I went for alovely run this morning with Elvis and my camera. It’s been a while since I did my back in and I gave it long enough to recouperate, but it wouldn’t play ball – so I just started to run again anyway. After a brief venture up Ingleborough last weekend, I had a 40 minute run this morning up Bull Hill – in the most spectacular anticyclonic weather. Bleeding gorgeous. The back still aches, but running’s designed to hurt anyway, so I intend to carry on, weather permitting.
A great course brought a satisfying result to a slightly off the boil cyclocross season for me. Dan Alexander had worked hard in designing an interesting course that was made very hard by waterlogged grass, turning to thick, sticky mud under all the wheels and feet going over it. It turned out that each six minute lap had about 90 seconds of running on it – which would have suited me fairly well in theory, but I was a little bit off the boil with the tail end of a cold. I finished 24th – my best National Trophy result – which should have pleased me but I know that the field was a bit depleted and some good riders didn’t finish because of mechanicals, etc.In the end, I was caught and lapped a lap and a half from the finish by a flying National Champion Phil Dixon, and soon after by team mate Rob Jebb who finished in another excellent third place.
Click more for piccies
Wow. If you look back through my cyclocross blog entries this year you’ll see me moaning about courses that are too fast and not hard enough. Well, at long last, yesterday’s national championships made up for that.
The course at Southampton Leisure Centre had been used before for national trophy races, but after a mild wet winter, it was charged up with water, and by 2:15 on Sunday, after various supporting championship races, the Elite Senior race was in nothing short of a mud bath. Laps were taking about nine or ten minutes, and there was plenty of running with the bike (heavy with mud), making this a tough one.
I had a pretty good race and felt like the 32nd position I finished in was about right (there was more than 70 starters). It was a tough trial from start to finish (as these photos taken by my cousin Adrian who lives nearby) show.
The best bit of the day, making the long journey all the sweeter, was that my team mate Rob Jebb finished a superb third, and qualified for a ride in the World Championships later this month.
Most of Southampton seemed to come home with me on my bike and in my (now filthy) kit bag.
Full results and report here on the British Cycling website.
Finally things started to come together in a National Trophy race for me this year. Whilst 27th probably doesn’t sound altogether impressive, it signalled that I’ve started to shake off the demons that have delivered me to three dreadful rides in the premier UK cyclocross series.
It was a superb course – the hardest I think I’ve ridden for a few years – with slippy corners leading into rutted muddy bogs and some classic off-camber twists and turns made nigh on impossible by the thick mud.  I was just in a much better frame of mind than i have been for most of this season’s races and i didn’t panic when I fell three times on the first chaotic lap, fighting for places in a packed, panicking string of riders.
What capped it was that Rob Jebb, my Wheelbase team mate, won ‘our’ first ever National Trophy race, on a course that was suited to the stronger riders.
Race report and photos here.
I only rode my first North of England champs last year but really enjoyed it. It’s a good atmosphere and it’s a mid way between the lower key regional races and the just-too-hard National Trophy races.
This year’s race was held near Beverley in the East Riding, at Bishop Burton Agricultural college. It was a good venue and the opinions were mixed about the course. From my point of view, I thought it was a cracker, because it was the first muddy, leafy race that I’ve done this year (despite the wet autumn). The field sections were heavy going and the course only had a couple of bits of relief in it, but I was ready for a slog like that.
By the time the forty of us lined up, I was ready to race and well prepared, and even had a very good start (4th into the first corner), but it all went bang – literally, when my rear tyre punctured on a large pothole about a minute into the race. By the time I’d carried my bike and ridden some sections on the flat tyre to the pits area, I was in last place and suddenly was faced by a new game plan!
I’d worked out before the race that, given my form and the other riders competing, I was not going to repeat last year’s 7th place, but hoped for a top ten. Now, in last place some five minutes into the 60 minute race, I really had my work cut out, big time.
Thanks to some great pits support (thank you, Billy, Jack and Mick), I got my spare bike and then changed (mud clogged) bikes each lap in order to make up as much time as I could. It was good for morale passing so many riders so quickly, but the momentum gradually levelled off and I couldn’t close down on the two riders stopping me from my top ten place. 12th on the day was more than satisfying, but it was annoying being lapped.
Wheelbase won the team prize for the third year running, this time without my help!
My brother Phil rode his first ‘proper’ cyclocross of the season at the weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly. His Three Peaks race was the last race he had done, and he rode at the South West race in Escot Park without any preparation other than enthusiasm. Muddy conditions looked fun. Well done, Phil.
Well I wouldn’t say that it was a waste of time, but it was approaching it. Two and a half hours of travelling each way for a course that was just abysmal and form that just didn’t materialise on the day. I finished 35th out of a field of 49 starters, and after a pretty good first lap, i soon succumbed to just not being able to keep myself rolling smoothly and went into the red somehow, not seeming to recover.
Again, I couldn’t close down small gaps on the riders in front after ten minutes of racing and again a cycling god from the low countries came and made the UK cyclocross scene look so amateurish. This time is was David Willemsens, Belgian Amateur champion who rode round the (exceedingly dull) Leicestershire course with ease, lapping most of the field.
