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.

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.

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

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.

😀

Another Anaerobic HR race then!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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.

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 🙂

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?