Not at all what it seemed......
Rather than do the sensible thing and take advantage of our hotel booking, Heather and I departed home at OMG o’clock to collect Paul and Carolyn. This week we were also joined by staigaire Ted who travelled with us. After performing one of those seeming unfeasible feats, we had five bikes, five people and five bikes 125 litres of water, jetwash, kit, kit, kit and more kit loaded into the bus and off we went.
Upon our arrival we were greeted with a euro style course. No woodland to speak of, plenty of grassy banks, plenty of full gas fast stuff and some tarmac. We also had a nice sandpit with a dead turn in it and about fifty metres of Belgian bowling green. After a couple of practice laps with Paul, he hit the nail on the head “it’s all about being smooth”. The heavy dew and foggy conditions meant that the course was rapidly becoming slick and muddy with grip deteriorating rapidly. After two laps, we regrouped with Ted who had a worryingly clean bike compared to mine. After a couple more laps, I’d settled on super squidgy tyre pressures and some lines. I’d also decided to really try to relax and enjoy myself as my guts were doing loop the loop with horrible nerves. Why on earth am I like this, I’ve ridden probably 600 races......
After the problems of gridding at Shrewsbury, I’d clearly dropped places in the pecking order for the start, this time being four ranks back with Paul being on the line behind me. With this being Ted’s first Trophy, he was towards the back. With three minutes to go, we were stripped down and ready to go. Bang. Let it begin.
Slowwwly, and surely, I’m getting the hang of starting. Kick hard at the start, cling onto the guy in front, and then kick hard again! After an utterly manic 30mph elbow/shoulder rubbing experience through the first right hander it was every man for himself past the pits. Through the sandpit, I heard the familiar voice of Paul having a ‘gentleman’s conversation’ with a southerner and then through the short wooded section full on. Ridding on the ragged edge is the only way to describe it. As we traversed the Belgian bowling green, a more comprehensive sorting out took place and the race became established. After a colossal slide on an off camber slope (Glad my back tub was glued properly) it was very much a case of getting down to work as the course got progressively more technical. A buttock clenching fast slide through the right onto the finishing straight was one of the scariest moments I’ve had for years.
On the third lap, I dropped into a surreal world. That situation when your racing and you recognise a skinsuit in front yet......that skinsuit is worn by someone you cannot ever imagine racing against..... they’re loads better than you.....it must be a new signing to that team.....wow it IS them. It happened to me. I won’t name the rider but I couldn’t believe it. I buried myself to bridge the gap and did it. I was riding with what is to me one of my gods. I’m not saying who though.....This was the point where the smaller of my two brains took over. Instead of sitting there behind a rider who was probably enduring ‘un jour sans’, riding hard, but controlled, learning from watching him ride. He would have probably dragged me round for the rest of the race and who knows, I might have taken a big risk through that last greasy tarmac right hander into the finishing straight. I saw my opportunity and went for it. With two and a half to go. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
What happened? The inevitable. That’s what happened. He sat on me until the bell lap and then jumped, hard. Despite blowing myself to pieces, I couldn’t hang on and I went into the horrible downward spiral of being so deeply anaerobic that my bike handling started to suffer. He put roughly a minute into me in one lap! I blew so badly, that I actually got caught by the guy behind, who I’d previously consigned as history. A schoolboy error. All that kept me going was the shouts of Tim & Ed from course side.
On the plus side, my running and in particular remounting seemed reasonably good and the bike change I made really went well despite nearly scaring myself and a commissaire to death coming into the pits. Strangely, for one of the flattest, fastest courses of the series, this was one of the most physically demanding races I have ever ridden. In little over 50mins I well and truly wrecked myself. So much so that I could barely walk post race.
Paul had another solid race but suffered frustration at not being able to use his engine due to the lack of grip on a day where some of the big hitters crashed numerous times. Ted came back to the van grinning like a Cheshire cat after sampling a national event for the first time and in so doing was really pleased to only be lapped by a handful of riders.
To say that the girls work like a well oiled machine, in the pits is an understatement. But the way they sort the bikes out post race is unbelievable. After little more than 20mins after us all finishing, we had five mint bikes, lubed up and sparkling (even if that bloke’s Dawoo Matiz parked next to us wasn’t).
A fantastic day’s stupidity
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