There’s been a real lack of blog posts lately, my last one was in February. Sorry about this, but GCSE’s have taken over a lot of my time in the past few months, but this is one race I definitely want to talk about. The first national of this season was at Pembrey, a 2 day stage race with a prologue and 2 ‘proper’ stages. A good result was required to get me into the other national races, no pressure then Sam!
Stage 1
Me and Dad travelled down Friday night to a house where we were staying with the other Hafren riders competing. The race started fairly early on Saturday so no early morning relaxing for me. A 1.3 km prologue is a strange event, you literally ride on the rollers for half an hour to warm up for a 2 minute effort, and in the past, let’s just say that they’re not my strong point.
Warm up was good, went a bit harder than usual because I knew that there was absolutely no way you could ease yourself into it. After timing a couple of the other riders I knew a good time was just over 2 minutes, but that information gave me absolutely no help during the race, it is simply too short to be thinking about these things. I waited in line and got onto a wooden start ramp to begin the tour.
My start was all right, and I felt strong along the first straight. The hill was easy as your momentum carried you 75% of the way up. Down the descent and then onto the back straight, the worst part in my opinion, as you enter the straight it looks so long! Around the final corner I thought I had done a pretty decent time so far and I crossed the line in 2.04. Happy with that, it was straight onto the rollers to warm down before the next race.
While I was on the rollers my Dad timed one of the riders who we were pretty sure was going to beat me. My time ticked past, my time clearly wasn’t bad. Then we timed another, who didn’t beat me either. I was now getting a bit excited. Unfortunately the ‘sneak preview’ of the results on Facebook didn’t include me (it was only the first 40 riders), but when the results did come out I was 13th. My highest ever finish in a National race ever, and I did it a prologue. Maybe I’ll be world MTB champion by the end of the year.
Stage 2
Stage 2 was a 1 hour race going around the track in the normal direction. I was gridded 2nd row, which was actually pretty useful as it meant that I was at the front and cruising for the first couple of laps. The race wasn’t that fast, fast compared to regional races but not too bad for a national. The group also didn’t really split, a few riders went off the front but they were reeled back in pretty quickly.
All this led to a big sprint finish. I watched a big crash in the U14 race which led to a broken collarbone, as the track narrowed slightly, but enough to make it very awkward. I had lost a few places with a lap to go due to a lapped rider but I was still in a pretty good position going round the final corner and into chaos. Luckily there wasn’t a crash, just a couple of riders flying off the course, and I finished in 24th position, but more importantly held my 13th overall.
Stage 3
Stage 3 was set to be the longest race I’ve ever done, 90 minutes, and they had shortened the circuit and I worked out that I was going to be doing A LOT of laps. What didn’t help was a crash in the warm up which caused someone to break a wheel, this was really not a good omen. They didn’t grid this stage, which meant I started in around 50th position but I wan’t worried, there was 90 minutes so it wasn’t going to be a sprint from the start.
It took me 8 minutes to get to the front of the race, I was especially pleased as it wasn’t going slowly. Finlay Pickering and Joe Kiely had gone off the front and the group was chasing them, but not catching them. After just over half an hour Kieran Riley attacked and I followed, and we got a gap on the main group. I was then in a difficult situation, I wanted to go hard to try and get away but I was also aware that there was still 50 minutes to go. In the end I went hard and got caught, and so went into serious energy conservation mode. Literally every time the pace picked up I went backwards, but every time it slowed down I moved forwards. This may seem like I was hanging on but I never felt like I would get dropped, it just was hard.
In the end the race split to pieces. Joe got dropped from the front and eventually lapped, and the group I was in was down to around 40 riders. I wanted a top 15, which would have been my best ever national circuit race result (I don’t count the Prologue), and coming into the final lap I was well positioned to do so. Then it all went a little bit wrong. Apparently a rider a few wheels ahead of me tried to go for a gap that wasn’t there and when a rider in front of you falls there really isn’t a lot you can do. My initial thought wasn’t about the bike, but about a Garmin that I borrowed from a clubmate, and it ended up damaged slightly (sorry Max).
I crossed the line a long time behind the leaders hoping that we’d be given the same time as the group we were in. But first it was off to the medical tent to be checked out, but luckily my injuries weren’t that bad. They made a mistake on the initial results, and had me finishing 17th on the stage and 8th overall. “This can’t be right,” I thought, someone is going to appeal these. And appeal them they did, though they kind of had a point. Why should riders in a crash be given the same time but riders held up not? Should those riders have fallen off on purpose just to be on the safe side?
In the end I finished 12th overall, but still somehow managed to keep my 17th on the stage, meaning that my best ever national circuit race finish was done on the floor. Looking forward I’m 15th in the series and with Isle of Man next, and a rare chance to race on hills, I’m really looking forward to the season ahead.