Bank Holidays, Time trials some MTBing

Over the last couple of weeks since Sherwood I have managed to get out and do some good riding without really concentrating on training. Last weekend I got out for 92 miles with the Witney Grupetto. Despite Dex and Rodger being in a massive rush to get home after we had dropped everyone off in Carterton I felt surprisingly good at the end of the ride. On the Sunday my legs were pretty stiff but it was a nice day so I went out for some supersets on the MTB. Unfortunately everyone else in Oxfordshire thought it was a nice day too so the bridleways were packed with kids, walkers, dogs and horses, meaning I couldn’t really get up to race pace for fear of hitting someone. With the bank holiday weekend I finally had the time to spend some more time on the XTC 29er and I am really getting a feeling for it. I have managed to get my position sorted with narrower and slightly lower bars so it feels a bit more racy and have also tubelessed the tyres. I went to Aston Hill on Friday with Jack and Ash of mid-pack vets fame and did a few laps of the XC course. The bike felt great on the technical sections and made nothing of the roots and drops. I swapped over to Jack’s Ellsworth with 5 or 6 inches of travel at both ends and actually noticed the roots more. After the XC route we dropped down the black route which was very ‘interesting’. It was very steep with more roots than track in places but exactly what I wanted in preparation for Dalby in a couple of weeks.  The bike got a load of attention too. It’s like no-one’s seen a 29er before! On the Saturday I went out for a 3 hour ride taking in the best bits of local singletrack along with quite a lot of bridleway before heading to my parents fro a whistle-stop tour and a whole lot of Easter food. Monday I was back on the MTB doing some off-road supersets (2x 10min race-pace, 15 min 80% 5 min rest). Unfortunately the Bank Holiday weather finally caught up with me. It was bloody miserable and the trails had turned into a muddy ice rink. Still, it was good to finish off the long weekend with some more hard riding. This week I did the Charlbury 10 miles 'sporting' TT on Wednesday and was pretty happy with a mid-pack time of 27.33. The time was not really too much of a concer (luckily since it sounds like they may have just plucked other peoples times out of thin air) but it was good to get the competative juices flowing and push a bit harder than I would have done otherwise. This Saturday I went out with Robin from http://www.areufit.co.uk/ for a 70mile road ride. We had a bit of a head wind the whole way out so it was a relief to have the extra help on the way home when we were both beginning to flag. A night out in London on Saturday night put paid to any aspirations of Sunday training so I will be hitting the turbo tonight for for an hour of hurt.  This weekend I also got the bike I will be racing for the rest of the season. Sinch Franck has moved abroad and subsequently left the team I have taken posession of his slightly pimped XTC including X.0 running gear and full carbon cockpit. Once I have removed the Lebon stickers I will get a few decent photos of her up on the website.