A nice little course with a few different sections, some long fast flat out bits inside the track on the grass with a couple of scaffold boards to jump over and then up over the track and into the singletrack aroud the perimiter of the site.
John Mullineaux set us off and there must have been 100 riders rammed onto the grid, I set off around mid pack but Sylv got away a bit further up towards the head of the field. It was straight into a flat out sprint twice around the grass inside the track centre. Here I managed to make up a few places and get up a little bit further towards Sylv.
Into the singletrack and there was a bit of a single file flow sort of thing going on, but whenever it opened up a bit I managed to make up a place here and a place there.
There was one real steep ramp were everyone was dismounting and running up with their bikes and this is where most of the spectators accumilated to see some action going down or up as it were.
I was really enjoying it although it was pure pain and flat out redlining all the time, much more effort required than in a time trial where you try not to red line too much.
I was catching Sylv and could see him up ahead and was getting a decent singletrack lesson following him.
When we hit the grass I past Sylv and told him to get into my slipstream where we pulled away from a couple of hangers on.
I'm sure I was holding him up in the tight bits but we were cruising round for alot of the time together which was good fun.
On remonting my machine a few timew my right foot snagged on the front wheel, somehow I've got to resolve this problem for the future races.
Noticed Richard was tinkering with his quick release and later had to pull out because of it.
One stage I was right behind Sylv and I hit a whoop de doo at speed which nearly turfed me over the bars
, luckily I managed to save it, Sylv heard the expleative that came out my mouth I was convinced I was gonna hit the deck hard, I was ok but my bars slipped round. Later tried tweeking them but rode on the drops for the rest of the race.I lost a little ground here on Sylv but tried hard for the next couple of laps to catch up but it was hard. Last lap bell then I finally finished without getting lapped.
Half the riders collapsed exhausted as soon as they crossed the line, I was also a bit red. This is gonna be super great training all winter if I keep this up and now looking forward to the next round.
