What better time is there to write about the first race of
the MSG Eastern series than 2 days before the second, it’s only a month late
after all. From what I recall, out of the depths of a fairly miserable winter
appeared some perfectly timed sunshine resulting in a bone dry course around
Rendlesham Woods. I arrived in good time for the lunchtime practice session to
a cloud of doom and gloom. No-one seemed to have a good word to say about the
course. Even the usual source of eternal sunshine, Chris Harley (EHF) said he
was considering not bothering to race! I actually happened to quite like it.
Kind of like Thetford only slightly different. Lots of twists and turns, some
big ruts to negotiate and a one or two tame bombholes and a couple of long
fireroad sections. The key was to ride smooth in the woods and ride clever on
the open sections which seemed, generally, to be into a headwind. It turns out
the kids and women had bedded the course in a bit through the morning so most
people had cheered up by the time it came to our race.
I managed to negotiate my new warm-up routine on the rollers
without falling off and rolled down to the start with far too much time to
kill. By the time the gun went I may as well not have bothered but it at least
helped me get into the mood. From the start I tucked into the lead group
letting the usual fast starters do the work. Into the first corner I dropped
back a few more places than I would have liked and gaps soon started opening up
in front of me despite me feeling good. As we approached the longest fireroad
section I was ready to make a move on the riders in front but stayed calm and
sat in the shelter of Tom Scott-Collins until we approached the woods before
making my attack. I quickly got a gap and then managed to latch on to the back
of Ian Mockett. We were then joined by Andy Cockburn (AW), a very sick Steve
James (Renvale) and the leading junior Paddy Atkinson. Andy was the strongest
and managed to break away. I slipped in one of the ruts holding up the other
two and Steve got away. Paddy pulled out a bit of a gap in the woods and by the
time we came to the next fireroad section was too far away for me to easily bridge
to so I used Mockett as a tow and then attacked into the woods gain. From that
point on I rode on my own and kept a reasonably consistent pace. I had a big
high speed crash when I caught my pedal but fortunately didn’t hit anything too
hard and managed to dust myself off and get back into a rhythm. I was pretty
happy with my race when I crossed the finish line but annoyed that I was only
15 seconds behind Steve because I hadn’t seen him and lost quite a lot of time
behind back markers not being too keen to let me through towards the end.
Still, second expert was a good result and a good confidence boost ahead of the
first national two weeks later… or so I thought.
The national at Codham doesn’t deserve its own post
unfortunately. I turned up on the Sunday after fighting a stinking cold all
week, rode a practice lap in the morning and promptly decided I was still too
ill to ride I hung around and watched my team mates Callum and Imogen race for
a bit, then went home. Pretty crappy really. It turns out Sunday roasts don’t
taste quite as good when you haven’t earned them.
Fortunately the cold has gone now and I’m looking forward to
MSG 2 at Carver Barracks on Sunday. The
course should be tough and there are a few chutes and a gap jump to keep people
on their toes!
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