Viewing 40 posts - 201 through 240 (of 525 total)
  • 2015/2016 winter 'cross racing thread
  • flybywire
    Free Member

    Doing as many rounds as poss. this season, trying not to clash with son’s rugby fixtures..

    Next Sunday “Reading Roubaix” – new CX sportif promoted by lapierre cycles.Start & finish at palmer park velodrome 100kms with 20 gravel track/lane sections.

    john_l
    Free Member

    Catalogue of disasters today – someone ran into the back of the car on the way up to Herne Hill, then crashed on the first lap which must’ve knocked the calliper as the front brake then progressively bound on. Front row to DNF. Meh.

    shedbrewed
    Free Member

    Nice to be back turning a muddy pedal today up at Mansel Lacy. Nice to see Ferrals again. Sorry I didn’t chat more.
    Had a good start but overcooked it and my bars spinning on a root didn’t help matters.
    Be interesting to see how Aberdare goes next week.

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    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Rode Heaton park yesterday in the NW series – fine weather and good, mixed course. This one had more of the dismount / remount stuff than last week, and by God it hurt to keep things going. I guess that’s what it’s all about.

    170 riders in the vet race yesterday, quite a turnout.

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Be interesting to see how Aberdare goes next week.

    I should be there next week, after logistical problems today..

    Haven’t raced Dare Valley for 10 year, maybe? I once got mild hypothermia there. And another time got a gold medal in the Welsh champs team comp, god knows how. 🙄 (I was most definitely not the fastest rider on the team. 😀

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Yeah was a good race, have no idea how I did. I started near the back and got held up by slow people, should ahve been more agressive and barge to the front of the line up! 😆 I enjoyed the challenge of the course, even though it was bumpy as anything. My arms and shoulders hurt more than my legs today as I could only really put the power down on the road and the narrow concrete path after the second stream crossing. Hell of a blister too.

    Crashed once at the second stream trying to got right and overtake someone walking it but otherwise was fine, though i nearly stacked it into a big tree trying to take the sneaky inside line round it after the first dropoff.

    Looking forward to Aberdare now 🙂

    shedbrewed
    Free Member

    @IdleJon there was no chowder so you didn’t miss much 😉 See you at Aberdare.

    @Ferrals
    , good work and don’t be afraid to push up at the start. The outside edges can be best as if there’s a slow person in the middle you can go around rather than getting caught up in the bunch faltering.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Results already up. A few places down on Cardiff, being almost exactly mid field. Happy enough given i found it hard to find passing places

    Whats Aberdare like as a course? Loos from the route map on the fb page to be pretty much all grassy?

    john_l
    Free Member

    Should also give a shout out to the awesome commissaries at HH yesterday ;o)

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Ferrals, Aberdare can be grassy or it can be rocky, bumpy, nadgery hell. It’s basically an old slag heap.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Hope its the former!

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Just remembered that Alan Haycox messaged me some info about Aberdare when I did my preview:

    I’m organising the Bike Doctor ‘Dare to Cross’ round at Dare Valley Park, and we’ll be going all out to provide a course that offers the best open grass track available at the venue. We’ll start on the ashfelt road right next to the Visitor Centre and that’ll allow the riders to race straight for 0.23 of a mile before they go slightly left through a 3 metre wide gateway and more ashfelt before going right through another nice wide gateway and out onto what will from then on be an all grass circuit of about a mile per lap. The lap will be on a gentle camber and the reason I’d secured an early date for our round, is in the hope that we’ll not have had much rain and we’ll have a good fast course.

    😀

    ferrals
    Free Member

    reason I’d secured an early date for our round, is in the hope that we’ll not have had much rain

    We know who to blame for the next two days weather then! 😆

    Though given how dry its been and if the forecast remains he wont be far wrong as its forecast dry from Weds on.

    Sounds like it will be brutal on the legs – and strong winds forecast for sunday too!

    shedbrewed
    Free Member

    Another Anaerobic HR race then!

