2010 British XC Round 2 - Wasing Park

On the Friday evening on the weekend of the race Ryan and I flew over to Bristol and drove the 1.5hours to our B&B for the next two nights. The weather on Saturday morning wasn't great. It was 8 degree Celsius accompanied by a dreary drizzle. We drove through the very pretty and posh country side to Wasing Estate where the race would take place. Quickly we built up our bikes and ventured on a practice lap around the course. And it turned out that I absolutely loved the course. It was set in this beautiful estate and meandered through bluebell woods, along small lakes, twisted through dense forestry and met a few little drops here and there. There wasn't much climb per lap and it was technically pretty easy, but the vast amount of sweet singletrack leading through this beautiful scenery made all up for it. I just love courses that are set into the countryside as if they belong there. One lap was about 7km long, but had only about 100m climb, most of it at the start of the lap. I did a second, "hot" lap with a few repeats and because I loved it so much I did a third lap.

On race day the temperature was even colder, 7 degrees! And that at the start of May! There wasn't many girls in my category, the biggest names were Lily Matthews, Kate Potter and Maddie Horton and I knew that Lee Craigie could have a shot for the top 5 on a good day too. I felt good during my warm up and I liked the course. I was looking forward to this race!

Elite Women's line-up

Starting on the first of 5 laps I immediately took the lead. It didn't last long though, with Lily Matthews taking over, Kate Potter settling into 2nd position and me into third. I made sure to stay on Kate's wheel and was determined to not get dropped. On a bit of climb I passed Kate who had let a small gap open on Lily and set on to close the gap to Lily. However, we then just hit one of the few bits of straight fireroad, one of the few places you can drink easily and I had a sip, with Kate taking the chance to overtake me again to nip into the singletrack ahead of me. I stayed on Kate's wheel and followed her through the loose singletrack in the woods, but then disaster struck. I took a corner too fast and lost traction and the next second found myself on the ground. I got up, but my handlebar had twisted and needed to be tightened up. While I tried to fix this, all the girl behind me passed and when I was finished I had to chase them from the last position. I managed to catch a few, but noticed I had fixed my handlebar slightly off center and decided to get Ryan to fix it at the feedzone. It was all a bit of a blur, but it seemed my handlebar was tight, but my front skewer had come loose and I had rounded a bolt and had to finish the race with the slightly off centre handlebar because it would take too much time to fix things. Again I started to a chase when I left the tech zone. When I went into the next bit of singletrack I had to stop again to tighten skewers - they defo weren't tightened up enough before the race! At the end of lap 2 I had clawed my way back up to 6th place and could see Lee Craigie leaving the start/finish zone. I caught her halfway through the 3rd lap and then tried to chase down Gabby Day in 4th place. It was hard to judge how fast I was going in comparison to the others, since I was riding by myself for the last 4 out of 5 laps, apart from the few times I passed people. I was told I was closing in on Gabby Day, but unfortunately I didn't catch her, so that I finished in 5th place. Lily Matthew showed a great performance on the day and won the race, followed by Kate Potter in second and a strong ride from Maddie Horten for third place.

Elite women's start

And to finish off a disappointing race I was selected for random dope control. Perfect, I can't even do a cool down. In a frenzy I tried to find Ryan who was off somewhere else to warm up for his race, or our rental car - which Ryan had moved without telling me (my chaperone must have thought I'm a bit dim-witted.... "no, really, the car was here, a grey car, it was right here.....") trying to get at a warm jacket and then find my racing license, tried to organize somebody to do Ryan's bottles for his race while I go for a supervised pee, waiting for the presentation to finish while freezing my *ss off.... all in all a not so great day at the office.... (thank god I have a second office, right?).

Anyhow, again it has been shown that to have a good race the following three things have to be in perfect condition: you mind, your body AND your equipment. I probably would not have beaten Lily, but I had felt that 2nd place was definitely within my reach if everything had gone right. It was a bit of a risk in taking our new bikes over, having ridden them only once before after building them up, but it's no excuse. I should have checked every bolt and every skewer closely beforehand after building them up again from the flight. Lesson learned. Now, where's that locktite?

Results available on timelaps.co.uk.

