What I found weird about that drop at the welsh was at the lower position you could ride over without even thinking, but even though the height raise was only a foot or so, in the higher position there was no way in hell i was going near it 😆
think its the chnage in angle of te take off rather than the actual increase in drop

Only worth doing more if you have some in your top 8 that you think are easy to improve on though surely? If you have 8 good ones just wait and see!

Amusingly at the moment I’m the same ranking this year having done only 6 as i was last year having done over 8 races.

Just to whinge and let off some steam. Got to Verbier, feeling reasonably confident, or at least as confident as you can when faced with a gentle 120km jaunt through the Swiss Alps, wake up this morning with a f************ cold. So got a week to get this cold out of the system and acclimatise as best i can.

Oh well. such is life i guess.

I finished off my XC season for the year by taking on Torq 12:12 12hr solo last weekend down at Minley Manor.

The course was excellent, not a climby as Mayhem but IMHO a damn site harder due to the amount of single track and all the roots.

I did a practice lap in the morning with my team mate and tried to make a judgement of race pace etc and a vague guess at how many laps would see me into a decent position.

It started pretty well, with good consistent lap times and about 5 laps in I started to struggle as for some reason my feet started killing me, a change of shoes on the 2nd lap of pain and some paracetamol and things came back; unfortunately I’d lost over 15 minutes on those 2 laps and dropped a place. After the shoe change, the lap times came down straight away, back to what I was lapping at previously and I kept that going to the end.

I came in 5th overall in Vets and 17th overall in 12hr solo which considering the distinct lack of endurance type riding I’ve done since Mayhem I was pretty happy with.

The photos are courtesy of a chap called Marcus on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/XGGfsY]36862274365_d2ae888df5_o[/url] by Steve Bowman, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/XGGfXf]36035822693_3beff59a13_o[/url] by Steve Bowman, on Flickr

I rode the 2nd last round of the X-cup last Sunday, luckily I avoided any mechanical problems this time and took the win 8)

The biggest challenge was the mud, goodness, never raced in anything like that before. I had to run up most steep ups (CX training has started 😆 )and tri-sledge the downs, madness, some of the less abled were sliding down the hills on their backside 😮

Final round is on the 16th Sept.

One more race of the mtb season for me. After a road race last weekend I took part in the local mtb marathon today. As this part of Germany is devoid of any mountains I decided to give the Crux a run before the cross season starts as the course is distinctly gravel bikeish. I was riding on tubs so had to pump them up rock hard to try and mitigate a puncture which would have ended my day and made a long 15km walk home. Managed to podium in third place and all three of us were in the masters 2 age cat (40-50). We beat all the young guns! So next week it’s off to some real mountains in Arnstadt (home of Marcel Kittel) and then a couple of weeks to prepare for the cross season which begins in the second week in Oct.

*waves*

Thanks for helping out with the event. Yeah, i was thankful for the recognition. Never has fixing a chain (in 7 minutes) felt so long.

I just didnt want to finish last. Pride etc.

I quite fancy entering some races next year, but not sure that these short sprint efforts are my bag.

Are there any ‘marathon’ races in scotland worth looking into? I’m thinking around the 40 – 50 mile mark?

SNAP! Me too! Properly gutted, I was pretty happy at the front of the elites, about 2/3rds into the first lap. I almost always carry a chain tool, but as it was the last race I figured ‘all or nothing’ and left it in the kit bag 🙁 Ran/scooted the rest of the lap, then borrowed a tool at the pits. Promptly blew myself up going off too hard afterwards, then seriously lacked motivation to push for the rest.

Weirdly I really enjoyed the riding though, and got back up to 5th elite/expert so not a complete waste of a day.

Kudos to Kryton for getting on with it, must be even worse having it snap on the start line.

I rode 34 oval. My legs are reminding me of that this morning, although it seemed to help with grip on the hill as I was using the same Ralph I’ve been using since March..

. I did the same! Flew off the line once I was back in the game, up the hill and had to remind myself to calm down… And likewise well done for the finish.