Gorrick Enduro MTB – Swinley Forest 1 May

[Sylv]

Just seen news that the forest is currently on fire – not good. It’s a great area for riding and several of the Gorrick venues seem to be affected there.

After changing my mind about four times on which distance to race (choice of anything from 1 to 7 of a 9-mile laps) due to having been ill and busy schedule (not to mention the early start of the longer races) Serge and I decided to do the 4-lapper on Sunday, with a civilized start time of 10.30am instead of 9. Beautiful morning and great, bone-dry trails, and some 120 people lining up in that category. Serge with a lack of training was going to treat this as training, and with another road race lined up for the following day I said the same but don’t think I was fooling anyone else than myself, if that. We also saw Dombo and Marcus B who was doing the 5-laps and got 5th place, and a number of familiar faces.

Steve Calland (ex-NP) and his team mate from South Downs Bikes led us out at a furious pace, with some long fast straight sections allowing a bit of roadie-style drafting. It was awesome to be back into mtbing for my first proper race of the year, and first hard ride in about two weeks. We’d seen the first lap of the top 5-lappers being around 50min so I was expecting around that time. A small group of us took the lead and we went round in just over 46min. Lap 2 was even faster than that, feeling good though. I saw Serge on the side of the pits unfortunately with a slashed tire which ended his race after under one lap. In the lead I took a wrong turn and found myself chasing back for 3rd place.

Lap 3 and it was three of us riding together, Calland having fallen back due to a leaking tire. One guy from Swindon RC was so obviously a roadie – he was asking about overtaking etiquette, and was putting massive digs on the non-technical sections which made it very hard just to stay on his wheel. He was a little slower in the technical stuff, but not bad. In the lead I again went off course and this time ended up with course tape in my cassette and rear mech, some of which is still stuck in there now. I had a hard time catching the roadie again but first place was now gone and out of sight. We did catch a glimpse of him at some point but I was getting a bit tired and slowing down quite substantially.

Final lap I was almost happy with plodding along for 3rd place when about half-way I saw the leader with his bike upside down and a mechanical of some sort. This somehow spurred me on and I upped the pace a little. I never thought I would catch the roadie though, but he must have been flagging even more than me and I followed his wheel down a fast descent with 5min to go, planning my attack. Didn’t need to in the end as going round that fast corner he washed his front wheel out and went down. Didn’t look too bad and I carried on a bit flummoxed as to how I’d gone from 3rd to 1st in the space of ten minutes! But that’s racing I guess, I’d had my own share of bad luck, plus a deflating rear tire which meant that on the last lap I had to be careful going round every corner not to burp it.

Was pretty spent at the finish – nice just to lie down in the sun for a while. Got some cool Exposure lights for 1st place and a silver frisbee.

[kieran]

Hey! Well done! Nothing wrong in winning with a bit of help from lady luck.

[Marcus]

You da man Sylv. Great result

[Mulberry]

Chapeau Sylv!

Good ride after being out of action for a while. There were a lot of tired folk out there towards the end. Cool that you won a frisbee- I'll have to check it out at Mayhem. I'll bring my American Sports Disc (145g).

I hope the forest is OK - there was a little fire there on Weds night when we rode there with Middleburn Matt.

Marcus mrb

[Sylv]

It was a trophy plate really Marcus. But it's quite dangerous as a frisbee, so do bring yours to Wessex (won't be at Mayhem).

[Antloony]

Quite an eventful race Sylv. Good stuff.

[Mulberry]

Sylv - Update from our man in Bagshot: The fire is mainly over the far side of Crowthorne and off most of the main trails at least. It's been going for 3 days though with a few housed evacuated. He'll check out the trail damage for us and let me know. We saw them damping down stuff last week but no obvious damage then. It was quite close to the Corkscrew though.

I know the silver platter you mean. We could play frisbee with my red one and use your silver one to serve up canapes and little 4s at Wessex.

MRB

[Toks]

Excellent, first win of the year - thats gotta feel good; well done Sylv

[Andrew G]

Catching up on the results is good reading, well done Sylv. I like the way you call the other chap a roadie, your results on the road aren't exactly shabby .

[stamourp]

Fantastic result. To finish first, first you've got to finish (and all that).