New Bike :)

Finally, we've received all the bits and bobs for our new S-Works Epics and they are now fully built up and ready to go. Tonight I will take my new bike out for the first time on the Epic club spin. While the geometry of my new bike is the same as last year's S-Works Epic, the biggest change is that my new bike comes with SRAM XX drive train and brakes, meaning I've now only got 2 chain rings in front. Another change is that I am trying bar ends for the first time - I've always been afraid of wrapping myself around a tree with them, so we'll see how that goes. Below is a picture of the bike, it's also painted, in contrast to the naked carbon from last year, so it looks a lot brighter, but less stealthy. Anyhow, I'll put a full spec online in a bit - now it's time to get ready for the club race!


Thanks again to Cycleways, Clee Cycles, Schwalbe and NoTubes for their generous sponsorship :)

UPDATE: Well, I'm back and fed from the Epic club race, waiting for Ryan to evacuate the shower so that I can hop in. I can say that I absolutely love my new bike! It rides really well, very light, and it climbs like a Gazelle - effortlessly. I am not sure about the bar ends though - on the way to the race I kept reaching for them when I had to brake - reminding me of my road bike hoods and I was still a bit paranoid of wrapping them around a tree. I'll leave them off for the second round of the British National Series this weekend, but I'll give them another go afterwards.

2010 World Cup Round 1 - Dalby Forest, UK

Finally I have some time to catch up on my blog writing - all this college stuff interfering with my cycling! ;) I've got a little breather now - just hope I passed my exam!

After having missed the first Bundesliga race in Muensingen, Germany, due to the volcanic ash, I was really looking forward to racing again in Dalby Forest, for Round 1 of the World Cup Series. Not racing in Germany meant I spent the weekend on two long mountain bike spins on some of the driest trails in Ireland - I felt so invincible, everything is so rideable!

Waiting to be called up....

Going to Dalby didn't really feel like going to a World Cup, since I've raced on the same course last year in a UK NPS by the same organizers, so it felt more like going to a local race. In fact, this was probably the least nervous I've been in all the World Cups (3!) I've done! The course was just as technical as last year, with only minor modifications.

On race day I was gridded in the latter half of the grid. When the gun went off I tried to hold my position going into the singletrack in the short and fast start-loop. The singletrack forced the riders to form an orderly line, and I lost a few positions (I started in 56th position, and went through the start area in 68th), but was able to catch riders again on the wide start loop area. There was a lot of traffic on the first lap and lots of nice flowy singletrack meant that there was little possibility to overtake, so that for the first lap the only option was to just hold on to that wheel ahead of you and not let people from behind you come by.

After the traffic had dispersed by the 2nd lap, I really started to enjoy the course and settled into my pace. Lap after lap I made up a few places on the climbs and on the flats, slowly climbing up the rankings and and finally finishing in 56th position (the position I started in....). Not really a fantastic result, but I'm slowly climbing up the ladder - better than in Offenburg last year with a similar amount of riders.

I had a lot of fun though and I am thinking of signing up to Offenburg now!

Race report 2010 Irish NPS Round 1 - Slade Valley

What glorious weather we were greeted with for the first round of the Irish NPS in Slade Valley near Dublin. I was still recovering from my exertions from the Ras Mumhan a weekend earlier and had not been feeling all to well leading up to this race. With additional stress from college this meant that I got almost zero training in from then till this weekend, so at least I would be super recovered (read: stale...).

Anyway, back to early heatwaves in Dublin (around 18 degree Celsius) and a very sunny morning. Since the race wouldn't start until 1:30pm for the senior categories I had decided to arrive early and do a practice lap then. I've been looking forward to the course, since everybody has been raving about it.

Alone on the fireroad (photo from Aine)

From the start it was obvious that the organizing club IMBRC have put in a lot of effort into the course, with a huge amount of great flowy singletrack. The course was mainly dry, apart from one or two muddy sections and 100% rideable. What made it quite challenging though was the amount of twisty singletrack through the woods with lots of mean slippery roots (one of my nemesis). As I always ride my wheels with too much pressure I was having difficulty to get over some of the sections without washing out, a tire that had seen too many sharp Cypriot and Israeli rocks didn't help the cause either (my excuses for the lack of technical skill....).

