Monday, May 08, 2006

NPS Round 2

Mel and I were racing again at the weekend. This time we where taking part in the NPS round 2 which was been held in Balinastoe forest.

This is a description of the course:
Basically, you climb a fireroad, then a really steep fireroad, then MORE fireroad. Then left into some muddy single track. Then back onto some fireroad, then left into a long enough single track section - lots of ups and downs (by the end of the race this was actually quiet tricky as there where big slippy roots everywhere). Then a sharp right onto a fireroad climb followed by a fast fireroad decent. Then a single track climb onto some, guess what... fireroad climb. Then right into some fun single track that ended with a rollable jump and a bomb hole and back out of the forest to the start/finish line.

Mel's race (sport) had 2 laps of the course while my race had a grueling 5. My race started reasonable well. I wanted to make sure that I was ahead of most of the group going into single track (two weeks ago I got stuck behind people on the single track) I managed that but my chain fell twice on the first lap (I had to get off twice) which lost me a position or two. The other four laps went well enough until I crashed mid way through the last lap (damn slippy root!) but it was nothing serious – just a sore knee. I finished out the lap with some energy left with an overall time of 1:48 (something). That was enough to give me 8th position overall which I was happy with. Two races in and I've already learned a lot!

We still don't have the full results of Mel's race yet, but I'll post them when I get them.

Not many pictures this time, but I did find this one of me on my first lap (I think)

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