The early part of 2009 was particularly memorable for the preparation for the 150mile charity ride (Help 4 Heroes) to the coast. The ride was planned for the 1st weekend in March and meant that the first 2 months of the year were spent doing long road rides or sat doing 5hours on the turbo trainer when the weather was icy and/or snowy. The long rides paid off and the day of the ride was thoroughly enjoyable, I was glad to get the first 50miles to Newbury done as we were riding on the dual carriageway; from there the road wiggled and undulated its way all the way to Portland bill. It was one of my favourite days on the bike in 2009 and most importantly helped us raise £800+ for Help for Heroes.

After the Charity ride my focus shifted to the forth coming mountain bike season. I competed in a couple of the spring Gorrick series races to see where my fitness was at ahead of the season. The verdict wasn’t good, I really struggled and seemed to be off the pace, the preparation for riding 150miles meant that I could ride at an even pace for hours but I didn’t have that top end speed or turn of pace needed when racing. Furthermore having spent all winter on the road my bike handling skills had suffered markedly. This was a theme that would characterize my off-road season.

Encouraged by one of my other riding friends I decided to enter a couple of road races; my first race didn’t go at all well, I was dropped after just 10miles into a 50miles race, back to the drawing board again. By May my form had improved and at the beginning the MK bowl summer series (1hour road crit races) I was confident I could get my season on track on the road at least. The first races were hard, learning tactics, getting used to riding in a peloton of 50 riders and adapting to the racing style of road races. However after about 6weeks I was no longer getting dropped and was able to finish mid bunch. I started to watch other riders and learn how to position my self better for the sprint finish and as a result was able to gain my first top 10 finish, a 3^rd place come mid June.

At the same time I was trying to improve my off-road riding, I was aware that it was no longer my fitness holding me back but my technical riding skills that were letting me down, and the harder I tried to improve the more frustrated I got at the way I was riding. The British MTB Marathon Championships were held at the end of May at Margam Park. I had decided to skip the XC race on the Saturday and put all my eggs in one basket and concentrate on the 100km marathon race, knowing that it would contain more fire road riding and less single track that would hopefully suit me. I love riding at Margham Park, lots of big long hills to climb and fun technical descents. However this year I hated the descents, my lack of confidence off-road and tense riding haunted me, I counted down each time I made it down how many more times I would have to ride that section, each time glad to have made it down having kept the bike upright. It was a frustrating ride as I was riding really strongly on the hills; in the end I finished 23^rd, 9 places higher than I had in 2008. Despite hating the descents I had pulled off a good ride completing the 100km, 50mins faster than the previous year, clearly the road fitness was paying off. This race was the highlight of my MTB race season.

After the Marathon Champs I largely concentrated on the road races. Increasingly frustrated by my off-road form I knew I needed to give it some time, take the pressure off myself and get back to enjoying riding off-road before I worried about racing again. On the road I progressed well and quickly moved up from 4^th Cat to 3^rd Cat, only failing to score top 10 positions in 3 of the remaining races I entered on the road. The highlight of these races was a 7^th place in a 2/3/4 cat race at hog hill towards the end of the season. Ok so 7^th isn’t exactly anything to really shout about but I was pleased with the way I rode the race and had been able to apply what I had learnt through the season. The improvement in my results got me noticed by local cycling team ‘Spirit Racing’ and I was asked to join them, I agreed and spent the last part of the season racing for them.

By the time September came around most of the racing was over, and I started to wind down and just enjoy riding my bike, this happily coincided with dry trails off-road. The dry spell continued right until the beginning of October, finally for the first time this year I found myself really enjoying riding off-road so much so that for the first time in about a year I hardly rode the road bike and spent nearly all my time off-road, squeezing in just one more ride before it rained and the trails returned to winter quagmire. Encouraged by this I competed in the last round of the Southern XC series, finishing 13^th in the Sport Cat, still not a great ride, but much improved over my early season efforts, I got faster and faster with each lap, too late to impact on the race but enough to give me a glimmer of hope of improving going into 2010. Throughout September night riding was also a prominent feature of my weekly riding, going out in the dark at least once a week, the perfect way to make well known trails interesting again. This period of off-road riding culminated with a 3 day trip to Afan Forest at the beginning of October; awesome fun (especially riding the wall in the dark) but brutally hard on my body riding an 80mm race hardtail.