I have not ridden my bike since Wales because of a sore throat/cold so I had no great expectations going into Sunday’s Southern XC Championships. The thought of racing had kept me going all week long but when I was struggling to speak on Sunday morning I did question whether it was wise. After a couple of Strepsils and a gentle reccy lap I was starting to feel a bit better but how my legs would react after a week of 0 exercise was still a mystery.
After weeks of miserable rain we were gifted a couple of days of sun which did wonders for the course to the point that it was dry and dusty for almost the whole lap. Thank God for that is all I can say because this could have been a full on bog slog if things had gone the other way. Much of the course is loamy soil with exposed roots which have a habit of becoming unridable very quickly. The course was very similar to previous years with a slightly reworked, and less to my liking, start and a new near-vertical drop-in by the lakes.
I got away from the start pretty well and moved up a couple of places before we left the field but the point where we would have turned off in previous years my legs had had enough and I knew I had to back off. The majority of the field came by at this point while I dropped down a couple of gears and spun my way to the top. Once into the singletrack I could recover and was quickly chasing down Paul Brenan (Inverse) and Ryan Keynes (1st Gear). We were joined by Mark Davies (CCW) after he had a mechanical and we briefly had a 4 way tussle for position before Mark and I escaped. I couldn’t quite hold Marks wheel in the later stages of the lap so hit the first climb into a slight headwind without a wheel to follow but I could see I was catching guys in front. I passed Mark struggling with another mechanical and for the next lap I could see he was slowly catching me until I heard the hissing sound every cyclist dreads. I could feel sealant being sprayed from my rear tyre onto my leg so stopped briefly to get the puncture at the bottom of the wheel so that the sealant might fix it. I only lost a few seconds this time but it was enough to put Mark out of sight. Annoyingly air was still escaping from the tyre and later in the lap I had to stop again and top up the tyre with a CO2 cylinder. I now had no more means of inflation so I just had to hope it would last to the end of the race. By now Paul and Ryan had got past me again. I managed to take back one place but Paul matched my final lap time and kept just ahead of me.
I don’t feel like I can take much away from this race other than use more sealant and stop getting punctures. While I enjoyed the course I am not sure it is quite up to holding a National Championships there. I suppose a National Champs doesn’t have to be technical every year but the lack of any major hills, lack of technicality and lack of weatherproofing means it is hard to say it is one of the top courses in the country at the moment.
I plan to have a few more rest days now so that I can hopefully see the back of this cold before making the most of a race-less weekend and hitting the training hard in preparation for the next round of the National Series in Erlstoke.
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