Southern XC1

This was my first ranking race of the season, and as I said in my last blog, I was not optimistic! After pre-riding the course I was even less so. It is basically a cross between crow hill and a Gorrick – mostly flat with a few short sharp hills, very rooty, loamy and not particularly flowing. Although in hind sight this may just have been my opinion clouded by an un-healthy dose of mechanical issues and cast iron legs.
I was a bit dubious about a few sections, firstly, the two triple arrow sections which both had slick mud and deep wheel ruts in all the wrong places. The last thing you want to see when your careering down a 20 foot cliff face (felt like that anyway) is a patch of tacky muddy ruts in the middle of the run off! The other part was the incessant ditch crossing. It may be that I just don’t know how to ride these properly but despite leaving my front brake well alone I nearly found myself going arse over tit on a number of occasions – not confidence inspiring after hearing about a rider being air lifted out after an incident on this section.


From the start I was on the second row and managed to get into the top 3-5 going into the singletrack and feeling reasonably comfortable. That was until the first technical section skirting around the top of a bomb hole. Coming into it was a very slippery downhill section which in practice hadn’t caused any issues but the extra few mph of race pace added to the SB8 on the front contrived to me getting all out of shape, attempting to dab with my right foot but being too close to the hole and ending up flying through the tape into afore mentioned hole. After picking myself up and checking the bike was OK I tried to get back onto the course but was hampered by the never ending stream of riders coming through the section.


After this I seemed to have lost all energy and motivation, not to mention the complete abandonment of any confidence on anything but the flattest tarmac sections. Just to add insult to injury, my rear mech decided it wanted to get as far away from the frame as possible. A loose attaching bolt resulted in ghost shifting and slipping gears every time I tried to put any power down. I pretty much rode the rest of the race in the middle two gears of my cassette which dampened my spirits further and I spent the last two laps concentrating on not throwing my bike into the bushes in a tantrum rather than on trying to catch anyone in front.


After the race thoughts quickly turned to the future, Midlands XC 1 next weekend with the whole team in attendance and the next national back here in Wasing Estate - hopefully the course will have bedded in a bit more by then and the course will have dried out, not to mention hoping I am in a better frame of mind!