Round 2 – Lady Dixon Cyclo Cross
A bumper crowd turned out for yesterdays race, all looking to get a feel for the Nationals CX venue in a few months time. The course was revamped from last years with a much shorter lap, squeezed into a smaller area. Great for John McGuigans fan club to get a good look at him at several points of the course without having to move. It also made for very aggressive racing with about 10 minutes less race time to suffer out there than the previous weeks course. More power and less endurance required. Not very much up my street at all.
I got down early, keen to try and ride the uphill sandy steps obstacle the phoenix guys put so much work into. First attempt, my front wheel sank in the sand. Second attempt I got up two steps out of 5 I think. Then Graham Boyd gracefully floated up them all before me so I had one go and grunted my way through making it to the last step before all momentum was lost. Getting off at this point was a ridiculous task withyour front wheel stuck in soft sand and your back wheel falling down 18 inches below it. “Yes, I will run these in the race”
XMTB coaching guru Mark Harvey then led me round a lap and deliberately tried to sabotage my chances by making me dump my front wheel into a hole causing the tub to roll off the rim as I performed a professional looking Over The Bars Manouevre. These skills take years to perfect kids, but keep trying. The entire warm up period was then spent srounging around all my contacts for a new front wheel. Joe Henry of Phoenix and Velo Cafe Magasin fame to the rescue! What a guy!
As for the side note of the race, It went off hilariously fast as expected. I managed to get into 5th/6th place early on and wondered why I was still able to see Adair, Seymour and the like just in front of me. After about 5 minutes the signal from my legs to the brain started working again and I suddenly realised I was going quite a bit harder than I was ever going to be able to maintain, so I did the logical thing and tried to go harder again.
Round the end of lap 2 I realised Jason Henry and Peter McConville were both gaining on me from behind, and the nutty fast boys were stretching away and I was stranded and absolutely dying a death. I eased up hoping I would be able to latch onto the two behind rather than get dumped off the tail end. Thankfully it worked and the 3 of us raced together at a decent lick for a couple of laps. Unfortunately Peter had a bit of a bad crash so just down to me and Jason. Until I noticed An Posts Ronan McLaughlin coming along like a steam train. Clearly lacking the necessary off road skills but getting better as the race had been going on, we managed to keep him at bay until the tarmac road up to the end of the lap. Well that was a sight to see taking off.
Lesson of the day people – Don’t try and sprint onto a pro’s wheel when he is in full flight in your 36t ring. In fact, don’t even try unless you are on a motor bike.
So onto the last lap, still wheel sucking good old Jason in front – I decide to finally put in an effort to lose him up the steps. Managed to get a wee gap of a couple of seconds but he quickly shut it down and I knew it was going to come down to a sprint. I remembered to engage the big ring this time. A sprinter I am not. Doors blown clean off.
Still, 8th place again this week in a very strong field so happy enough.
