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Gorrick Spring Series, Crowthorne

March 8th, 2010 - Posted by Ross - RKC Race Team

Round 2 of the Gorrick Spring Series yesterday was my first race of the year, and first race on my new Whyte 19. The course at Crowthorne was the usual Gorrick mix of twisty singletrack and short power climbs, a mix that means flat out racing with nowhere to rest, or hide. Having only done one mountain bike race since last June, my start was never going to be spectacular, but going from the front row to about 20th in 2 seconds meant I had a lot of work to do to see the front of the race before the first section of singletrack. Luckily for me, there was a long fireroad section off the start that gave me a chance to get up to speed, and by the time we hit the narrow stuff, I was tagged on to the back of the leading group as we pulled away from the other riders. This lead group of seven riders contained no fewer than 4 Pedal On riders (Adrian Lansley, Chris Minter, Scott Forbes and Steven James), Dave Collins, Ben Thomas and myself. We stayed more or less together for three of the five lap race, before, early on lap 4, Adrian Lansley and Steven James both attacked at the same time. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t let each other know their plans, so they crashed into each other, and out of the race. The crash also caused the group to split as we all tried to work out what had just happened, and halfway round the lap, Scott Forbes and I were trailing the other three by 5 or 10 seconds. Then followed the second unfortunate incident of the lap… As we tried to get passed a lapped rider, with the leaders still in sight, the lapped rider crashed in front of me. I rode straight into them and proceeded to flip over the bars, put my fingers in their spinning back wheel (not recommended, even with gloves on…) and give myself cramp. Scott managed to squeeze past and was on his own in 4th while I got up and tried to stop my big toe from trying to bend itself under my foot due to cramp. It took the best part of half a lap to stop the cramp, so I ended up cruising round the final lap to finish in 5th.

All in all I was pleased with how the race went. I had to strength and speed to get up to the leaders after a useless start, and to get back up to them after being held up by lapped riders in the singletrack, and if it wasn’t for a few little mishaps I am sure I could have been up with the leaders at the end. So all good, especially as I have made conscious decision to not hit top form so early this year as I have in the past, where I would peak by May and the plateau for the rest of the year.

So, 3 weeks until the first National Mountain Bike Series race at Sherwood Pines, I know my training is working and things are on track. Only problem is next weeks training is going to done solely in the gym in a hotel in Gibraltar as I will be out there with work. I think I will end up very familiar with the spinning bikes…Fun…

Results from the Gorrick can be found on the Time Laps Website, and pictures on Joolze Dymond’s website.

My next race is hopefully going to be the WXCRL road race at Barnsfield Heath on Saturday before jetting off to Gibraltar.

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