No, all’s good 🙂 I stopped at Newbury for a car wash then been feeding/walking 8 dogs and pressure washing mud out me treads 🙂
Well, that was great fun! I felt really nervous before the start prob because of my conspicuous machinery. I had already decided not to start off the front as the Senior warmup had shown me how fast these guys are. But the gridding meant I didn’t get a choice anyway 😉
I put a big wide maxxis on the front as I was supposed to be xc racing last weekend but didn’t go so this was its debut outing and I hate it! Way too wide and needs real commitment to get it onto the edge. However, to be fair, by the last lap I’d adjusted and was flinging it in without too many worries.
So what’s this CX racing like from a newbies perspective then?
The course was really good fun and had enough different sections to keep it interesting. Obviously none of it is worse than the car park at an xc race but that really didn’t matter. Away from the start and a quick down-wind sprint was the fastest bit of the course. Then was a twisty turny bit around some little garden things and a huge bottleneck meant I was able to get a breather and take in the surroundings. Then we took an upwind sprint into a tight bend which took me until the last lap to realise wasn’t as slippery as it looked and could be took flat out. Uphill drag across the playing field and into the first off camber section. I felt obliged to make this look easy on my Mtb and I gained ground on various people every lap here. Up towards the car park and a couple of tight sloppy bends around the trees. Again, I was overly cautious up until the last lap when I was looking for ways TO die to relieve me from my pain 😉
Quick downhill, downwind blat across the grass and then out the back into the BMX track. Again this suited me and a quick click into ‘traction mode’ meant I could be creative with my line and avoid the target fixation on the telegraph pole that everyone else was getting 😉
Through the trees and into the wet ruts of ‘soggy bottom’ this was genuinely tricky and rewarded light hands- just let the bike do what it likes. Next was an uphill drag through the peripheral trees of the playing field and every lap it was balancing the fact that this gradient suited me against the knowledge that I needed a few spare bpm for the fast approaching ‘bank’.
I I can happily say I rode up it every lap and gained a couple of places there on each of the first three 🙂
By this point, the relentless climb from soggy bottom and the epic headwind meant most of my compatriots treated this as a bit of a slog. Then was a cool off camber bit which I loved and even experimented with a few different lines to see which felt quicker. Finally a slalom around the cricket pitch before the two full-height barriers at the start/finish line.
I pretty much nailed this every lap and certainly never gave away ground- my quick practice had paid off.
Lap one was a bit of a sort out, lap two I had a few battles and made up places. Lap three and four were spent too’ing and fro’ing with a couple of guys and after that I honestly can’t remember much. I was knackered! Anyhow, there was a guy on a Kona hard tail I’d been back and forth with but I just didn’t have the legs on the last lap which turned into a bit of a lonely slog.
One funny thing was a guy called ‘Tom’ (apparently) who I battled with during a couple of laps. We passed his dad about three times a lap who was shouting various words of encouragement- especially at the bank. Then I heard him say about me ‘go on! Get past the big lad!!!’ Of course, this spurred me on and I did him back on the downwind fast bit and fended him off to my favourite drag from soggy bottom. Anyway, that pretty much finished him off and he must have blown up because he was soon out of sight.
Next lap his dad looked a little miffed when ‘the big lad’ appeared without Tom in tow 😀
I nearly shouted ‘Sorry mate, he got owned by a fatty on a Mtb’ but thought better of it 😉
Anyway, I have no idea where I finished but it was really good fun and great training.
