It had been a damp morning and we had heard that the course was incredibly slippy and there was a sand section which was impossible to ride through. After arriving, getting ready, signing on and finding Jacob we went round the outside of the course looking at different areas, I decided I quite liked the look of it and then we went for a short rather pathetic warm up. Without realising everyone else was already on the track so we got on at a crossing point and managed to do half a lap to the start.

There were 48 riders in the race and as I had signed on on the day I was assuming I’d be right at the back however of what I think were 7 rows I was in row 6!! The start went straight up a hill - it took a different route to what we would be doing for the rest of the laps but as there were so many people they made the first ‘lap’ an easier route for a mass of people. I got a good clip in and managed to move up a few places on the hill, tried to go for a gap which wasn’t really possible, ended up having to brake and dropping a little. Within the first 30 seconds half the group had started splitting away and I was stuck behind a slow rider and a few behind him. The gap grew as we couldn’t get past this rider. Eventually after the starting half lap and half a real lap we got to a short 100m tarmac path (which was my favourite bit being a roadie) that I was able to sprint on to get round the group and go on my own. I then spent the rest of the race either alone or with one or two people right up until the last lap where I got lapped by the top 5 riders.

As I hadn’t been able to recce a full lap a lot of the sections came as a surprise, especially the logs in the wooded section, I’ve never tried riding over a log but I thought it can’t be that hard so I popped the front wheel up over and sort of forgot about he rear, there was a loud clatter and for a split second I was practically vertical and facing the floor but somehow I managed to just about save it and got congratulated by the rider behind me whilst also laughing. I proceeded to just about make it over those two logs every lap onwards and didn’t get off or crash once. The sand section was as promised, unrideable. So I had to run it, but what I hadn’t realised till after was a lot of better riders had been riding down into the sand corner, then getting off unlike me who got off as the sand started. It’s those little things which I need to be picking up. The hurdles I didn’t mind as I’ve gotten pretty good at jumping on and off now. I definitely struggled and was slow on some of the very muddy corners as I was taking the wrong lines and braking too much but again it’s all good learning and eventually I will trust my tyres and stop riding off road like I do on road.

The first 2 laps were by far the hardest and I was most out of breath in them but I started to get into a rhythm knowing I’d need to punch it on the hilly side of the course then recover in the technical side which worked quite well. Looking at my lap times, although I gradually got slightly slower each time on average, each lap was fairly consistent. I had forgotten my head unit so I had no idea how long I had left till the bell rang - it was just all out the whole time. The biggest problem I had was that with 3 or 4 laps left I started getting pain in my lower back which got worse and worse. This didn’t matter when I was on the bike but when I got off to run up the stairs, in the sand and over the hurdles I was hardly running at all. I’m hoping it was just because of the vibrations which I’m not used to and will go with practice.

Overall I made up positions from my gridding, had a lot of fun, learnt some valuable lessons and got a good training session in.

Chris King

Eastern CX Rd 6 West Stowe, 5 Nov 2022

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