The learning curve for most things in life is typically steep at the bottom, and flattens of as time goes on. Yesterday caused me to reassess this. Part of the appeal for me of CX is it’s harshness but yesterday’s Nat. Trophy was without doubt one of those races I’ll not forget. Something else.
The evening before, Paul, Carolyn, Heather and I were in a Suffolk pub eating home cooked pub food and enjoying a couple of pints by an open fire. Twelve hours later we were supposedly warming up in near freezing torrential rain on a course that was ninety-five percent ankle deep mud.
After riding two practice laps, we were drenched in cold mud and looking like two blokes about to be sent to the gallows. As we went to the gridding pens at fifteen minutes to go, the cold set in. This was despite being waterproofed up until about two minutes to go. This time, I excelled myself and actually managed to check my gridding position, 51st from 69 entrants. Paul was one row back at 54th. As the gun went for the first 200m of tarmac the peleton wound up to about 30mph before swinging off onto probably the most heavily mud flooded parts of the course. The only way I can possibly describe what happened then, was basically someone threw a bucket of cold water over me with three kilos of mud dissolved in it. Paul performed his trademark awesome start and came streaking past whilst my plucked turkey legs flailed around but consistently lost places.
Without doubt, the first lap was the most savage effort I have made on a bike in a long time. I don’t wear a heart monitor but I am absolutely sure that I would have exceeded anything I’ve seen thus far in 2012!, well into the 180's. Into the second lap, I managed to pick my way through and up to a small group containing Paul. I'd like to say I settled into a things, but it was manic. After a lap of us sharing the work, and 'enjoying' riding as a pair, our group fragmented and I was away on my own before catching another rider who I rapidly realised to be stronger than me. I did my best to contribute but in honesty, all I could offer was a few moments of recovery time for him as we did our best to limit our losses and pick off the odd rider.
As the race progressed, we collected another couple of riders who managed to jump on the back of us as we came by. By this time, from listening to Hugh Porter on the PA, I was now thinking that I might be somewhere roughly 25th to 35th place. Effectively, this meant that for a pleb like me there was everything to race for. A top thirty would give me a few points that might move me up the grid. Into the penultimate lap I started thinking about how I might make a surge to split the group up - I’m not capable of anything sudden enough to be called an attack. Then it happened, a crash in front of me on the one bit of single track with no way round. Damn.
Forced to gazelle the fallen rider and loose time, I took the bell on my own and rode the final lap pretty much solo managing to pick off one of the Zepnat guys on the last lap.
At the finish, we were pretty much unrecognisable with only teeth and eyes visible on many riders coming across the line. There was no way one could deny wheelsucking! In the end, I nearly made my coveted top thirty place….but not quite. 31st at 5.23. Paul had a couple of crashes and did a fantastic job of taking out about 20m of course fencing before finishing 42nd a short way behind. Very different to Abergavenny for me, I rode at the top of my game and could not have done any more.
We rode back to the van, frozen, filthy and truly smashed. There was a quality moment where we sat there whilst Carolyn and Heather washed the bikes where we were in such a state it felt like the apocalypse had just happened. Ever being dry, warm, comfortable and clean might never be achieved. The end of the world might just have happened.
Half an hour later, we were on the A14 heading home tired, hungry and laughing at our stupidity doing all this.
Special mention should be made of my ‘Gary Numan eye shadow’ look at Cambridge services. After a few funny looks, there was lots of face washing going on before enjoying a McRecovery meal.
Bonkers……
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