Anyhow, it was fantastic to see so many (5) girls at the start, including Cait Elliott, who's riding into form greatly, Ciara McManus from Northern Ireland and Jenny McAuley making a comeback into the MTB racing scene.

Dusty dry trails here (photo from Aine)

We set off to a fast start up the fireroad. A few unfortunate moments of riding beside the fireroad and not on it meant I only got into the singletrack in 3rd position, behind Cait and Ciara. I stuck onto Ciara's wheel and prayed that she would stay on Caits wheel. Then, when the singletrack opened up to a short bit of linker fireroad I took the chance and attacked, overtaking both Ciara, Cait and soon after two Juniors. This turned out to be the right move, because the singletrack tightened up again, meaning that Cait and Ciara got stuck behind the Juniors, so that I could open up a gap - see, tactical racing :)

I pulled away quickly to get out of sight from Cait as fast as possible. For the rest of lap one I could still see glimpses of her behind me, but I kept going fast and out of sight in lap 2. Unfortunately I started getting cramps in lap 3 (must have been the "hot" weather ;)), so that I had to throttle back a bit.

I kept looking behind to see if Cait was catching up again, but couldn't see her, so I decided to go into cruise mode for the last two laps - ready to attack in case she showed up behind me. I finished first with Cait arriving 2.5min behind me and Jenny McAuley completing the podium.

l-r: Cait Elliott, Mel Spath, Jenny McAuley (photo from Aine)

I know my preps for this race weren't great and I wasn't feeling too great on race day either with my stomach going into refusal mode after the race, but it's great reassurance to know that I can still make my legs perform when they need to, even if they don't want to.

Thanks to Stewart for his mechanical help on my bike and for screwing my head back on with a few motivating words. Thanks to the EPIC pit crew for doing my bottles too! And thanks for IMBRC for putting on such a quality event and for Jenny McAuley for giving me a lift to it!

Results available here.

2010 Ras Mumhan, Kerry, "Race" report

I am not quite sure what got me to sign up to the Ras Mumhan in the first place. I'm largely blaming Ryan, who I think only convinced me to do it so that he won't have to drive all the way to Kerry by himself. It's not that I didn't have a choice, there were plenty of stage races on over Easter weekend, including the Gorey 3-day and the P&O Tour of the North. I knew most of the girls would do the Gorey 3-day, so this one would have been the most obvious choice, but I also saw Fiona Meade signed up for the Ras Mumhan, so I thought, well, if she dares it, I dare too. The other reason why I went for the Ras Mumhan instead was one of safety - since most of the riders were A1s and A2s, I knew it would be quite safe. What I didn't think of was that the same riders would also be a lot faster and stronger than the A3s and A4s......

Anyway, I don't think I quite expected the race to be THIS hard.....

The race comprised 4 stages around Kerry, with a total of 493,5km.

Stage 1: Killorglin Milltown and Glencar, 96.2km

The start to stage 1 was super hard. After missing my first road race this year a week beforehand I was still trying to get back into the knack of things what with feeling comfortable in the bunch etc. so that I was way too much at the back and suffered (REALLY suffered) from the harmonica effect. If it was a cat A3/A4 race I'm sure I could have hung on, but the speed and accelerations in this race (mostly cat A1/A2 riders) was just too much for me and after a few full-out cross-eyed sprints to catch back onto the bunch I had burned all my matches. About an hour or so into the race when the next acceleration came along I couldn't follow and got dropped from the bunch. After feeling miserable about my abysmal performance I got on with myself and enjoyed the 45km or so by myself, riding endurance, with the plus that I was actually able to enjoy the scenery because I didn't have to concentrate on any other cyclist's rear wheels. I've attached my power data below. I spent over 13 minutes of the first hour in anaerobic capacity - no wonder I was spent so quickly.

Power profile from day 1 - I got dropped from the bunch about an hour into the race - power profile a lot steadier from then on

Stage 2: The Healy Pass and Moll's Gap, 140.9km

This time round I was feeling a little more comfortable in the bunch and I was able to hold my position better and benefiting from drafting in the bunch, but again I got dropped about an hour into the race. However, with all those long hills on the course I managed to pick up one rider after another and even overtook some of the riders on the final climb that greeted all the tired riders with a headwind from hell. I wish road racing could all be uphill! Finishing 15th last (plus 4 dropping out), this was to be my best performance!

