English
After a positive result at the marathon champs and training continuing to improve every week I felt quite confident that my last race of the season (final round of the British Mountain Bike Series, Plymouth) would generate my best result to date.
After enrolling onto my 3rd year in University, we travelled to the race venue late Friday morning so I could get in a few practise laps of the course before the race the following day. The course itself had a lot of hard steep climbs with not much recovery time between and also included two river crossings which both were 0.5m deep in the shallow parts, so it would make a tough challenging race. I think that the course was well thought out as there were a mix of different sections from open grass climbs, fast fireroads, fun singletrack, bomb holes, tight twisting sections and granny ring, chin on the bars climbs too, so there weren’t really anything that was missing from the course….just a pleasure to ride.
Before I could settle down for the night I was asked to be guest rider for the xcracer.com team in the floodlit team relay event that evening, which I love being asked to do because not only is it a great laugh with all the racers, but I think it wakes up my legs for the following days race without draining any energy from my legs. Unfortunately our team did come last, but was still a good crack! After the relay I made sure I went to bed early and was in bed around the 9pm mark, as when tenting its all to easy to get cold through sitting outside nattering for hours, and the best place to keep warm was my bed!
After a great sleep I woke up feeling pretty fresh and was actually quite calm, as I must admit that even though yesterday I was happy doing the relay’n'stuff I was quiet for most of the day with nerves, so it was nice to wake up not at all nervous, just ready for the pain ahead of me.
Onto the race….
Seeing the start list for today’s race was great as there was a strong international presence (Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, South Africa) including the usual Brits Liam Kileen who just got back from a 7th at the World Champs in Canada and Oli Beckingsdale who beat me at the Marathon Champs only two weeks ago, so I knew that if I had a podium today which was my target coming into the race then it would be a pretty impressive result.
After a good warm up I line up 7th on the grid, giving me a front row spot which I was happy with as the start straight consisted of a 100m grass stretch immediately into the first river crossing of the lap, so for me it was important to get into the river somewhere near the front to try and avoid any crashes. Off the start I managed to enter the water in about 4th or 5th riding clean through and out the other side where I could then relax and think about the race. I managed by the time I got up to the top of the 1st grassy climb to get to the front and start to ride my own race and by the time we’d got onto and up the second climb of the lap, myself, Oli Beck and Ole Christian Fagerli (Nor) had started to put a small gap on the rest of the field and was starting to kick off the race. By the end of lap one the three of us had a 20sec gap on the chasers Liam Kileen, Dave Fletcher and Markus Bauer (Ger) who were trying to chase us down. Unfortunately by the end of lap two I had lost contact from the two leaders through a few small attacks and was now on my own with the leaders 20 seconds clear.
Fortunately I continued to run my own pace and for the next 3 laps of the 6 lap race and I didn’t loose any more time and come the last lap I was starting to pull them back. Oli noticing this he attacked with a lap to go putting a gap between himself and Fagerli to pull away and end up taking the win. However I was only 17sec down on the Norwegian National Champs with a lap to go and I was determined to catch him.
Every time I seemed to nearly make contact he would put the pressure on and just keep me from his wheel, but by the last but one section of singletrack before the finish I had got on his wheel and was there to stay! When we got into the arena and down a long grass straight along the whole length of the camp site I sat on his wheel waiting until the last chance I has to pass (if I could) but even if I did it was clear it would be a sprint finish.
Coming into the last few bends the commentator (Dan Jarvis) was aware of the sprint finish and by the time we had got anywhere near the finish line there were loads of screaming and shouting from the spectators, which now thinking back at gives me goose bumps. I managed to make the jump on Fagerli before the last straight and even though I felt at the time that I was pedalling squares opened out my gap to take 2nd spot on the podium 36secs down on Oli Beck, but also taking 3rd overall in the series. Even though at the start of the season at round one of the series in Sherwood Pines I managed a second behind again…Oli Beck, in terms of performance I feel this is my best result to date and as you can probably tell by my typing, I’m pretty happy with how the race went.
This is the end of the mountain bike season for me, so a few beers watching the floodlit cyclocross and listening to the live band was the scene for the rest of the evening, as well as thinking of the race earlier on seemed a great way to end the season. Happy Days!
Next for me is a week in Turkey for a quick Holiday with the family and then straight into winters training and the cyclocross season which will be starting 3 days after I get back from my hols at the 1st round of the National Trophy Series in Abergavenny.
Race Report, Pics
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtb20100926–Report–British-XC-Series-Round-5-0
More Photos
