World Cup MTBO Hungary, Middle Race

An early slot in the start lists meant I was one of the first up to the start/finish area, situated on a grassy plateau a few kilometres above the town.

The map for today was a continuation of yesterdays sprint map, but this time at 1:15,000. We started in grand style on a podium with Maria commentating and the off was straight into the most technical area of the sprint map. I immediately made a small mistake which, unfortunately, probably lost me nearly 2 minutes as I faffed and took the wrong track descending to far down towards the houses and on the way to the next control saw my 3 minute man (the next rider in the start list) coming the other way. I focused and didn’t let it affect me though and rode strongly to the next, though a wobble in the circle lost me a few precious seconds in the dense network of tracks.

Planning ahead it was obvious this wasn’t going to be a classic middle race, more of a “short long”, with lots of climb and big route choice legs. I started riding quite well after the wobbly start and pulled in a group of early starters. I think made some OK route choice decisions, though its difficult to tell until the splits are available later tonight.

We had one very steep descent which had caution signs, and we had been warned about it in the team briefing the night before as being dangerous. I was skidding down it wondering what the problem was when at the bottom saw there was a drop off through a drainage ditch across the track ! I threw my weight back and hopefully the watching photographer got a reasonable shot of it, though I suspect he was looking for fallers!

I rode the next 4 or 5 controls cleanly but chose the long route choice option round on the long leg, avoiding the climb (as did Andy Conn). I’m sure the really strong riders would have gained time on this leg by going straight, but, for me, I think it was the right decision. Then came my “highlight” of the race….

Going flat out on a level landrover track I had a massive accident. I think my crank/pedal caught on a strand of fencing wire which was strung across the track in the grass. Needless to say the bike stopped but I didn’t taking a huge dive, superman style, over the handlebars to land some 10 feet away from the bike in a crumpled heap. For about 10 seconds I though I’d really hurt myself, winded and struggling to move, but as seems to be normal on these occasions I tried first my arm then my head and then finally I staggered back to the bike to disentangle it from the wire.

A bit dazed I cruised the next two controls fairly slowly and carefully before opening up the legs heading for home crossing the finish line and into quarantine where early starters have to wait until all other competitors have started. By this time the blood from a small cut on my chin had made me look probably far worse than I was, and organiser, Sandor, lined me up in a row of three riders, all waiting for the doctor to patch up. He looked at all three of us and decided I warranted attention 2^nd, triage being what it is! After cleaning up my various cuts the spray he applied to the scrape/lump on my arm hurt more than the original injury !

I felt a bit groggy for a while but after quarantine was opened I had a big bowl of goulash (served from a huge witches style cauldron) and bread which seemed to sort me out.