Ryan however showed a fantastic performance, with a 2nd place finish - only loosing out to Wim Botman in the final sprint up Moll's Gap. He even got a mention on the RTE news for this - I'm so proud of him!!

Riding through this magnificent country side of Kerry, with snow capped mountains in the distance was an amazing experience.

Stage 3: Valentia and South Kerry, 142.6km

This stage almost broke me. After the neutral roll-out there were fireworks. The riders attacked from the start and the speed was absolutely unbelievable (even Ryan said the start was very fast). I basically got dropped from the start - and I still had about 140km to go! With the broom wagon lingering temptingly behind me I rode on and caught one guy, overtook him and set on for a pursuit of two guys I could make out in the distance. Finally, on a longer bit of climb I caught on to them and we started a good pace-line. We picked up one more guy on the way who stayed with us for a few min, but he then dropped out. So the three of us trudged on, with the broom wagon just behind us. At about 70km to go they dropped back and the other guy that I had overtaken at the start joined me again and basically pulled me home the other 70km.
Just want to apologize here to the broom wagon drivers who I got to follow me around for about 140km so that I could do the full stage.

Stage 4: Killorglin and Milltown, 113.8km

Got introduced to the main sponsor as the "only [read: crazy] girl in the race" before we set off to a leisurely start. Woah, I couldn't believe how slow the guys were going. Life was easy, the bunch behaved for once and didn't outright attack and I had no problem hanging on. Until we hit the first hill. The last 3 days of racing had slowly sucked up all my energy and I gave up on that small hill, stopping to push and getting dropped by the bunch - AGAIN! I felt bad about it because I felt that I could have stayed with them today and all I needed to do was to push through those extra 20secs of pain. But I was spent. Soon enough a few other stragglers joined and as a group of 3 we worked (or rather they worked while I just hung on) our way around the course, until we hit the crit part, where our race ended, because we arrived about 2 laps too late. At least this gave me a chance to watch some of the rest of the race. And with those howling winds I was quite happy I didn't have to do the rest of it. I finished 98th in the GC in the end, which is third last, but I'm happy I am amongst one of the 100 survivors out of the 125 riders who started off on the first day! Ryan finished a fantastic 6th overall by the way....

All in all a great experience and fantastic interval+endurance training (over 450km and over 15hours in 4 days) and a good chance to sample some of Kerry's finest landscape. Not sure if I'll do this one again though, I think I'll stick to some of the easier ones for now.....

Results available here.

2010 British Mountain Bike Series Round 1 - Sherwood Pines

It was a last minute decision to go to this race. Ryan didn't have a great race there last year - he is more of a climber and thus rather avoids the fast flat courses, but because the German Bundesliga has been shorted and thus resolved some race conflicts, I can now actually complete both the Bundesliga and the BMBS Series, so I decided to go and a reluctant Ryan decided to come with me. Ryan's reluctance was somewhat lessened when we got an amazing upgrade on our rental car, a Mercedes AMG, so at least we were arriving in style :)

Fancy car with lots of fancy buttons doing lots of fancy things!

The pre-ride on Saturday revealed a few welcome changes to the course: it now contained a few more technical sections, nothing scary or dangerous, but sections that will definitely require good bike handling skill if you didn't want to loose too much time, such as a row of dirthills to get up and over on your bike and some tight twisty and rooty single-track through the forest. It also included a tiny bit more climb on this otherwise fairly flat course, but I'd say most of the climb is due to the steep kicker climb that was followed by a just as steep descent. Loosing your power or traction on this one meant loosing time trying to scramble up the rest of it. The rest was flowy and fast and flat, favouring road racing tactics of working together and staying with the bunch.

Elite Women's line-up

A good few girls lined up on Sunday for the race, including Rosara Joseph (NZL) who had won the race last year, my good friend Kate Potter, who I beat in the sprint finish for third place last year, the two British Olympic Development squad girls, Annie Last and Lilly Matthews. Notable were also the absences, with long-time racer Jenny Copnall having retired from racing to coaching new talent, Jenn O'Connor, who has moved back to New Zealand, and Sue Clarke, the British XC Champion. This new mix was very exciting and I could identify at least 8 girls that would have a very good chance for making the podium.

