The national MTBO series moved back to Warncliffe Forest, north of Sheffield this weekend. We last raced at Warncliffe at least 5 years ago and since then permissions have been difficult to obtain. Lucy, Helen and team did a grand job of getting us back in there….. until this morning when they were told one of the other landowners they did not know about would not give their permission for a section of the forest.
With controls out already, some frantic re-planning and map scribbling followed and the race was back on, great effort.
I had a while to wait before I could get a map and started 3rd last but this suited me fine, chilling out, nattering. The map unfortunately was a mess following the re-planning and it required careful checking to make sure you knew where the next control was.
My strategy being a middle race on a reasonably steep area was to give it everything on the hills, knowing I could keep it going for an hour. The single-track descents were a nightmare though, completely out of my comfort zone. I even burped my rear tubeless tyre for the first ever time, losing quite a bit of air. I decided to leave it a bit flat and enjoyed the extra traction it gave me on some of the climbs though I was bobbing a fair bit on the faster flatter sections.
The decent from 14-15 was completely bonkers, 6 inch bikes and full face helmets were needed really and I chickened and ran down most of it, mind you that was hard in itself. I lost about a minute on this leg as I didn’t see the slightly better path option to the north that many took.
The climb up through the last 3 controls was punishing, but I kept it going out of the saddle giving it everything. It all paid off and I came in second, just 19 sec’s behind Iain Stamp and 1 second in front of Killian.
To top a great day I also won the fastest ‘run in split’ and got a lovely bottle of Cherry Lambrini for my troubles, though winning an up hill leg like that has really given me confidence in my ability to climb.
results available at http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.asp?page=classes&databaseId=17852&ct=true
routegadget here http://www.syo.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=38&kieli=en
Would you have won without the 21 second fire engine stop? Did you stop to admire the red machine or did you use it for valuable thinking time?!