Making a return to the national series this year after being left out in 2008, the organizers had put a lot of effort into making it an exhilarating course. Each lap was 7 km with a return to the arena after the first 3 km which had you running parallel to the finish line before heading back into the forest. Being Nottingham it was as flat as they come for a race course which is no bad thing. Only climbs of the day came in on one of the 2 fire road sections - the main drag after the start and another smaller drag at about 4 km round the course. To make up for the lack of climbing plenty of twisty single track sections were the order of the day and 2 long jumps had been added to the course just to spice up the action! 1 poor rider became a victim of the log jump, and the result was a broken collar bone which saw an early retirement and possibly the end of his season.

Being the first race of my campaign and a move up to sport category I was slightly apprehensive but incredibly fired up. I had no idea what to expect from my performance or even if I would be able to keep with the pace. It didn’t help that  I was starting at the back of the pack of 80 riders who all looked very quick. From watching the earlier races I knew that a strong start was vital to avoid any crashes as all the riders bottled necked off of the start line and then into the feed zone.

I didn’t get as quick a start as I usually do and I was quickly pinned to 1 side of the course with the white course tape coming increasingly close to my handlebars. I knew I just needed to back off and wait for the single-track climb hoping a winter of training would give me the power to take places. Sure enough I had good legs and I moved up quickly before the inevitable single track snake.

Buy the end of lap 1 we had all spaced ourselves out and I was concentrating on riding consistently and just learning what it was like to race in this category. Over the next 2 laps I had some good battles with riders in front of me and found myself to be very quick in the twisty sections which luckily meant I made up some places. Buy lap 4 I was in no man’s land and I was just riding hard to punch in consistent times and break my body back in to racing. I eventually finished in 58^th position about 21 mins behind he race winner, but I finished with a big sprint finish and a huge smile on my face. 

Best Regards

Kris
bucksmtb.co.uk XC Team Rider

All photos copyright of Joolze Dymond www.joolzedymond.com