Easy traffic , arriving at Newbury a bit better prepared than last week.
A two lap warmup, soon revealed a much tougher course than last week. Especially the switchbacks going up through the trees. Corner> uphill 10m sprint>corner>sprint> corner>sprint....Even though it had rained most of the previous two days, the course was dry.
As we lined up to start , i Kind of wedged myself somewhere in between the front two rows. I will start you in 5 seconds.. and we were off..
I had a pretty god start, but fluffed my clip in and lost a few spots. the usual first lap 100% max meant I made a few up and as we were going through the start again i was in about 4-5 place.
A young Fareham Wheelers lad , Andover Wheelers and a Pedal-On MTBer were all pushing tit for tat on corners.
I managed to keep pressure on Fareham boy and flew past where he fluffed a corner, but my marginal gain was short lived as didn't have the strength to hold them off on the flat straights. Damn it was rutty. My triceps were well caked by the end!!
Fareham boy crashed and I went past again. It stayed like that for quite some time, but I could see Fareham and a Cotswold Veldrijden rider hauling back up to me.
No matter what I did they slowly but surely closed in. I kept digging hard, but overcooked it under the trees where I think that I hit a damp patch and went down on my right side. ( why is it that handlebars always dig into your thigh!) after bashing the shifters square again I was off up the hill, but they were just going faster than me and passed with about 1 1/2 laps to go.. Those damn draggy straights in the lower field (ted) were my undoing.
I finished with a pretty fast lap and no lasting damage other than clumps of earthy grass on my shifters and rear mech.
Counting back with other riders around the finish, I finished eighth. and third Vet ( is that a podium?) so in all not too shabby. need to get back and do circuits down my woods.
Have a look at the interactive results: Banjo Cycles.com cyclocross-results-seniors Well cool....
.. roll on next weeks racing.
No comments:
Post a Comment