After a win in the North West league last year, and wins in two of the four NW races I’ve ridden so far this year, the natural thing to do seems to progress to the top level of competition in the country (and it’s the right thing to do, given the generous sponsorship we’ve had from Wheelbase, SIS and Gore bike wear), but this step is so big, and it’s frustrating that there’s nothing in between!
It was a good chance to catch up with my team mate (and lift share) Lewis, who, conversely, seems to be really getting it together this season in the national trophies. Good on him.
I had the psychological uplift of another cyclocross win on Saturday at the Liverpool Century ‘cross Otterspool Park.
Adding to the euphoria was riding my new frames, Columbus X-Wings, (click on image, right) which felt very nice indeed (though, of course, it’s not about the bike).
As if that wasn’t enough, a total cycling hero Ben Greenwood was riding cyclocross for the first time and finished in third spot. Now I’m not deluding myself about being better than him, no way sir, but I was in this discipline on the day. What an amazing feeling!
As with my previous wins, you sometimes feel like it’s more about who didn’t turn up to race than who I beat, but you can only beat who’s there.
The second round of the highest level of cyclo-cross competition in this country and I travelled down to Ipswich a bit nervous, but also a bit resigned to my form not being where it was last year.
Had an overdue bit of bonding with my Wheelbase team mates Rob, Stuart and Lewis (thanks for the lift!) and managed to keep it down to four polite pints of Guinness on the evening before. Rob and Lewis didn’t snore: my luck was in !
The race day itself was very, very enjoyable. I’d never turned up so early to a national trophy event so preparation was very relaxed and subdued. The course itself was an absolute cracker – some testing technical bits but all pretty fast if you kept your concentration up.
The ‘other’ races (Juniors, Veterans, Women, etc) were good for the North West riders, which helped to make the day rewarding.
My performance in itself was still pretty lacklustre. I had one of the slowest opening laps I’ve ever had at this level, which didn’t help, despite having a good warm up. By the time I got myself motoring I’d ‘missed the train’ and could only make up a few places. On the whole, my performance was better than Cheltenham and I was right on the nail with skills and technique, I just wasn’t fast enough. More structure to the training will follow! 33rd in the end and a lap down on German winner Malte Urban.
Links:
British Cycling website race report and photos
Lots more photos
North West cyclo cross association website report.Â
I organised a bike race on Saturday for the first time in a good few years. It was a really very satisfying experience. The ones I used to organise at Cheltenham – mainly road races and time trials – seemed to be such thankless experiences, where riders expected so much of you and were’nt willing to put themselves in your shoes. Not all the time, but most of the time, this was what it was like.
Organising any event like this isn’t particularly easy. You can be lucky with some things (the weather was near perfect, no-one crashed enough to warrant first aid), and other things you can plan (the venue itself was really good – self-contained non-prescious parkland with a course to challenge all abilities).
What you can’t stress enough though is how you rely on other people so much. My name was down as the organiser, but for Katie, it was just as long a day, and probably more tiring in many ways, because she doesn’t have the ‘things will be okay’ kind of attitude that I have at times like that.
The best bits of the day was the realisation that the North West Cyclocross community is a very strong one – and people were genuinely willing to help out wherever they could without being asked. It really lifted me up.
So BIG ‘thank you’s go to: Katie, Jean and Bill, Matthew Pixton, Louise Gore, Stuart and Billy Reid, Josh Varty and his marshalling friend whose name I can’t recall, Wheelbase (for the generous prizes), Mick Spiers, Ray Pugh and everyone at Bury Borough Council Parks, especially David Wells. Finally, thanks, of course, to mum, for babysitting Lily. The day with Lily at my side not moaning and getting on with things would have been blissful, but utterly unattainable.
Would I do it all again? You betcha.
The race report and photos can be found here.
Part 1 – the video diary
Part 2 – the race
In a slightly odd and certainly unpredictable series of events, I had the enjoyable and very memorable experience working on a video diary with Sam Bailey of BBC’s Countryfile programme the other week. It was all strange in many ways – not least because I’ve worked for the Countryside Commission and then the Countryside Agency for almost twelve years now and have been keen to promote my work on the programme, but when my turn came, it was because of a bike race!Most of the readers here will know of my obsession with the Three Peaks Cyclocross race, a long, hard, mountainous cycling race every September. Every training ride I do is taken over by thoughts of riding the Three Peaks, and part of my obsession has manifested itself in the race blog I keep. Anyway…. to cut a long story short, it’s because of the blog that, when the BBC heard about the race and were doing a feature on the area, they contacted me to do a video diary.I had a great day filming with them (the five hours or so was useful training and mind-preparation!), and the video diary and race were shown on 8th October. Click on the images to the left to watch the coverage, split into two episodes!
This is quite a ‘precious’ event for me as it goes back in its early days to myself and Pat Alexander organising the first ever cyclocross in Pittville Park. I was slightly disappointed to not have a good race on what should have been a good course for me.
I finished 38th in the end but should have really been a bit better than that. I can’t blame anything and hate using excuses – I just wasn’t fast enough. Need to work on that.
The course itself was really enjoyable to ride and I had the bonus of some welcome support from ex-clubmates at Cheltenham as well as a good family contingent.
Having to work on the fitness now!