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Well that was brutal. My legs are going to feel that in the morning. Had a real shocker of a race after a decent start. Dropped my chain going over the boggy hurdle, crashed a lap later, dropped my chain again. Bring on Brecon next week!

    john_l
    Free Member

    Made up for last week’s shocker at Herne Hill today at Happy Valley. Got a good start & managed to stay with a couple of fast groups. Made the mistake of sitting in too long on one though when I should’ve gone – got punished for it later. Top 10ish I think.

    shedbrewed
    Free Member

    Hey Ferrals yup it was a tough one. Legs and lungs was how it was described to me. Apt.
    I had a terrible start after my pedal slipped out. Couldn’t chase down my club mate who got a better start and hung on to it. Fast course in places.
    Roll on Brecon.

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Good race in the West Mids yesterday at Aldersley – nice mixed course.

    I entered the wrong race – in a rush and just saw ‘vets’ so thought it would be like the NW, all vets together. Subsequently learnt that V50+ were separate from V40, who went with the seniors. Don’t know if this is a common set-up – did notice there were a lot of grandads passing me in the race.

    Have to say conditions have been beautiful thus far – crisp dry autumn days, not even had to clean the bike. I’m in danger of getting into this cyclocross thing – I’ve yet to have the proper cx mud, rain, cold, drivetrain knackered on the second lap experience, so could change my tune.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Shedbrewed -I think you blasted past me on the downhill towards the corner with the little singletrack cut-through.

    Looking at strava I don’t think I had quite such a bad race as I thought (pretty much halfway down the ranking for the start lap and 7 full), more importantly, if strava is correct (I’m dubious) I re-overtook one of my club mates who I thought past me when i was lying on the floor in a heap!

    I badly need to practise hurdling and running with the bike. Think I was dismounting too close to the hurdle so starting to hurdle from a standstill

    davidjey
    Free Member

    Jon, Ferrals, nice to meet you both yesterday.

    Thought that was a great course and a great venue. Nice to have a cafe to go to afterwards. I hung around for presentations and was glad I did as I got some prize money 😀 6th senior, probably 10th or 11th overall (not sure how many of the vets finished ahead of me). Very pleased with that, pointy end of the field being at the national trophy notwithstanding.

    Think I was dismounting too close to the hurdle so starting to hurdle from a standstill

    With a difficult section like that, with multiple lines and decisions over when to run and when to ride, hang around in practice and watch what the quicker guys do (or steal their lines as they lap you!). Nearly everyone was dismounting on the green bit and shouldering for the entire muddy section.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Good to meet you too David, and well done on the result, you must be chuffed, you can only race against who turns up after all.

    Good idea re watching people in practise. I did notice in the photos put up on the facebook page that there were lots of people shouldering. Guess it kept tyres a bit nicer too.

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    What I don’t understand is how you get a bog on a slope? Surely all the water should run down to the lowest point, but no, in Wales you get bogs everywhere! 😉

    Nice meeting you David.

    I enjoyed the downhill – made places there every lap. Didn’t enjoy the first part of the climb where I lost all the places I’d just made. That’s the fat MTBer in me.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    I was surprised at the amount of bogginess that one steep slope could contain – especially given it hasn’t rained for weeks?? I didn’t mind that bit actually, I had a line that seemed to work. I didn’t like the false flat leading up to it though!

    Results out, mid sixties out of 150 for me so just into the top half.

    shedbrewed
    Free Member

    42nd/24th. I’ll take that considering I’m still nursing a broken wrist! Not expecting to be that near at Brecon given the expected calibre of field.

    Good work David Jey. You ride a Blue Genesis? Or is that a different Ajax rider?

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Not expecting to be that near at Brecon given the expected calibre of field.

    yeah I was wondering about that earlier on what with the cat A status – are you expecting the field to be significantly different? I was assuming the standard welsh league and then some fast people on top?

    davidjey
    Free Member

    Just skimmed down the start list for Brecon. It looks like a normal Welsh League lineup, albeit on a day when almost all the strongest riders turn up. But yes, unless you are Steve James/Steve Roach/John Pugh you can expect to finish a little further down the running order than normal!

    You ride a Blue Genesis? Or is that a different Ajax rider?

    Yeah that’s me – ah, you are Thom from Pontypool (based on your results)? If so you pipped my mate Tom (Dye) by a place. It’s his first season of ‘cross and he’s loving it.

    shedbrewed
    Free Member

    Yeah that’s me, give me a cheery wave next time you pass. I managed to talk a few more poolers in to racing this year. It’s nice to have a bit of club company.
    Good work on getting another Ajax in too. Definitely bigger fields in the few years I’ve been riding.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Now we just need all the cx racers to migrate over to the xc series in summer too 🙂 though my results would get significantly worse I suspect!

