Saturday's event was a simple 10 on Crathorne. Despite racing my arse off, I didn't get the 20min ride I wanted. After speaking with a few of the others, it's become rapidly apparent thatnone of the times could be relied on so we'll have to just put it down to experience.
Sunday's MTB race was a mix of good and bad. Very bad. A brief summary is as follows.
Laps of race 4
Laps completed 2
Crashes 1
Hours in casualty 4
Stitches 13
Basically what happened was that after a slow first lap, I turned up the wick for the second lap, lots. Suddenly I started to rip through the faster starters and found myself riding with some reasonably good riders. Going into the third lap, I made a stupid mistake over a tree root and allowed a gap to open over a group of four riders. In a desparate bid to regain this group I pushed myself very hard on a long 30mph gravel descent. Whilst riding close to my limits I took a hurried drink and glanced behind me. A split second later my nerve let go and I touched the front brake. And down I went, very hard, going very fast and a very, very rough gravel track laid on a hardcore base. Roughly 30mph.
Despite loosing a substantial amount of skin across my ankle, calf, knee, back, shoulder, this was the least of my problems. Two gashes to my left forearm were horrible, with one having a large foreign body in it, and the other clearly exposing my bone.
For me the war was over.
After a trip to casualty, I'm patched up pretty well and on a lengthy course of antibiotics. But on the bright side, a great course, a good event and I've only myself to blame for the crash. I'll be back on the mtb racing soon but just need to get my nerve back as this was an almighty crash.
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