Oktoberfest Team Event

The last team event of the year was upon us over Ashton court in Bristol where a short course of around 25mins takes place. The course has been developed to take away all the bumps and dirt to give a clean gravel singletrack which would be awesome to train on over the winter months but for racing becomes a different kettle of fish! Due to the designated specific track there are few overtaking places and when there is a place to pass it is hard to get through them quick enough to avoid any disturbance to other riders.

This year we had our work cut out even more with the additional competition of 4 Pro riders, two riders from Rapha containing Tour of Britain king of the mountains winner John Tiernan Locke and 2riders from Sigma Sport Specialized.

Our usual end of year chill out just became a full on race as within the first lap we were down by a minute and a half and towards the half way mark we were down at a further 3 ½ minutes. At this time we were thinking were in for a beating, however as we ticked into the half way mark I come in from my lap to be told we were gaining on them and the gap was closing. This gave us an extra boost to chase down the pros and within the next few hours we managed to catch up with them, overtake them and start putting some distance between us taking it to 3 ½ minutes up!

With an hour and a half to go we did another time check and found out we were 9 minutes ahead but as with these races it wasn’t enough time incase a mechanical happened. With this in mind we still pressed on and coming into the last half an hour way we were debating whether our rider presently out would get back in time for us to do another lap.

I anxiously waited just incase we could squeeze another lap out but it was looking very tight, until Ben came in with less than 25 minutes to go which meant I had to do a very quick lap to get in before the cut off time. With my legs stinging I nailed myself around and managed to get in with 10seconds to spare giving us a lap up on our Pro team rivals to take the Male team of 4 Win.

It was the toughest team race we’ve had and really enjoyed the tough competition to keep us on our toes!

Now time for off season and to take a few weeks off the bike and relax!