Dirtwheels Otley

The morning after the night before dawned bright and fresh for the first running of the Dirtwheels cross at Otley. Perhaps, like lots of others, I had no idea what to expect, especially as I wasn’t really quite sure where the event was before arrival. But arrive we did and a treat it was. A good venue, with basic facilities and a great course. A course with something for everyone. The event, being a GoCross was likely to be a friendly no frills affair with narrow sections and a wide range of abilities. The very best riders were probably going to be absent due to a clash with the Inter-Area Champs but such is the growth in CX there’d be good racing for sure.

I knew better than to expect a dry fast race, especially given the heavy dew. And the first two practice laps confirmed this. Furthermore, there was a particularly grim section into the wind along the side of a rugby pitch, before a series of small but challenging banks. I quickly realised that what this meant was that the section into the wind would nicely take me to the brink of being anaerobic and then the repeated efforts, with no time to recover, would blow me to bits.

Nicely warmed up, we all lined up in three ranks in an un-gridded start. I adopted my usual scientific method of start position selection. I lined up next to the biggest angriest looking bloke I could find on the front line (Normally Paul – but he’s got man flu). Ted was slap bang in the middle of the second line and couldn’t spot Nick. I even remembered to put it on the big chain ring this time. And off the race went. 

After going round the houses there was a reasonable ‘sorting out’ as we joined the course proper. Going through the nasty off camber chicane, it all got rather fraught and chaotic with olde English language being exchanged freely. Matters rapidly settled down….or perhaps is was just that everyone was too out of breath to talk. And so we set to work. Doing our best to carry speed, not pick up too much mud and leaves and hopefully retain some coordination whilst half drunk on lactic acid.

Unusually for me, I got a reasonable start and finished the first lap in roughly 9th place. As the prospect of a reasonable finish sank in, I buried myself on the second and third laps, hindsight this probably was a mistake. I very much paid the price for riding at 95% later in the race. The more tired I became, the more I thought to myself ‘less haste – more speed’, and the more I fouled up. By about the fourth lap, my bike felt like a ten ton weight, my coordination had deserted me and things had degenerated into a slog. Despite my best efforts a couple of riders manage to benefit from silly mistakes and get around me as the minutes went at double slow time.

With no pits set up, and only a handful of other competitors having a spare bike, it didn’t seem really very right to swap bikes, so I didn’t. Instead, I used the fantastic support from our Nova friends to dig deep and hang on for the finish. With half a lap to go, I realised I wasn’t going to improve on my finishing position and I was able to manage my pace so I didn’t get caught by the chasing rider from York Cycleworks. I didn’t want another MASSIVE moment on that right hander…..how I stayed on, I’ll never know.

At the time of writing, there are only top ten finishers on the results however I suspect that Ted, Nick and I all didn’t make fools of ourselves. I’d guess that Nick and Ted will have being midfield and I might have managed a place just outside the top ten. 

But aside from the race, it was fantastic to see so many friends at the event along with the Nova youfs resplendent in white and red. I believe Bobin Gardner got second in his race. Dillon also had a good race and I understand a full on battle with Louis Mason.

Dave M competed in the seniors race and it now sounds that he finished just outside the top ten like yours truly. 

A super day’s racing……

PS. This week's elementary mistake was riding the whole event on the big chain ring because I forgot to change back down after the start. Thought it was funny I could ride the big hill in practice…….Good job it’s only a 44!