ACC Cyclo-Cross promotion at PORC 27/11/11

[Andrew G]

Congratulations to Mark for all his organisation, and to Sylv on a brilliant win. He had company for a couple of laps and then just pulled away putting a bigger and bigger gap in to the rest, just floats over the surface.

For pictures of the races click on the photo below to open the slide show.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/37347010@N02/sets/72157628175858995/show/][img]http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6107/6412299575_4bba44f37b_z.jpg[/img][/url]

[Paul H]

Nice one Sylv

[Sylv]

Cheers Andrew - it's never quite as straightforward as that though! I had your bottle cages but forgot to give them to you.

Thanks to Mark and all those who helped and shouted.

Paul I can't wait to hear how you got on!

[Andrew G]

[quote="Sylv"]Cheers Andrew - it's never quite as straightforward as that though! I had your bottle cages but forgot to give them to you.

[Keith]

Excellent!

[djembi]

Thanks to everyone for their support and help to make it a good day, I wasn't impressed with Sylv's idea of the bit of the course where we had to get of and run or more correctly in my case stagger in the mud.

I think I just managed to beat fat man and a tiny slip of a girl who is probably speaking with Childline now about being made to race cycle X by her parents.

Roll on the Club Championships, at this rate I'll get a bronze for definite

[carl f]

Exellent result Sylv and great acc promotion
Thanks for the photo's andrew

[Sylv]

A great race. George and I helped Mark set up the course on Sat morning, it was mostly similar as last year but we cut out a couple sections and added a few more. George suggested the run up the bank back to the doubletrack above about halfway round, with the following section so muddy it had to be walked too, which made a nice change to the all-riding usual courses. We saw a huge mount of sand and thought for a second to bring some on the course, but it would probably taken us the rest of the day - and night! Had brought my bike but after 2h30 of work I was pretty knackered and couldn't really be bothered to ride the course (and get the bike muddy) - plus we wanted to be back in time for the cross World Cup in sandy Belgium (terrific race).

Sunday it looked like it'd rained a bit early morning (loads in Croydon) and so things were a little more muddy. It was getting warm though - yet another race with short sleeve skinsuit and short finger gloves! I had a couple practise laps, the first one easy and on the second one I rehearsed a fast start to test the adherence in the tricky muddy corners - soon found the limit when I grabbed the brakes and my front wheel washed out under me and I was down in an instant - mud everywhere, had to scrape it out from inside the STIs- at least now I knew I didn't want to risk coming off again.

For a change we started further down than usual, on what should basically become a velodrome (!!) but is now just an oval of hardpack soil. Starting clockwise meant a slighlty disconcerting for me start with left foot down due to the camber, plus I was trying out new Eggbeater pedals for better mud clearance but was having trouble getting the clipping-in at times.

As expected I couldn't clip in right and lost places to a fair few people. No panick, I used the long climb to make up most of these and get into the singletrack in about 4th. At the first difficulty I think it was Phil Lenney who went down sliding on his arse down the slope. Then soon after Matt Webber came down too, but was up straight again. I was now second in Jules' Birks wheel when he overcooked a left-hand fast corner and went straight into a bush. Carnage! I now had a gap on any of the followers and wanted to keep it like this to avoid any more chaos, but it didn't take long for Matt to be back behind me.

We carried on like this for about three laps, with the chase pack losing ground every lap. At the start I led for a whole lap, at first trying to gap him in the technical bits, but he seemed to just be glued to my wheel. Then I let him lead most of the long fireroad climb, realising how much headwind there was there, and tried attacking just before we reached the top - again it didn't work and we stuck together for another while.

Just like at the Rapha race though I began to wonder if he wasn't just on the limit - you can't tell though as you can't even hear him breathe hard, and he rarely gets out of the saddle (I was doing loads of both). It felt like a bit of a waste of energy though to keep trying attacking to no avail. Then I think in the long dark downhill to the bottom of the course I managed to pass two people just before it narrowed down, and Matt might have not. Seeing that I had a gap I now put every bit of energy I had left trying to distance him for good - hammering it up every climb, and trying to ride the corners and muddy bits safely.

Kept looking back but couldn't quite tell how far back it was, so I didn't let up till the finish - even up the last climb when I was well clear, fearing a mechanical - it could well have helped me, as five minutes after the finish I noticed that my front tire was completely flat! Had a whole minute lead so was probably quite safe, but wouldn't have fancied running up that climb! Well chuffed with the win which means I'm now still within a chance of taking the overall London League (Matt has won 3 and I had only won 1 so far so was well down on average points). Just have to try win one or two more of the few left!

Thanks again to all the helpers, bet you were glad it wasn't as cold as last year.