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With a very successful first weekend done and tied on points with Hargroves & Rapha for 3rd place, it would be all or nothing going into the final round held at Alexandra Palace in North London. With the Wiggle support staff arriving and setting up at the venue bright and early, the rest of the team could arrive and instantly relax and have the bikes taken off us and prepared for the big race ahead.
As mentioned in my previous blog, this week we would be racing with a man down (due to Andy suffering with a broken collar bone sustained in a crash at Rd 2 Huddersfield) – which put extra strain on the team to make the positions count all that more.
By the time the team headed out for a few practice laps of the course, the venue was starting to fill up with spectators – even going as far as the Wiggle riders enjoying the spoils of signing a few caps and race programmes for the many excited fans… There was a really good vibe going around.
Despite seeing headcam footage of the course in the week leading up to the event, I was pleasantly surprised to find the course had a lot of elevation for a cross course and would clearly put the strain on all the riders and produce a worthy winner come the chequered flag. The one main climb was probably a good 800 metres of continuous climbing topped off with a set of steps to crest the top… a pretty cruel move by the course designers I think! However, again it was a refreshing feel to cross racing and I was looking forward to it.
Before we knew it, the team was all on the turbos warming up and the amount of interest in the Wiggle set-up was amazing and I’m pretty sure I can speak on behalf of the whole team when I say “It was a good feeling.”
Moving onto the start straight before lining up, the teams had to be introduced by Anthony McCrossan to the 3 man deep crowd lined around the course. It’s the little things like that which makes your experience at the event all that much better. Gridded fourth team to the line on a start straight which was half tarmac and half red gravel, it meant that the leading teams took up the best spots on the grid which meant we would have to pretty quick off the blocks if we wanted the team to get round the first right hander and onto the course safely.
Myself gridded on the front row I committed everything into a good start to allow myself and perhaps my team mates following behind me to have a chance of getting onto the best grip an avoid slipping out on that first bend. True to form I had an awesome start and was off the front. I wanted to go hard from the gun today as I was a little unsure as to how I was going to ride and thought to myself that if I was to commit early then I would have to try and sustain the effort for the rest of the race and hopefully get a good result.
Coming around for the first lap I was leading, closely followed by Hargroves rider Jody Crawforth with a 10 second lead on the rest of the pack. Behind us however was a big line of riders on the chase, including team mate Seb Batchelor also riding in the top 5 and closely followed by Ben Simmons and Will Worrall – all riding for that all important extra place to gain points.
Onto the second lap and my lungs were starting to feel the early effort and going from being in the mix I dropped to 6th and was now struggling to stay in touch. At this point I knew I would have to dig deep and pull something out of the bag if I was to get back into this race. In the meantime all Wiggle riders knew the guys they had to beat if we were to stand on that team podium at the end of the day and pushed really hard in their own battles – picking off every rider on track to better our chances.
After a couple of poor laps I managed to kick back and nearly caught 2nd place crossing the line to take my second podium of the series, with Seb crossing the line as second scorer inside the top ten and Ben crossing the line as third scorer – again just missing out on that top ten finish.
After the race we soaked-up the atmosphere of the novice race while waiting for the podiums. To be fair, whoever come up with the idea of the ‘Tequila shortcut’ must have been drinking Tequila at the time, but in saying that it was pure genius!! For those of you who are not aware of what the ‘Tequila Shortcut’ is… if you want to cut the course instead of riding the full lap, you have to take a shot of Tequila handed to you by a crazed Mexican to pass through… GREAT!
Anyway, moving on… the wait for the podium was a bit tense, waiting for the result on how the team finished. But after a long wait, the results confirmed Wiggle had come 4th missing out on the podium by 1 point… 1 POINT!! I feel I may lose a few hours sleep going over that thought in my head, but Wiggle put together a great team and we put in a cracking effort to finish where we did and on the whole I’m really pleased with how we raced!
It’s been a fantastic event to be part of with the organiser really setting a new standard on the British Cyclocross scene and will certainly look forward to next year’s event!
I want to say thanks to all my team mates for being a great bunch of lads to race with and easy to get the well-needed banter going: thanks to Ben J, Pete K & Ham for team support, all behind the scenes at Wiggle HQ and Tom & Alex our two media guys from Eyes Down Films who have been putting together our Team Wiggle vids from the series so keep a look out for the last vid of Ally Pally coming soon.
Latest video thanks to Eyesdown Films!
View Video One at Lake Windermere
Or try Video Two – filmed at Huddersfield