YCCA Temple Newsam

The fine dry weather provided fast racing, however conditions were muddy enough to cause plenty of comedy through the woods.

In the race for youfs, Bobbin rode his first cx race, on a brand new 'out the box' bike and got a great sixth place. I took real pleasure from this because I think I was partly responsible for suggesting he take a look at the discipline to compliment his MTB racing. The boy did good! (especially deserved as he performed car park attendant duties superbly after his race and instructed his mum to give up her parking space before I abandoned my bus anywhere).

Dave Morris rode the rode the senior race with 49 starters, and established himself in 20th place after the first lap. It was great that Dave ended up getting 17th as he was a bit adrift of the proceeding group of riders when I saw him and looked to be pretty flat out, hence he must have really dug deep and stuck with it to get up there and pick off a few over the following laps.

The vets race was the usual 'you're having a laugh' situation at the start. 111 riders all looking at one another, and looking at a two metre wide gateway into the woods and thinking 'this is going to be good'. Jon Savage, who some of us will remember as a 1980's junior, finished 61st. Whilst Nick Mason just snook into the top half of the field in 55th. Time Evans came in at 49th.

With regards yours truly, I struggled. In mitigation, it was my first cx race for nine months and I hadn't even ridden my cx bike (a new one at that) one metre until I got it out the car........Oh poo, that excuse won't wash with Bobbin will it? The really odd thing, is that I never get any nerves before a TT. Not even big events or ones that matter to season long objectives. Put me on a cx start line for what is just a fun discipline that I know I'll never be any good at and I'm a jibbering wreck. How hard can it be to stand there and then set off and sprint like crazy when someone blows a whistle? Suffice to say I found myself in about 85th position when we went into the woods on the first lap! Slowly, I remembered to relax on the tricky bits and to not try to ride whole course irrespective of it being quicker to gazelle. Oh yes, and I suffered like a dog on the non technical grassy bits in a valiant bid to make good for my crappy start. I finished 34th and drove home in a state of higher euphoria than at any time during the TT season.

I love cross me......