Central League CX Rd 11 Crossmas, 4 Dec 2022

A very chilly day out at Ashlyn’s School in Berkhamsted for the ‘Crossmas’ Rd 11 of the Central CX League organised by Verulam CC – the last planned race of my CX season. A completely new course so we didn’t know what to expect, although the pictures posted of the MTB pump track the day looked interesting! The course was well designed with a few challenges (a sandpit, some nasty off camber sections, the pump track) as well as the usual grassy turns (some of which were very slippery). There were no really physically tough sections though which doesn’t favour me, as I usually make up time there versus the technical stuff.

Lining up on the start after a shorter-than planned warmup and course recce, it was certainly cold. Once we got underway the course took a detour on lap 1 straight down to a tricky/carnage off-camber corner, rather than the route on the rest of the laps which went around another park loop first. Once we were past this section the race started to settle down. I had had a good start and was well up in the field at this point, and could see the guy who has been near me in most of the races 20m or so ahead of me. My plan was to catch him up, but sadly I never saw him again! It felt like I was on the back foot throughout the rest of the race, mostly not making any mistakes and riding the course reasonably well but occasionally getting overtaken by someone, and not really overtaking many myself until we got to lapping people later on. I had one off in the sandpit section, which had seemed really easy on the course recce. A big rut had developed and on the third lap (I think) I came into it thinking ‘really need to hit this rut straight or I’m in trouble’ … and I didn’t. I went down fairly hard but the chain stayed on for once so I was up and going again quickly.

I finished 27th out of 67 which is probably about average for the season, so not too bad. The work I’ve done on my starts and remounts have definitely made these aspects better, and the section of this course which involved two dismounts and remounts in quick succession would have been problematic for me previously, so I feel like I have made some progress over the season.

Tim Phillips