First round of NPS – Slade Valley

The club had no representatives in the Senior 4 or other underage races.
As the main round of races approached later in the afternoon, the tension was rising in the main field. With 82 starters in the Senior 3 race alone, the pressure to get a good start was telling on a lot of guys! I wasn’t overly worried with 30 racers in Senior 1, and the belief that they can all ride better than yourself, you aren’t terribly worried about anyone holding you up. I was more worried about holding others up.As it transpired I ended up on the 2nd row anyway by total luck as I had a toilet break just beside the area we were to be gridded in.

The race started and Gareth McKee went hard from the gun, punching a hole in the grid in front of me leaving me a free gap to go through, Evan Ryan went hard also so I sat on his wheel. After the short pre loop section and onto the course proper, Gareth was already well ahead and going very hard, I was in 2nd place and a bit unsure what to do. Half way round the lap, Robin Seymour finally had enough of my riding “style” and just cruised past. I managed to lock on his wheel and get a bit of a rest on the long fireroad. I needed it. David Montgomery was glued to my wheel with Graham Boyd of XMTB and Matt Slattery of Killarney not far behind.

Robin disappeared on the next singletrack section as expected. I’d love to say it was great to watch but you dont get to see much when you are chewing the bars and trying to hold a decent line yourself.

I was expecting young Montgomery to go off after Robin but carrying back and knee injuries was hampering him massively. And so it ended up with Myself, Monty, Graham and Matt Slattery battling it out over the next 4 laps for 3rd spot. The pace was high, there were many attacks from Monty and Particularly Slattery, fresh from the Shay Elliot road race the day before(!)

I gave a few digs myself to stay in the race at points where I was losing contact. Monty slipped away at one point leaving me and the Killarney man out on our own, Boyd always lurking not far behind, eating up ground on the wet slippy rooty sections. Ultimately racing one of irelands biggest one day road races was to do for Slattery as he slipped back a little and suddenly i was back in 3rd but even more suddenly, Monty was back from the grave and going well again.

Plenty of traffic from the massive S3 and S2 races caused a slowing on a couple of laps which was frustrating as I needed to keep the pace high. The last lap I almost lost it completely down a fast Bermy section, over the bars but for some reason I didn’t let go of the bar with my left hand, landed on my feet and was still holding the bike so was away again in seconds.

I decided to try and attack on the penultimate climb to see if i could do any damage, Got a little gap on Monty but he wasnt giving up and was soon back on me, last big wide climb and he got along side me. Neither of us were going as hard as we were earlier in the race, but alas the pain receptors in his brain don’t seem to work and I had to let him go as both calf muscles started to tremor with the strain, my forearms and back had already been showing signs of cramping up. Boyd rode hard over the last few minutes and almost bridged across to me on the final descent but I managed to make it out on the short fireroad climb to the line just before him to finish 4th.

Big thanks to Peter Davison for being my bottle man, one wing and all. And Martin for doing the driving and not commenting on the wheezing, groaning and spluttering on the way home.