BMBS5 Newnham Park

Saturday was the 5th and final round of the national series so I made the trip down to Newnham park hoping to end the season on a high. I shared a lift down with Franck from Inverse and we hit the course as soon as we had pitched the tent. The first thing we discovered was that the first river crossing was about knee deep with a load of hidden rocks. The second thing we discovered was that the next 2k was an absolute bitch, a long grassy climb up to the top of the pipeline which would be tricky with squealing wet brakes. The rest of the lap was mostly steep singletrack, both up and down. One more swim in the river and a tricky little drop off ended the lap.

In the evening I watched the team relay which was really good great seeing some of the countries best riders going head to head in a flat out sprint around the short course. Part of me wished I was doing it, but seeing how fast some of the expert riders were overtaken and dropped reassured me that I had probably dodged a bullet by not getting involved!

My race was at 12.30 so after a relaxed morning I made my way to the start line for grossing. I was on the second row and was not too fussed about getting to the river first because I knew I needed to take it easy on the first climb anyway. In hindsight this was a bit of an error as the river crossing was carnage and I ended up hopping off my bike in the middle and running to the other side. Once on the climb my legs seemed to be in shock as if they weren't expecting to be put to wort that early on. As planned, I took it fairly easy and realed in a few people towards the top. I sat in with a group until the next significant climb, I'm sure it was about a 1:1 gradient at points! My chain over changed into the spokes on my real wheel so i lost a bit of time running up this. From this point on I picked up the pace. My legs felt great and I quickly caught and dropped the riders i was with at the start. On the drop at the end of my third lap i got a bit out of shape but managed to get down unscathed. Once on the grass heading for the arena I realised that I could not clip my left foot in but it wasn't until I reached the feed station that I realised inhad sheared off part of the spring on my eggbeater. I carried on but the rest of the lap I was basically pedaling on the spindle with my left foot. Not good for power on the ascents and awful for grip on the descents! I lost at least 4 places on my last lap and finished 12th. I think I would probably have stayed in 8th without this mechanical because Greg from Merida had a descent gap from the first lap. I am pretty disappointed with the result because on the second and third laps I felt as good as I have all year! The course was probably the best I have ridden this year and well worth the half day off work and the 6 hour round trip!