MSG Round 2 - Carver Barracks

First podium of the season, and grinning like an idiot

By the time this weekends race arrived it’s been about a month since I last lined up on a start line, and in that month I couldn’t exactly say I have been able to do the highest quality training. A Stag do (my own to make it worse) and illness combining to make sure any confidence I had from my ride at Rendlesham was long gone and I was lining up at Carver wondering if I could avoid being the lanterne rouge. I had a reasonable amount of home advantage for the race because the hosting club is Walden Velo and I have had the opportunity to ride every one of the 999 iterations of the course set out by Andrew Riley prior to the big day. Before Thursday I was happy with the course but when I turned up for my final practice I was confronted with Andrew grinning from ear to ear and a new gap jump! Jumping has never been my forte so I was slightly concerned about the prospect, especially with Callum riding it and showboating. After a bit of coaxing I finally grew some balls and managed to ride it. To my surprise it was actually far easier than it looked; I actually enjoyed riding it and was disappointed when the MSG organisers asked for the big hole to be filled in!

MSG Round 1 - Rendlesham Woods

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.