    Edit. 166 registered online for Brecon, that’s amazing, and space for a few more on the day. Looking forward to this one, and without wanting to jinx it the weather forecast looks good, less windy than last weekend 🙂

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Cracking course for the welsh league at Brecon today. Most fun I’ve had yet racing cx, flat out fast with a couple of twisty bits. Pleased with my result too, managed to do 8 laps so only the super fast people lapped me. Definately like the tag system for fast results!

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Hmm, definately a one way conversation going on here 😳

    Another cracker today. Again very different from the others in the welsh league so far, sludgy slippery mud and saturated grass. Lots of broken bikes from the weight of mud. Think I had my best result so far, really good battle with one of the Abergavenny riders the last few laps though he got me in the end.

    Jon – didn’t see you – did you race?

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    I’ve got an abcess so waiting for that to go before I race.

    Watching this thread with interest though.

    john_l
    Free Member

    Huge two wheel slide early on cost me a couple of places at Addington today in the London League. Was a beautiful day though & fast, close racing again. I’m sure the mud will make an appearance soon 🙂

    benji
    Free Member

    First one of the season for me today a Linc’s league one, been riding endurance events all season so had neglected any top end training, wow that come keen.

    aP
    Free Member

    I Comm’d at Central League today. Seemed like a good race, the course looked quite interesting with a mixture of grass plugging and more technical riding.
    It was quite interesting on my way out there to find a car stuffed into the central reservation of the M4. Waited for 25 minutes until the services rolled the wheels that had broken off it onto the hard shoulder and coned off the car before letting every one through.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    @bikebuoy – hope you get fit again soon.

    By the way, was very pleasd i swtiched from grifos to some clement pdx’s great grip and mud shedding. offcamber in particular was great, gripped like riding on the flat!

    davidjey
    Free Member

    Well, after several more-or-less dry rounds, the season started for real in South Wales yesterday with plenty of mud 😉

    Decent race for me, got caught behind someone else’s crash in the first few corners and dropped down to about 30th, but hauled my way back up through the field to 8th or 9th place. Absolutely spent at the finish thanks to an all-or-nothing attack to drop someone with half a lap to go. Both bikes absolutely caked in mud – I took my spare from the pits for the last two laps, so rode it for about 15 minutes to spend an hour cleaning it when I got home.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Good going. Looking forward to seeing the full results.

    Pretty chuffed as looking at strava (just requested to follow you btw David), I was a minute behind the fastest guy that trains with my club. In the first two races I did he lapped me and at brecon we finished on the same lap but I was way back, so I feel like I’m getting the hang of it slowly!

    Really enjoyed yesterday – full on cross hangover today – a lot of coffe drunk already :-).

    Wondering about bringing my mtb to Melin Mynach as a spare, but its more of a trail hardtail than a full on xc bike so i guess it would be an ‘in case of mech failure security’ than a viable bike to ride. Probably more hassle than its worth.

    davidjey
    Free Member

    Good work. Always interesting how the first proper modder of the season can shake up the pecking order – some people go well in the mud, maybe you are one of them!

    Wondering about bringing my mtb to Melin Mynach as a spare, but its more of a trail hardtail than a full on xc bike so i guess it would be an ‘in case of mech failure security’ than a viable bike to ride. Probably more hassle than its worth.

    It really depends how bothered you are about scoring points toward the league. If you are bothered, then any spare bike that will get you over the finish line, still scoring some points even if it’s less than normal, is better than zero points for a DNF.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Yeah good point, I think I’m just going to make it to 7 races so having two bikes there might not be the worst idea. Mind you I’d be a paranoid android about leaving it unattended 😳

    I enjoyed the mud, didnt think i would but it was good, I wonder if mostly riding mtb helps in the mud with traction control?

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Jon – didn’t see you – did you race?

    No, had a family day out instead. I’ll be at Melin Mynach next week, and can probably make another 4 rounds after that so didn’t need to risk wrecking my bike yesterday. 😐

    What was it, something between 10 and 20 wrecked rear mechs?

Viewing 40 posts - 201 through 240 (of 525 total)

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