European MTBO Champs – Long Race.

After yesterdays disaster and the fact that the Long is not my best discipline I simply decided to just ride hard and fast and see what happened today. It again was very hot but the map promised much more of a navigational challenge than I had seen in the past on the Long. I started well making no mistakes, riding well and from the radio control splits I was fastest Brit at #11. I was a bit scrappy on one leg but only made one proper mistake just before the  spectator control where I perhaps lost 45 secs taking a wrong junction. I was carrying 2 lites of SIS PSP so did not need the feed station but then fluffed the map exchange. From what I had read and been told I was expecting it to be taped from the feed station and I wasted probably another 40 secs relocating and finding the control. The second half of the course went well and other than skidding past one track junction had a clean ride. To  top it I did a perfect standing punch and nailed the finish getting = fastest split with Jimmy again.
I really felt that other than the two small errors I had a good ride and was pleased to see I was much further up the field and just pipped fellow Brit and long favourite Jimmy by a minute.