English
After a relaxed weekend of racing at the mountain mayhem it was time to get back to racing with nerves again. The next race for me would be the Welsh Championships held this year at Forest Fields Builth Wells, and with a nobody missing, it was going to be a hard race if I wanted to keep my champs jersey for another year. I was a little unsure going into the race as to how I was going to feel physically, as despite putting in a few fast lap times at Mayhem I was still having a lot of pain from my back for the majority of the time when riding.
The course at Forest fields was an old school course which I haven’t raced at since 2005, with lots of hard climbing and good fast descents, so it would be fun to race here again. It was clear before the race started that it was going to be a suffer fest not just from the competition, but from the heat, as temperatures were reaching the high 20′s. Off the start I managed to get on the front and put on the pressure from the start as I was hoping that I might make other riders suffer from early on. Myself and John Whittinington (not contesting the champs) managed to get an early lead from the rest of the field, and for the next 2 laps John really set a good pace, quite often pulling away from me by the top of the climbs. I made sure that I clawed my way back on his wheel by the bottom of the descents where the climbing would start again.
On the start of the 3rd lap I put in a little bit of extra effort to try and put a gap between us and make him chase me for a change which seemed to work. From that point on I pretty much held the smallest of gaps for the remaining 3 laps to take a hard win, and the Welsh title for another year. I was pleased to see Team mate Matt Page take 3rd in the Champs making it two wiggle riders on the elite podium.
The following week I headed up to Dalby Forest, Yorkshire for round 4 of the British Mountain Bike Series where I’m sure I’d get a good idea as to where I’m at as far as form goes, despite getting a win the week previous. I must admit that for the Welsh Champs I didn’t feel great. I seemed to be trying extremely hard to get the pedals to flow, and going into Dalby I though that I was going to be in for a kicking. I knew the course and lines quite well as I raced here earlier on in the season for round 1 of the World Cup and the course was pretty much identical, and after a couple of easy laps the day before the race (Friday) I was happy.
For the race itself I wanted to get a good start as I always like to try and be near the front at Dalby as soon as it hits the single track it can often be all to easy to loose time on the fast guys through no fault of your own, just being to hard to pass. I managed to get the start I wanted and got into the single track in 2nd behind Irish rider Robin Seymore. All to soon Liam Kileen came to the front and I knew this is where the race is going to begin, and I just sat on his wheel. 
We both managed to pull a small lead on everyone else but on the long climb at the back of the course I slipped back into 4th with Oli Beckingsdale and David Fletcher. Oli chased after Liam, leaving me and Fletch to battle it out for 3rd. By half way round lap 3 of the 6 lap race my chain went over the top of the chainset and managed to loop round itself and somehow feed itself into my rear mech causing me to drop from 3rd to the high teens by the time I got it free. From that point on I just played catch up ending in a finishing position of 10th. I was disappointed to have a mechanical as I felt 10 times better than what I felt the week before, and thought I would have had a decent result had I not had any problems. However, racing is racing and I didn’t suffer to much with back pain and generally felt that form is starting to go in the right direction for a change, so there was some positive to take from the race.
The following day I entered the 60km enduro as we (usual Williams family lot) decided to make a weekend of it, so I though I mite aswel. Off the start I got in the front bunch of riders for the first few sections of 
single track, then me and James Lister (Torq) managed to get a gap on the rest of the field. By the end of the 1st lap I managed to start pulling a gap and I pretty much just kept my distance for the remaining 3 laps to the finish taking the win.
Overall it was a more positive weekend making steps in the right direction, for what will hopefully be a good result in the National Championships this weekend (18th July) in Pippingford.
