets very heavy and awkward after half a mile.
I arrived back at the arena just as the leading Experts were coming around to finish lap 3 and seeing Harry in 6th and Steve in 9th was when the anguish kicked in and I got very pissed off knowing that I would have only been a bit further back.

Yep, that's Fucked!

It's seen better days...

Outlook
I was annoyed for most of Monday but a nice evening ride yesterday put it to bed. Something I learnt early on in sailing is how to deal with a disappointing race a take as many positives from it as possible. I know my race endurance isn’t fully there yet and I wanted to finish in the top 20 at Sherwood and looking at the results I think I would have made the top 15 which is good.
Unfortunately I will be gridded at the back at the next national at Dalby which isn’t great but at least there are some big hills that will allow me to get further up the field than a flat course.

I am looking to have fun few days at United Downs for the Fully Sussed South West Series Round 2 this weekend. I’ll see you there!

Dalby Forest NPS 2

There will always be a few certainties at Dalby Forst. The sat nav will be incredibly off, there will be massive queues in practice for the technical sections and it will take an eternity to get there.
So where the hell did the hail come from when I was practicing!!

I had (naturally) cleared all the technical sections first try on the demanding course in practice as I have done in all of the three time I have ridden it. However, the three/four years it has been in use is really beginning to show now with lines really being carved out.
The added moisture didn’t really help proceedings after a bit of deliberation I sat in the campervan Saturday evening putting a Bonty Mud X tyre on the front and moving my Schwalbe Rocket Ron to the back in place of the Racing Ralph.
I opted to ride my S-Works Stumpjumper Hardtail 26” due to the big hills in Dalby; plus my 29er Epic was at the menders getting a new front brake.

The shoe change seemed to be a great move as I watched the morning race and my Mum take the win in the Grand Vet race, annihilating the other rider with the winner of the previous round taking a look on Saturday and deciding against it.
It was insanely muddy!

12 Noon came and I was gridded on the back row due to my bike exploding at the last race. The Elite racers had a start loop to complete before completing 5 full laps. We had the same minus the start loop, in honesty I was hoping that we would be knocked down to 4 laps.
Our time came, the start gun went and I powered away; a gap opened up in front of me and I took full advantage and gained a ton of positions as riders tiptoed around the muddy corners.
Into the climb in the first bit of singletrack I gained two position by taking a high and most importantly hardpacked line. Coming back into the field I was in about 8th position but lost a couple of places, with fellow local rider Steve Hodge coming back through the pack after a timid start.

It was plain sailing until I got to the rocky steps where I binned it quite badly, I’m really not sure what happened but I seem to come unclipped and rode about two steps on the handlebars before coming gracefully to rest on the side.
I jumped back on only to find my front brake lever wasn’t there but thankfully it had just twisted round. I lost a load more places sorting that out and just set about composing my self and getting to the climbs to make up some places.

Worry Gil was up next and I almost came off! I blew both feet off the pedal but recovered it nicely, the first sign it wasn't to be my day. I got to the technical climb to  the tune of the marshall shouting that nobody had ridden it so get ready to jump off. He wasn’t wrong. The first slope of it was a mud slide and had to be run. That was half of my 26” advantage out of the window.
Coming into the Medussa drop I was a bit pissed off at how things were going but committed myself only to slide out right near the bottom in the insanely thick mud.

First Lap Crash

We got onto the big long climb and I told myself, right time to unleash the kraken and take back some places. My brain relayed the message to my legs only to get a reply of (in your best Scotty impersonation), we’re giving it all she’s got cap’in.
I had been feeling strangely tired all week (ask my housemate, I barely mention it!)after doing a road race the previous Sunday. But I had purposely rested myself for the race but I did feel sluggish on my practice lap.
I slogged my way up the hill with the mud not helping whatsoever, taking back two positions but I soon lost them on the flat and finished out the rest of the lap feeling incredibly lethargic.

I told myself just to re-group, get a gel and energy drink on board, just tap out a rhythm and get some places back. Unfortunately it didn’t work like that and although I cleared all of the lap with no crashes I didn’t feel and better and was getting slower. Before I knew it I had the lead juniors coming past and more of them than usual.

I continued to plod on round with even the top of the Sport race coming through me, I just told myself to get to the finish and hope that riders in front of me withdrew or crashed out. I just couldn’t afford two retirements in two national races.

I came across the line, second last in the whole of race 2 with a result of 19th in the Expert category. 20th is okay considering I was targeting a top 15 result but I don’t want to think about what could have been if I was on form.
However much I want to blame the bike, although it didn’t help me in any way; I just wasn’t on song at all and I need to move quickly to rectify the problem.
I have no doubt I will sort it out.
The last time I had a drop in form like this was when I was sailing with my sister; people started to doubt us and thought we had lost it.

We came 5th at the World Championships that year...