Southern XC 3 (Crow Hill)

I have had a couple of weeks without a race so I was looking forward to hurting myself this weekend. Pre-riding the course revealed this would be very possible. I have not ridden this variation of Crow hill before but it was pretty much as expected, very tight, rooty and bumpy, with plenty of short sharp climbs. The only down side was the field sections which were back jarringly rutted when seated and imposible to keep traction when out of the saddle.

From the start I sat in the middle of the pack and was feeling pretty good before someone in front of me decided to hug a tree in the middle of the track and moments later someone else decided to get off and push up the first steep section. Once I had cleared these inconveniences I had a clear track and set about catching the group ahead. I quickly got a gap on the riders behind before I decided to mack my brest bone on my stem and plant my face into the ground! Im not sure exactly happened as it was a fairly inconspicuous section of the course, a couple of rollers and a road crossing. I hit the rollers a bit fast and was out of shape landing from the road jump which fired me slightly off the track and onto some soft loamy ground. My front wheel dug in and sent me over the bars. I felt like I had been punched in the jaw and putting my hand to my face revealed quite a lot of blood. Fortunately my bike was OK so after getting the nearest marshal to check the wound wasn’t too bad, I was on my way. I think I lost about 2 minutes because of this excursion so I spent the next couple of laps re-taking the places I lost. I ended up in 13 position which I was pretty happy with, a quick look at the results showed I would have been right in the mix if I hadn’t crashed. Despite making myself look like I've been on the recieving end of a football related bottling, I really enjoyed the unrelenting course and am a bit disappointed it is not one of the national courses this year.


I have got a few more weeks off proper racing but will be showing my face at Mountain mayhem this weekend. Only racing in a team of 10 so I will be mostly chilling out, having barbeques and taking in the trade stands and other entertainment. The other thing I will be doing this week is growing a rubbish beard because I cant shave with this great big scab on my chin! It is already itching like hell so I am not looking forward to the next week or so!