Round 1 of the southern xc series was held at Bordon in Hants, Bordon is a cracking course 5 miles of swooping bermed singletrack and a few features to keep you on your toes. This years course also seemed to go down more than up! The Sport mens race got off to a somewhat chaotic start with no gridding announced at the last min people were left to barge their way to the line, a clueless female spectator crossing the path of 40 charging riders after a hundred metres or so also 
provided a little extra adrenalin! I got a good start and just focussed on the back of a fast starting Mark Cotton, we caught the back of Masters pretty quickly and while passing these he got a gap. Coming through the arena at the end of the first lap I was sat in 3rd and feeling ok, the 2nd lap saw me catch and pass Mark but also lose a place to Russel Turner (Cetini) I also manged to lose my bottle and spare tube on one particularly fast and rough piece of singletrack! Last lap and starting to cramp up I just held on, spinning the short climbs and trying maintain the gap to the riders behind, at one point I thought I was going to be caught by 2 riders who were gaining fast but I managed to hold on by 10 secs and gain the last podium place. After the cheap cava was sprayed and collecting my trophy its time to look forward to the next round @ Crow hill, with a few things to improve on but pretty pleased to put to bed the sherwood nightmare!
provided a little extra adrenalin! I got a good start and just focussed on the back of a fast starting Mark Cotton, we caught the back of Masters pretty quickly and while passing these he got a gap. Coming through the arena at the end of the first lap I was sat in 3rd and feeling ok, the 2nd lap saw me catch and pass Mark but also lose a place to Russel Turner (Cetini) I also manged to lose my bottle and spare tube on one particularly fast and rough piece of singletrack! Last lap and starting to cramp up I just held on, spinning the short climbs and trying maintain the gap to the riders behind, at one point I thought I was going to be caught by 2 riders who were gaining fast but I managed to hold on by 10 secs and gain the last podium place. After the cheap cava was sprayed and collecting my trophy its time to look forward to the next round @ Crow hill, with a few things to improve on but pretty pleased to put to bed the sherwood nightmare!
Thanks to Hugo Humphreys for the pics and to Nick for sacrificing his 2nd row start for me, cheers mate!
See you at a race soon.......
Well in Mark, top result!
ReplyDeletecheers mate!
ReplyDeletewell done Mark. thats 3 of us with a podium so far. Come on Jason wheres yours? ;)
ReplyDelete