I’m not sure if a 6 mile family trailer bike ride is perfect
preparation for a race in the afternoon. However, it was a beautiful morning and I didn’t
have to leave home until after midday given the afternoon start time for the
Veterans races nowadays!
Crow Hill was the scene once again for the Southern Regional
MTB XC Championships. Although I drove through a couple of rain showers during my drive to
the New Forest, the sun was shining when I arrived and the course was dry and extremely
dusty on my exploratory warm-up lap.
There was a very large field of close to 50 Veterans at the
start. Unfortunately I was gridded near the back after skipping the previous race and a
DNF at the first round of the series. Through the sea of helmets I could barely
see Marc Chamberlain and Paul Hopkins at the front!
At the starters whistle we screamed off around the starting
loop. The start of a XC race never fails to astonish me! Even at the back the
sheer brutal shock of the flat out sprint from a cold start had my legs and
heart screaming for mercy! Initially I barely held my own, but then I began to
fight and made up a few positions. After all the frantic sprinting 50 riders eventually had to funnel single
file into the wood, almost coming to halt
and then cruising through the first section of singletrack as things settled down!
Having narrowly beaten me in my most recent races sticking
close to Stefano, riding for Beyond Bikes was my target. He was a couple of
riders ahead in the line as we swept through the trees. As he picked off one or
two places I fought to keep pace, but always a position or two behind. Then
suddenly in the loose dust he lost his front wheel and was down in a shower of dirt.
I squeezed past, but he was quickly up and hot on my heels.
I like the Crow Hill course, mainly because it has some
decent elevation gain which plays to my strength. This year however, the route
was run in reverse to previous years. This meant that the climbs were tight rooty
and technical and not the usual wide open trails. So passing on them required
going off line and having to squeeze through between the trees.
During the first lap the pace was relentless, but you couldn’t
give an inch or the riders behind would pounce. There was a long fireroad
section ¾ of the way around the lap and I tucked in to get a slipstream, trying to take the pressure of the pedals slightly and reduce the lactic in my legs.
I relaxed too much and Stefano coasted past me just as we
re-entered the singletrack. I sucked onto his wheel and on the final climb to the
line re-passed him again. We were both still slowly but steadily making up
positions and working ourselves forward in the race. Back into the singletrack
and Stef was through on the inside and I was chasing again, drifting through
the loose corners and bouncing over the roots.
Half way around the lap we caught a long line of 6 riders. It was like a convoy on a busy country A road.
Slowing us down but still moving fast enough to make passing difficult. As we
hit one of the narrow inclines I tried to sneak up the inside. The roots
bounced me wide and into the path of Stefano, I apologised and conceded the
position again as he had the momentum. Gathering myself I surged a second time
up the left passing Stef and the rider ahead, but was then trapped on the outside of the next corner and with no way back into the queue had relinquish both positions.
I was frustrated and had to coast behind Stefano at the back
of the crocodile for a few more bends before I could try again. This time I was
in the long grass sprinting up alongside the queue of riders. My unorthodox line meant I was squeezed up against the fence. The rider in front didn’t know
I was there and cut across, to avoid taking us both out I had to brake and swerve violently
across the track. As I swung across the path I collected the rider next to me,
our bars interlocked we rubbed shoulders both trying to shake ourselves free
and maintain position.
Separated at last I chased the rest of the pack and through
the next section of fast sweeping corners finally fought my way to the front of the line.
This however, was only half the job, now I had to try and break clear. For the
next lap I tried to create distance between myself and those behind, but every
time I teased out any sort of advantage one of those behind would close it down
and drag all the others with him. We continued like this for some time, until I
began to fatigue from my efforts and let some riders through so I could shelter
behind them in the group and try to recover.
We continued to swap positions as sections of the course
played into each other strengths. Some would surge through the sweeping bends
or make up ground on the descents, I’d pull back time on the climbs. Each of us
fighting to hold our ground. Eventually by natural selection we began to shell
riders out the back of the group one by one. Stef was still behind me, but as
we started the penultimate lap he attacked and surged through. It was an intentional
concerted effort to make the split and I couldn’t go with him.
I chased and chased but the gap hovered at 10-15 seconds. I
was tantalizingly close but unable to bridge back to his wheel. It was now that
the rain arrived. Under the trees it initially remained dry, but the open
sections became treacherous and the dusty surface became a paste. I glided wide
with little control through corners we’d been railing flat out a lap earlier.
Riders were constantly having to test and reassess the levels of grip under
their tyres at every corner or wet root. I admit that conditions like this do
not play into my hands.
As we began the final lap Stef was creeping away, but there
was nobody behind me now. With little to loose I put in some big efforts on the
first couple of climbs and got Stef back into striking distance. Into the next descent,
I threw caution to the wind, chucking the bike through the corners, when
suddenly the front wheel washed out from under me and BANG! I was down in the slippery
mud.
In such situations you don’t think about the pain, you just leap
back on the bike and go, go, go! All you can think about is not losing time. Cursing
myself I bashed the brake levers into position, amazingly everything else
seemed to be pointing in the right direction!
There wasn’t enough time to close the gap to Stefano now,
but still I chased, in case he made a mistake similar to my own. The nerves
began to jangle slightly because I could now hear and see the rider behind.
When I glanced back he was out of the saddle and in full pursuit! He closed on
me towards the end, but I had enough time in hand, finishing 23rd,
30 seconds down on Stefano.
As I chatted to Stef after the race I became vaguely aware of the pain in
my knee. By the time I went to bed I could only lay comfortably on one side!
The final lap accident had been quite hard.
It had been a truly awesome race. One of my most enjoyable
in recent memory. It had been close with battles from start to finish. The
weather had mixed it up, the changing conditions definitely spicing up the
final couple of laps as things went from fast to treacherous. 23rd
is about par for me at the Southern Champs over the past 6 or 7 years. I
consider myself a pretty competent rider, so that I can race as hard as
I did and still finish 15 minutes down on the winner just shows the level of
those guys at the front. I must take heart that I was mid pack in a large and
very experienced and skilled Veterans field with some good riders behind me. I
was around 1 minute from the top 20 which was my goal before the race. Most of
all though, it was damn good fun!!
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