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.
*
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.
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| Yep, that's Fucked! |
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| 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!
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