First of all i think thanks are in order to the SXC organisers , after the absolute lottery of results at Laggan (and Neil having to spend alot of time sorting them out) the event today ran fairly smoothly
course was excellent , a true picture of how an XC course should be , fast open fire road , lots of natural technical rooty climbs and descents, some man made single track and some unridable stuff. GREAT !
Race its self was different , i was gridded at the front on the back of laggans 5th
this allowed me to get into the lead pack at the start, from here we progressed to over take a large percentage of the masters on the first climb.
first technical decent and an aborted overtake manuver on a guy in a skeleton top resulted in me going over the bars. Quickly got back up , realised that we had made quite the break in just that short period and that perhaps i was going too fast.
Slowed down a little to pace my self realising that i couldnt keep Niall Frost and Dave Hendersons pace up for the duration of the race. Floated in my own no mans land for a lap and came across Chris Bell in his own no mans land.
The two of us litterally destroyed each other, each time i made an advance to pass for the next two laps hed close me off with some speed , put in an effort try to open a gap and id close him off.
4th lap first climb i made a break , past Chris , opened a little gap and Chris pulled out all the stops closed the gap , passed me and took off onto the singletrack descent , over cooked a corner ended up in a ditch having ridden front wheel first into a log hard and blown out his tire.
Not how i woulda liked to have taken third from him to be honest. but coulda quite easily been me who did the same thing i guess
he`ll get me next time im sure !
next installment - me not knowing how to work the podium and getting it all wrong !
course was excellent , a true picture of how an XC course should be , fast open fire road , lots of natural technical rooty climbs and descents, some man made single track and some unridable stuff. GREAT !
Race its self was different , i was gridded at the front on the back of laggans 5th
this allowed me to get into the lead pack at the start, from here we progressed to over take a large percentage of the masters on the first climb.
first technical decent and an aborted overtake manuver on a guy in a skeleton top resulted in me going over the bars. Quickly got back up , realised that we had made quite the break in just that short period and that perhaps i was going too fast.
Slowed down a little to pace my self realising that i couldnt keep Niall Frost and Dave Hendersons pace up for the duration of the race. Floated in my own no mans land for a lap and came across Chris Bell in his own no mans land.
The two of us litterally destroyed each other, each time i made an advance to pass for the next two laps hed close me off with some speed , put in an effort try to open a gap and id close him off.
4th lap first climb i made a break , past Chris , opened a little gap and Chris pulled out all the stops closed the gap , passed me and took off onto the singletrack descent , over cooked a corner ended up in a ditch having ridden front wheel first into a log hard and blown out his tire.
Not how i woulda liked to have taken third from him to be honest. but coulda quite easily been me who did the same thing i guess
he`ll get me next time im sure !
next installment - me not knowing how to work the podium and getting it all wrong !
all images from http://www.colinrobinsonimaging.com/
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