Up to Yatley near Camberly for the first round of the Gorrick MTB race series. It was very well organised with different races all day long, there must have been 400 riders all throughout the day, in fact we had difficulty even finding a spare parking space such was the popularity of this Gorrick event
Serge gave Sylv and myself a lift there in his car and brought along his friend Michael who was acting as bottle bitch.
The 3 of us rode a lap of the course beforehand and I was impressed with the length, it took us around 25 minutes to get round and we had 4 laps to complete in our race so it was double the length of a cyclocross.
We lined up on the front row of the grid and on the whistle, all blasted down the fire road through the coniferous forrest.
I struggled to clip my spd in and went right near the back of the peloton but once back in by the end of the 1km straight was right up the front again.
Into the rough bits and Sylv was leading with another rider and myself, so for the first lap it was the us 3 mixing it but Sylv was always in the lead.
My gears were jumping around all over the place an dI really couldn't lay too much power down or the chain would slip violently in the cassette, with this going on Sylv had disapeared ahead out of sight and on the second lap Serge came past as I was struggling with the bike.
The conditions were very technical and sloppy going, most of the course was singletrack and was getting really cut up this late in the day but it was great fun riding it, there is no way U would have ridden this course on my cx bike.
If you thought road racing or time trials arn't physically demanding enough for you then you you really must try MTB racing, you use all your body and especially the arms as well on all those climbs through the forrest.
I eventually pulled up with my gear problems which on closer inspection was a bent rear mech, and cheered on Sylv and Serge for their Addiscombe 1, 2. Sylv was just anialating the field and had a good 5 mins at the flag. Serge was fighting for 2nd position and gaing on him till the last lap where he passed the other rider for runner up.
Great at the finish, Sylv looked wasted and was even getting chilly on his last lap, well I don't know how he did it after getti ng hammered at the dinner the previous night. Serge was riding a very intelligent race and from the start paced himself so when he passed the early leaders he was still fresh.
Shame I couldn't finish otherwise we would have all finished 1st 2nd & 3rd
1st Sylv the Machine
2nd Serge the Serger
mechanical DNF the smiling assasin