English
Who’d of thought at the start of the season when I got 2nd place in round 1 of the British Mountain Bike Series on a course that I’ve never until this year had a good race on, would have been my best race of the year….
For most of the season I’ve been battling through races, struggling to get just one race where I just feel healthy let alone race fit. Problems with my back, and generally not feeling 100% healthy for months on end, have made this season pretty annoying to say the least. We was recommended by a fellow racer to try tweaking the position on the bike and see if it makes a difference to my back pain. Me and my dad went over the bike and ended up dropping the seat post by 1cm and moved my seat back 2 1/2cm and found that this was a much better position, and although my back does still niggle from time to time the position change has made a huge difference to how I feel on the bike. This has allowed me to push hard in training again without experiencing swelling, and also keeping my training more consistent. The last 2 to 3 weeks I’ve slowly been improving my fitness and strength back to somewhere near where I was hoping I would have been for most of the season, and I’m now hoping for fashionably late form and a result that I’ve been chasing all season.
Last Weekend (22nd Aug) saw me racing for the first time since the disappointing National Champs 5 weeks previous, in round 5 of the Southern Series near Alton. Although I hadn’t raced for a few weeks I was confident going into the race that I was healthy and despite not being race fit I knew that I would be able to give it a good slam and enjoy the race whatever the result. The course at Alton was quite a good flowing course with a mix of fast very flinty single track, open fire roads, and wet technical rooty sections. There was a lot of anticipation on the forums for this race being a real mud bath, but the course held up well and made fun racing. I enjoy racing the Southern Series if I get chance as every round offers good prize money and always attracts a couple of fast boys to make the racing fast.
Off the start I managed to hold a decent position, going into the first single track section in second place behind Ade Lansley (pedal on bikes) with Jody Crawforth (specialized uk) right behind. I followed Ade for the first few sections of single track, but I kept catching all the tricky wet roots that I couldn’t see until I was on top of them, so soon as I got chance I passed to take the lead so I could see where I was going. Soon as I was on the front I actually felt quite smooth and tried to push the pace a little early on and see how I felt. With that Ade dropped of the pace and only Jody was still on my tail, so I kept pressing on. By the end of the first lap I was on my own and from there on I continued to open out a lead and with consistent lap times I took the win at the end of lap 5 by over 7 minutes….which was massive!
I was over the moon that I finally put in a performance that should give me a good chance of being up there for the Marathon Champs on the12th Sept and the final round of the British Mountain Bike Series on the 26th Sept where the competition will be hot! So hopefully my best race of the season wont continue to be round 1 of the British Series…. its still to come…. :)
Report, Pics + Video
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtb20100824–Video–Southern-XC-Series-Round-5—Chawton-0