Category: Sport

A great feeling to have a race live up to everything I anticipated it to be – my favourite course of the National Trophy series at Peel Park in Bradford. The autumn rain’s always going to have made this one muddy – but the course design this year also contributed towards an excellent challenge. My team Wheelbase mates Rob and Lewis did the business with 3rd and 6th respectively, and I got my best ever finish in a national trophy race, in 20th.

The sharp but painful climbs were frequent enough to make this the hardest circuit so far this year, when combined with the sticky mud – meaning bike changes every lap were a necessity. I again managed to stay upright whilst all around me tumbled. My weight helps on the thicker mud courses. The bikes were ultra reliable once again, and the pit crew were just awesome – all done so professionally when we really needed it. The training’s gone brilliantly in recent weeks, but more than that, the race day preparation is sown to a tee now… I’m lucky to be part of this set up and I’m really enjoying it… I love it when a plan works out.

Full results and report here.
Photos here.

More mud, mud, glorious mud this weekend, when I finished a fairly pleasing 6th in the North of England cyclocross championships. A slightly uninspiring course but over conditions that suited me, to be honest…

Images here

Full results here

Cold… blowing rain with a strong north-westerly wind.  The exposed hillside on the edge of a motor racing circuit.  The grass is saturated and worn to a brown mess with much in common with 1917 Flanders.  I can’t feel my hands – any part of them, and my heart rate has averaged 178 bpm for the last 60 minutes.  I can only see properly out of one eye; the mud has rendered the other one next to useless.

I’m a happy man.  The tough bit of the cyclocross season’s here, and I bloody love it.

I finished 23rd today.  Not the dizzy heights, but my best ever finish in a UCI event.  I’m chuffed enough with that.  I love it when it gets difficult!

More info on the UKCyclocross website

Just came across a few photos from last year’ cyclocross races in January. In the national championships, I’d decided that white bar tape was the way to go. The muddier it gets, the better white bar tape looks. Let’s face it, everything gets utterly filthy on the best cyclocross courses, you might as well get something white which shows off the filth well.

See all the pics here.

A little treat away for 24 hours concentrating on bike racing. It makes a difference when you can spend a bit of time preparing more meticulously. I travelled down on Saturday evening to Ipswich to stay in an Alan Partridge-style travel inn and talked bikes and sport most of the 24 hours.

Getting up and eating a healthy breakfast then having four hours at the venue before your race is a great help; we rode the course, changed tyres, practiced lines in and out of difficult wet, sticky, muddy bends, and generally immersed ourselves in being cyclists. Also had a good warm up and some excellent pit support (thanks Stuart and Pud), meaning that the day went pretty well.

Rob crashed heavily and lost a couple of places as a result, and Lewis’s ride was marred by a poor start and a crash near the end, but they finished 7th and 9th respectively, which could have been a lot worse. I was just happy again to avoid getting lapped. I rode a technically near-perfect race and stayed upright. My fitness dipped a bit ten minutes or so in but I picked up again, and finished 27th, pretty much the best I can get in the national trophy races at the moment.

The course itself was really good; any time you got to freewheel was spent braking hard and pretty much every corner was slimy and hazardous. The rain had come hard in the morning and that suited me – I just still was lacking a bit of oomph when the race settled down, particularly on the drags. Lessons learnt and I’m back into the training already!

Results here on the British Cycling site.

What a dream weekend. I organised my second cyclocross race for Wheelbase at Outwood Park in Radcliffe on Saturday. Devising cycling courses is something that every little boy likes to do – I remember it on my first bike on the spare land next to my house when I’d just learnt to ride a bike…

In reality, the toil, planning, tiring evenings, meetings, recces and paperwork of organising a cyclocross race seems a bit of a hardship, but it always seems to fade away when it goes so well on the day. Even better when you win a race the next day!

My cycling sponsors Wheelbase were brilliant this year – Stuart and Toby were up at the crack of dawn packing the van with some brilliant display gear, and helping us to capture all the numbers of riders – a nightmare of a job. Carolyn and Jake – both associates of Wheelbase also gave up a day and were so helpful – I was touched by it all.

Jean and Bill looked after signing on and parking, Mum looked after Lily, and Katie helped will all manner of things all day – we were knackered when we got home but it was all worth it – we had lots of happy and muddy riders – all you need really!

Full race report here: NWCCA

Google Earth cyclocross course map.

My photos here: FLICKR

The other part of the weekend was managing to somehow get up on Sunday morning after a bottle of red and really feel like doing a cyclocross, so off Katie, Lily and I trundled up the M6 to Hornby, where I duly romped off to win the Senior race of the Lune CC cyclocross. Enjoying my fresh legs from not having raced on Saturday, and a bit of residual form from hammering myself at the National Trophy the weekend before, I had a fairly comfortable win. Mum and Jean were there so to win in front of ‘my four ladies’ was a great feeling!

Report here, images below.

As someone who didn’t enjoy the best cyclocross season last year, it came as welcome relief to come into round one of the national trophy today feeling a lot more positive and feeling generally a bit fitter.

In terms of results, it probably translated into only a one or two position improvement on last year’s results on the national stage, but I had a bit of a spring in my step, and can truly say I rode it pretty much to the best of my ability. I wasn’t lapped (I was lapped in four out of the five national trophy races last year) and went out of the start really fast (a worry after a fairly slow start a couple of weeks in my first cross race of the season).

It was a day of mixed fortune for Team Wheelbase, with Rob Jebb looking threatening in third place, but Stuard Reid having to retire very early on in the race (tendinitis not recovered) and Lewis Craven’s chances effectively ending when he became entangled in a metal barrier – while in the lead group.

The course was worth all the travelling – fairly well suited to technically precise riders (lots of slow corners and accelerations), but very dry and fast.

I wore the Garmin 305 so I could reflect on the day’s efforts. The average pace is quite interesting – 16mph on a technical, stop-start race like that seems pretty fast – winner Paul Oldham must have been nearer 17mph – that’s quick off road for an hour.

Results and report from British Cycling here

Well… Here I am in Ingleton on the last Saturday in September, the day before the Three Peaks cyclocross. Normally , this would be the day when I focused intensely on what I ate, how I rested, when I slept, and got my head into the details of the 24 hours ahead. Instead, I’m looking up at Ingleborough and contemplating a nice pint of ale. Oh well…. next year, eh?

I’ve been holding out as usual with no planned cyclocross racing activity whilst I built up my bike carrying and endurance for the Three Peaks – the race that never was. I adjusted my mind to faster, shorter races over the last week and realised that I needed to get some fast racing in before the National Trophy races start.

They don’t come much faster than the course today at Silcoates School in Wakefield. The only race on within driving distance, it was a good job as a race to get my 2007/08 account opened. The field was very strong and I was pleased with my eventual 12th place – it could have been 7th if I’d have had a bit in the bag at the end for a sprint, but it was an odd end to the race and the group I’d been locked in from about ten minutes in fought it out in what was a protracted sprint; I came out on the bad side of it! Never mind – a good work out.

What was very encouraging was to see my team mate Rob (Jebb) whipping the pace up and riding off to win the race easily; a course people would drearily say wasn’t suited to Rob (no mud, no run ups, hardly any climbing), but his strength was never in doubt. Team down sides were the no-show of Lewis – also on blistering form – and Stuart – on an enforced lay-off with tendinitis.

The dry, fast grassy circuit meant the bike didn’t even need the slightest wipe down after the race… I’ll enjoy that while it lasts! The Columbuses (the twins) never missed a beat – just got to focus on getting the legs in the same form!!