It all started with a call - from me to Phil (Penfold) about doing a bit of racing to get experience for the upcoming Bontrager 24/12 race in July.

Roll on 3 weeks later, and I'm standing in a muddy carpark getting my bike ready, and Phil doesn't turn up - clocks have gone forward and he's gone AWOL.

No problems, onto the race.

I enter the Open category - 3 laps (5 miles

a lap) of the Frith Hill area - All of it doable - if it were dry! We have had some horrendous weather recently and it showed in the conditions of the trail. As my race wasn't till just before 1pm, I was wondering on the state of the trails after all the other categories before mine had been through. Soon to find out methinks....

Off to have a coffee and a warm up as the other races commence and finish....

....12.54.50 - 10 seconds before the race is about to start and I'm in the middle of the pack. My "race strategy" was to keep in the middle and see how I go, picking of riders as they dropped or presented the opportunity for me to do so. Hit and miss, but what the heck, I'm only here to see how I fare

12.55.00 - And we're all off like a bunch of demented loons! 81 riders and their gears are changing rapidly as we all set off to find a decent position by the first corner. I actually do well - "race strategy" working maybe? No, I just found a good line and managed to pass a few riders into the first few corners.

Then it hit! Like a bullet in the chest! A bottle neck appeared in front of me and we all come to a grinding halt. Hope that's not the order of the day... it wasn't - what followed for the next lap and a half was a selection of tight, flowing singletrack, with a couple of grinding climbs thrown in for good measure. All of it, as I said, in glorious, claggy mud.

First lap - 38 minutes - not bad considering the terrain, but absolutely crap from a personal point of view! I can get a 5 mile lap down to about 27 minutes - gutting to get a time like that. I was pleased to have passed quite a few people on the lap, so that bode well for lap 2

Crack on!

Next lap was a nightmare! My new bontrager carbon chainset had a failure The granny ring bolts worked themselves loose and the chainring fell off. A tad harder on this lap methinks, and it was - 42 minute lap.... Hmmmm!

Little known to me, I was actually doing quite well. But by the middle of lap 3 I was suffering. I got a 49 minute lap and it showed...

Most of that time lost , was slowing down (even more!) to let the Elite and Expert riders through. Watching the likes of Bontrager/Cotic's Kate Potter and World Cup rider Jody Crawford pass you is like watching wind on wheels!

I came in 53^rd out of 81 riders. Not too great I admit, but it was good fun, and a good indication to me, fitness wise. I was pleased though with 2 things - I managed to beat all the lads from our local rival club, Larkfield Cycles, and I made up 23 places from when I started the race. I later found out that the organisers stopped my race after 2 laps to make room for the Elite gus, so my extra lap wasn't needed - tell that to my legs!

Right, I'm off for a coffee.........

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Comments (1)

Phil said:

	... Gutted about the last lap, just think if I was there it would have been 53rd out of 82 and I would have been 83rd lol
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April 02, 2008
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