I had intended to do the last round of Manchester Midweek MTB Madness last night. The Bow was clean and serviced and I was very organised with a box of kit in the car to go there straight after work. As 5.30 approached the sky grew darker and then it started to rain really hard.
Getting to the car I suddenly realised I had no contact lenses with me. In the dry this wouldn’t be a problem by riding in glasses in the wet and mud is impossible and riding with reduced eyesight would be dangerous so reluctantly I turned for home. As I approached Stafford the rain just got worse and worse. My training for the week though was depending on a hard session so I pulled out my training mountain bike and headed out to meet the Thursday night Chasers run. By the time I got to Marquis drive I was covered in sand and mud, the bike sounded like sandpaper and I was soaked. Unfortunately I missed the others so headed to Kitbag hill to do some reps on my own. I got some bizarre looks from riders returning from The Monkey Trail the other side of the railway as I bombed down only to turn straight round to climb back up again.
Getting changed afterwards was foul, sand and mud everywhere, even in my ears. Isn’t August meant to be summer ? Returning home later I checked out the results of the race I missed. The photos showed it to be just as bad, but the muddy faces were smiling so it must have been fun !
|
|
||
    
|
This weekend sees a BMBO event in the Midlands other than on Cannock Chase, something of a rarity. The event organised by Colin Palmer looks to be very good with a 1:25000 OS covering a small area of fairly complex lanes, forest roads and tracks. Entries are still available at www.fabian4.co.uk View map of Suckley, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, WR6 5 on Multimap.com
Get directions to or from Suckley, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, WR6 5
Closer inspection revealed it is a joint project between the Forestry Commission and Network Rail to research railway crossings. Many people will know that the new Monkey Trail mountain bike route on Cannock Chase is in the Rawnsley forest. This involves crossing from the Follow the Dog route over first a railway line then a very busy road. Apparently the unmanned railway crossing at Moors Gorse is now one of the busiest in the country following the opening of the Monkey Trail, prompting Network Rail to have a representative on the crossing at peak periods (weekends) to help with safety. One can only guess that the project up next to Marquis Drive is related. There are gates either side of the Moors Gorse crossing at the bottom of Kitbag Hill and I’m told the only safe way is for one person to cross at a time. People have been queuing across the track at busy periods to get through the gates, which is just daft.
The photo is from the beginning of the mass start long race at this years World Cup race at the same venue in Hungary. Full details, plus details of the 2011 World Cup race go to http://www.mtbo.hu/
I have not done any XC races this year, nor any cyclo cross races and have been missing the buzz of head to head racing. With a couple of months before the next World Cup race I thought I would try and find a couple of XC races to do. As I work on the outskirts of Manchester, the Midweek MTB Madness series organised at Clayton Vale Country Park, in the Shadow of the National Cycling Centre, seemed ideal. The event was well run with plenty of marshals to keep things safe for the 38 riders of all ages who started the race. The 10 min lap design uses a mixture of fast cinder tracks, short power climbs and whipping singletrack descents, all designed to bring a smile as the course winds its way around the Country Park. The race format is 40 mins plus one lap. The start immediately goes into singletrack after just 75 metres and I got a bit stuck behind some riders for the first minutes but soon overtook them and settled into a head to head race with up and coming junior rider, Northwest MTB Centre’s John Mackellar. We played cat and mouse working together for the first two laps until eventually I pulled ahead once more to keep the lead for the next 3. He seemed stronger on the climbs and I pulled away a little on some of the corners getting better lines but we were very well matched. On the last lap I started to get tired and backed off a little, but he quite rightly stayed tucked in behind looking for his chance to get away. On the granny ring steep climb, mid lap, he got it when I stupidly got off and tried to run the steep climb. He pulled about 40 metres on me which I could not get back on the rest of the lap. Still I was very happy with 4th place and enjoyed the swoopy single-tracks and the great feeling of getting the very fast lines right through the blind entry points to the forested bits. My legs, arms and hands though zinged all the way home in the car from the overhanging nettles on one of the climbs. On every lap they seemed to encroach more and more. I wondered at the time if they would start to lose their bite as time went on but they didn’t seem to! I’m looking forward to going back in two weeks time, hopefully with an entourage of Pozzoni work colleague bikers in tow to give it a go ! Results and a few photos available at http://www.taptiming.com/results/hfril/ |
 |
|
Copyright © 2010 Stodge-Blog - All Rights Reserved |
||
