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Done a charity bike ride today in Gravesend (on your bike). About 45 miles and I borrowed my mate's SCR Giant to see if or how fast I am (before another shiny bike purchase on C2W). He easily outpaced me on his plastic bike and I was left feeling I am not fast enough. I was always had the ambition to enter at least one race but maybe a road race would be out of my scope. I averaged 15 mph over the (45) miles today.
So leaves me...
cyclocross race
MTB race
Or should I give up this ambition as I am knocking on a bit 45 and clearly a little slow 🙁
Do it. MTB or CX. From experience as a competitor and an organiser there will be about 6 people who want to win and the rest are doing it for a laugh.
I did my first CX a couple of months back. Just turned 40, first ride on the bike (birthday present from the missus), came in the last 10% and I couldn't give a toss. Great fun.
yes I think you are right...road racing seems too serious (wait for darkside roadies to come on here and disagree).
I will look for a MTB race locally (kent) and enter a crosser race in the autumn/winter.
Absolutely 110% do race if at all possible. I only did a few XC ones and was very much a back marker, but it was still good fun. In hindsight 🙂
Isn't CX just one hour? I'm sure it might feel like the worst hour of your life, but at least it's a short sharp shock. ANother thing to look at is trailquest - less intense, but still competitive and a great laugh.
Just have a go, I've never done a xc race that does'nt cater for all abilities.
If this helps to put things in perspective, I race road and struggle to finish but in xc I'll finish in the top 30% overall and I'm 49.
And when I train on road I usually only manage just under 18MPH average and that's trying, frustrating when you get guys on here that average more than 20MPH at twice the distance just for fun.
I actually raced an SCR last year, it coped but it's more Audax'y than race machine.
Thanks oldgit...interesting that you raced a SCR. I thought it was Giant's sport or race bike but there might be others more suitable?
I do really fancy cyclocross and yes it might only be an hour but it does look quite painful.
I have tried trail quest or at least a minor one but I was crap...my sense of navigation is bad 🙁
Any one know the best MTB races to enter in the Kent area?
Yes at the time Giant produced the TCR that was the race version.
Best look on British Cycling and study the calender.
Cyclo cross won't kick off again until about September, but you should find some xc races to do.
It's quite common to get pulled out of an XC race after about 40/45 minutes if you are too far behind the leaders, and you probably wont want to argue with them. I usually want it all to end after about 5 minutes.
Andy, have a look here:
http://www.boarsonbikes.co.uk/racing/bedgebury_2009.html