Maddie on my tail

At 10am we set off and a group of 5 people, headed on by Kate Potter followed by Annie Last, Lilly Matthews and Rosara Joseph and me was forming quickly. The pace was fast but comfortable and we were going well until Rosara made a mistake on a tight singletrack and stalled. Nice as I am I waited for her to clip back in, but it took her longer than expected and the 3 riders in front were fast disappearing. Finally Rosara was back on track and sped up to chase and catch back up with the front. Unfortunately I wasn't able to speed up so quickly and found myself chasing after the group by myself. It felt like in a road race! So many times I thought I would catch them, but then they pulled away again. Furthermore, danger was looming from behind in form of Maddie Horton, who was going very strong, having upped her training since last year. She caught up with me and overtook me and I hung on to her wheel for a bit. She was first through the finish after lap one, but I pushed hard and overtook her again on the draggy fireroad climb to get into the singletrack first. She stayed on my wheel for most of the lap, but I didn't let her get by, and after a mistake from her on the steep kicker climb I was able to pull away and came first into the finish arena at the end of lap 2. I could catch glimpses of her for the next two laps behind me and a few times she came dangerously close, but I was able to keep her at bay. I could also see glimpses of Lilly Matthews ahead of me, who was gradually falling back. Then, on the last lap I noticed a rider coming up fast behind me - I thought it was Maddie again giving her final push, but I was surprised to see that it was Craigie Lee, who was riding very strong. She closed the distance to me quickly and now it was my mistake at the kicker climb that allowed her to overtake me there and pull away. I didn't have enough power left to match her pace and had to let her go. I finally finished the race in 6th position, 4.5min down on the winner Annie Last, who finished the five laps in 1h 58min.

Maddie still chasing

6th place doesn't sound that great, especially in comparison to last year, where I came third, but I am very happy with the result. I pushed hard and rode well, but the competition was just too strong.

Me smiling - I mustn't have been going hard enough....

Full results are available on timelaps.co.uk.

Again, Martyn Salt and his crew from InEvent put on an amazing event, with the field coloured by the many trade stands and team tents attending the race. Thanks also to both Robs for feedzone support.

Racing in Israel - Part 2: Haifa Race

The next day we headed off to the course in Haifa. Since the race acted as a test-run for the European Champs in June, a few more people had signed up in my category, notable the Polish national team, including Maja Wloszczowska (2008 Olympic Silver medalist, 2009 European Champ) and Aleksandra Dawidowicz (U23 World & European Champion). We set off and from the start it felt as if I went into a blind race. I didn't have a very good start and went into single-track in about 8th position. I made up a few places to 6th place before I hit the first technical rock drop. I went into it full speed, but I misjudged my line and caught my handlebar in the rock on the side and almost took a tumble. Luckily I was able to quickly unclip my foot and hold the fall with my foot, but unluckily my foot hit the ground hard and in a bad position, so that I twisted my ankle and hurt a tendon. I thought this was the end of my race, but after the initial pain subsided I was able to get going again. I had lost a place to Ivonne in the process and Inbar Ronen overtook me shortly after, so that I was back in 8th position. As long as the course was non-technical it was OK to go on, but any slight movement of my ankle put me back into agony. I was so scared of having to dab in the technical sections that I preemptively walked most of them, of course loosing even more time. Finally I finished the race in 7th position, since Asa suffered a flat tire.

In hindsight we should have spent more time pre-riding this far more technical course, one slow lap just wasn't enough, and I'm sure I could have avoided that stupid slip in the first lap, but hindsight is always 20/20 vision. At least I was able to finish the race, even though I am still hobbling 3 days later...

And so ended our Israeli adventure, only to be followed by our adventurous 21 hour trip home that involved 4 separate flights over 5 airports and lost bike bags in Heathrow (again....).

A big thanks to the Syrkin family for arranging and providing lodging, and again Klaus Sonntag for feedzone support. Ryan and I had a very enjoyable time in Israel and everybody we met has been extremely friendly and helpful - we will definitely be back again next year!

Race results available on cyclingnews.com.