In the week running up to the event the weather was pretty bad, with swirling winds and torrential downpours. Concentrating on getting some miles done in preparation for “Dusk ‘til Dawn” in October I had not ridden off road really since the end of the British summer back in mid-June.

Testing the bike out off road on the South Downs around QE park was like trying to catch an eel on an ice rink – tricky stuff. I decided to combat this by running some grippy Continental Supersonic’s at low pressure, hoping that there would not be too much deep mud on the trails.

On the day of the event the weather couldn’t have been any better – virtually no wind and dry-ish conditions. With the sun setting, the organisers set us off and it was a mad dash to hold onto the wheel of Charlie Eustace who was unleashing a blistering pace. All was going well for the first 12 minutes… then I heard the unmistakeable hiss of a rear flat. Off the lead group went while I fumbled to change the tube, sweating fiercely from the intense burning of some rather effective embrocation! At this point I decided to try and work my way back up to the lead pair, riding like a wounded honey badger to claw the places back and burning the Exposure MaXx-D light up front on full power really allowed me to rip down the descents on the slimy, green chalk.

At around 9pm the fog was making it very hard to see anything but fog, and I lost my way a couple of times while the lead riders were pushing on. At about halfway I had caught back up with Charlie with one man left out on course. I had reached the front end of the field but dug deep to get back up there. From here on in I was focused on consolidating my position and not doing anything too reckless and it paid off, finishing 2nd overall.

A big thank you to Trail Break for putting on a great event and Wiggle for supporting me so much throughout this season.

Now onto the Dusk ‘til Dawn, see you there!