The main race of the year arrived this weekend with a trip up to Richmond in North Yorkshire for the National Cross Country Championship, where I was expecting to have a good result providing the course would suit me and my cold (again) would be clear.
I had two previous races in the weeks before this race, with the 3rd round of British Mountain Bike Series in Margam Park where I got 7th elite and 2nd U23 which I was absolutely stoked with and knew I had great form coming. Along with this I did a road race down south on the 10th July, a week before the Nationals, where After making loads of attacks and pulling through strong on the front I managed to form a breakaway taking away 7 riders with a group of 10 up the front. Still in my breakaway I continued to ride hard and pull the breakaway with me just to get the legs ready for the XC Champs. After battling away over 60miles I managed to finish 15th in a top field of racers with my brother taking 9th Position.
On Saturday we faced a long 5hr drive up north, with my cold still lingering around, to reach our destination in the afternoon ready to pre ride the course. The rain had cleared for us as we arrived and a couple of practice laps were in order.
As we started our practice laps I was starting to enjoy the course and legs were feeling good considering I hadn’t touched my bike all week. The first lap was a bit sketchy with a lot of riders crashing and holding up everyone but by the time I did the 2nd lap I had a clear lap and really enjoyed the course as I managed to ride every section. So that was me done ready to head back to the camper and fuel up and rest the legs for the Big day!
Race day arrived with the rain starting at 5am in the morning which didn’t make getting up appealing as we all had a lazy morning since our race wasn’t until 2:30pm.
After a good breakfast and warm up on the Cycleops Turbo we headed to the start and took my place 4th on the grid.
From an awsome start to riders passing me
With the Elites off first we waited 3minutes before the whistle went to set our race off.
The whistle went and I was off managing to tear the start up and taking the lead from the gun! As we got to the end of the field before the 1st turn 5 riders passed me as we went into the first climb!
The pace was high and full gas as we sprinted over the top. After the first descent and 2nd climb I was in 7th place and lost a lot of positions! I nailed it down the next downhill and sprinted up the other side to get back into 5th position with a good gap to Seb Batchelor in 4th. By the time we hit the last section of fireroad of the course there was a good 15meter gap between myself and Seb, so I put in a massive effort dragging 6th and 7th with me to try and close the gap down on Seb.
Passing the race arena I managed to bridge the gap to Seb on the first climb and passing him over the top and took 4th position down the 1st descent before attacking the 2nd climb to put in a 5meter gap back to Seb. I managed to keep the gap all the way until the last bit of fireroad where Seb caught me.
Pulling away from Seb(5th)
Over the 3rd lap Seb and I rode really hard dropping 6th and 7th off our wheels and riding flat out to try and chase down the podium positions.
Into the race arena with one lap to go we saw 2nd and 3rd place 50 yards or so in front which made us step up a gear and chase them down. By the time we went down the slippery fern descent we were all in view of each other with 2nd just before the top of the climb, 3rd place half way up then Seb and I at the bottom with a small gap between us!
Video of me behind Seb with 2nd&3rd on the hill
The last lap was flat out chasing really hard knowing a podium position could be mine! We entered the final fireroad with less than a minute between 2nd place and me. Heading up the final headwind fireroad there was approx 10meter gap between each of us to the take the next position in front! Our bikes were swinging and the power was put down but as we entered the arena those positions were our finishing positions with a 10meter gap between us all with 2nd place less than a minute in front and 30 seconds to 3rd!
Absolute amazing race, was so close and really happy but gutted at the same time not to get that podium spot especially being so close!
However a good positive was that I managed to catch up to 15th position in the Elite race and if I added the 3minutes that the elites went off in front of us I would have placed around 8th position, so a real good performance for me!
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