Irvine cyclocross National Series round 2

A cross course on the edge of a beach, this was a new one for me living nearly smack bang in the centre of the country so it was fair to say I was looking forward to the second round of the cyclocross national series in Irvine on the West coast of Scotland.

We travelled up as a family, making the 8 hour trip up on the Monday for a family holiday before the racing commenced at the weekend. We were met with the sight of rain for the majority of the week and after some lovely walks along the damp morelands I was expecting a fast, but slippery race come the weekend. However by thursday evening the skies cleared and the weather was on our side with clear blue skies for the whole of the weekend making the weekend an even more enjoyable one.

On one of our walks we stumbled upon this graffitied castle.

After a Saturday afternoon spent spectectating and walking around the course it was time for course practice to pick out the best lines come the race on Sunday morning. It was quite obvious from the first lap of practice how tough the course was, it was very flowing with a number of sweeping bends and long straights which produced some very quick and tough racing conditions which all played in my favour quite a bit. 4 more laps later and a few efforts thrown in to help wake the legs up after a slightly easier week on the bike than normal I had the course drilled into my head and felt confident with the lines I had picked out in search of the quickest route around the course. It was also a great opportunity to practice the sand sections which was a new skill to learn for me having never having ridden it before, luckily for me the sections were only around 20 metres long and so I soon got to grip with the technique.

Racing through the sand, a new skill to me but one that I loved.

With the clocks going back an hour was gained in bed which was a result especially when my race was the first of the day, after a short drive down the coast back to Irvine from our Holiday park it was back onto the course for another two laps. It had been very cold the previous night which had left a layer of frost carpeting the course so it was important to get back onto the course to check the lines again, after a few small tweaks and a little pressure let out the tyres it was now all focus on the race.

With an hour and a half to go, I had my classico Veloforte energy bar to help keep me fuelled through the morning and during my race.

With an hour to go to the race I rode down to the HQ to sign on and collect my numbers, thank you to Nicky for pinning my numbers after Dad and Neil spent about an hour getting the gazebo from the other carpark down the road.

With 45 minutes to go it was onto the rollers getting warmed up ready for the race, and a virtue energy water drunk for that caffeine kick mid race to help me through the last half of the race.

With 15 minutes to go it was off of the rollers and down to the start line, after a lot of circles, round and round next to the start with everyone keeping their legs spinning we were ready for the off.

A big effort on the first lap was needed to get up to the front of the race.

After getting 19th at the first round of the national series in Derby 3 weeks ago I was one of the last riders to be gridded on the 3rd row, this put me in the middle of the grid which wasn’t ideal but could have been worst. I got slightly boxed in off of the starting straight and took a big effort to come round the outside and move up some places before we reached the sand section 500 metres into the race. Coming into the first section the sudden slowing of pace created a big baglog of ridders which resulted in me having to get off and run this particular section, I managed to pick of a few riders in this small section and spent the rest of the first lap chasing down the front group which required a huge effort. After a big effort on the first lap I managed to get in a small group with three other riders where we worked together to help reduce the gap down to the front group of 6, coming onto the 3rd lap the gap was now down to around 4 seconds and we were very close to making the junction, however Simon came to a dead stop in the second sand section and with nowhere to go I went into the back of him and over the handlebars which someone managed to get a photo of!

With a quick run and remount the gap I was now in 9th position, I continued to push on for the remaining 3 laps and rolled in in 9th position after another big effort on the last couple of laps to try and make it back to the front of the race. Still I was pleased with my performance and how my legs were feeling going into the third round of the series in two weeks time.

Now I am looking forward to a hard week of training, finished with a race at the wessex cyclocross league this sunday which should put me in a good position going into the next round of the national series in Crawley that often gets quite muddy which should make things interesting so is something to look forward to.