National XC 2; Dalby



Axe's tend to fix most things

I have been looking forward to, and dreading the Dalby round of the national series for a good few months now and certainly since the first round at Sherwood nearly a month ago. Dread had started to outweigh excitement with the weather forecast being pissing rain, mixed with some hail but balance swung back in favour of excitement aster my practice lap. The course was great and holding up well to the elements, and I rode Madusa’s Drop which was probably the most technically demanding section of the course. Half-way through our lap we were hit by torrential rain and hail which left many competitors cowering under bushes for cover. By the time we had got back to the car, hastily got changed and warmed up the sun was back out and the forest was steaming. After the lap everyone was panicking about brake pad life and RWD were doing a roaring trade. In the end I bowed to pier pressure and swapped mine too, but not until after I had watched George Budd’s interesting approach to bike maintenance.




3 full tanks or water and a jet wash to get this mess clean!

On Sunday the weather managed to hold and it was actually a reasonably warm day which turned out to be a kick in the balls in disguise. Where it had been like a river on Saturday with plenty of grip and the mud not sticking, it had turned into a bog march with my bike weighing about 30kg (not even over-estimating that) by the end. The switchback climb up to Madusa’s quickly became un-ridable at the bottom, and with every lap the later sections got harder and harder. I actually had my only crash of the race on this climb when I ran out of momentum and traction, tried to put my foot down and failed to remove it from the pedal. I was tempted to just stay down and play dead to avoid having to do another lap and a half but thought better of it when I nearly got run over by the guy behind. I dint manage to ride the drop during the race, not through lack of trying but just lack of grip/ability. I was lapped by Liam Killeen at the end of lap 3 and assumed that meant I would be spared my 5^th and final lap as the course in normally closed once the elite race has been won. For some reason this was not the case and as I trudged out for my final lap I dread was definitely back on top. I managed to drag myself around and finish in 15^th out of 30. Not too bad but I certainly hoped to be closer than I was to Jason Boutell who won fairly convincingly. Looking back it fealt like I spent about 3/4 of the race on the long steep climb up to the top of the course and I reall struggled to keep moving on the last lap. On the other hand, the big wheels helped to blitz the technical bits, including making the rocky gully after Worry gill feel like a magic carpet ride (well, almost anyway)!

Following my race the organizers saw fit to remove a technically demanding section from the course and slash the number of laps the Masters and Vets did. While this might have been the right thing to do, it showed how harsh it was to make the Experts do essentially the same number of laps as the Elites who were generally much quicker.

Next weekend I will be at round 2 of the ‘Mud Sweat and Gears’ Eastern series where I can hopefully pick up some much needed ranking points. At the very least it will get me out of the in-laws house for a few welcome hours.