2010 BMBS Round 1 - Sherwood Pines

After spending the guts of a month traveling and racing (and working) abroad Mel and I came home pretty shattered from it all. The week I returned I also took part in two road races, a race on St. Patricks day and the following weekend, the first round of the Irish Road Classics Series held up in Donegal – The John Deere Classic (Finished 11^th, ended up TTing alone for the final hour holding off the main group). Something wasn't right though – during training, and even racing my heart rate was not rising – I use my power meter (and perceived effort) to judge efforts in training and racing but the heart rate is a good gage of how things are running – things were not running well. I performed a threshold interval (400Ws for 15 minutes) and my HR average was 161... 10 less than it would be normally for such an interval and about 18 less than it would be if I was racing.

Stunning in Donegall - from Marian Lamb

This attack on a 10 minute climb blew the field - I'm 4th in green, 7 of us broke off

The following week I took it very easy, some sessions were cut short when I couldn't turn the pedals and I felt very very tired all the time – not since I started training as an Elite have I felt like this.

The first round of the British National Series (BMBS) was being held in Sherwood Pines the following weekend – a race that I swore the previous year I would not return to. Obviously for a BMBS, organization, atmosphere and competition are all top notch but I really disliked the course. Fast, flat singletrack through trees that I didn't feel flowed very well (with a few sections that were the exception). Anyway, with the cancelation of some Bundasiliga races, Mel decided that she will have another go at the BMBS series (she finished 3^rd in 2008, her first Elite year, and 2^nd last year) – I guess my mind was made up for me, I'll go and race as Mel is going anyway.

The race was a quick out and back, we flew out on Saturday morning and home on Sunday evening. With bikes already packed from our return from Israel, preparation was stress free and when we arrived at the airport in East Midlands we found that our rental Ford Fiesta was upgraded to a Mercerdes AMG estate – wow :)

After some fun playing with the gadgets on our new car we arrived in Sherwood – the day was nice but the course was still a little wet and boggy in places. If the weather stayed the same it would be very fast again for race day. I was happy to find on the preride that the course was changed a lot from last year with some technical sections added and even a little climb (although there was still only 700 meters of climb over the 50km Elite race distance).


Race morning arrived and I was gridded on the front. “Some time in the next 15 seconds” - BANG, and we were off. I really really need to work on starts, I was moving backwards. Up the long drag to the first singletrack I was sitting in around 25^th place when I sensed a rider trying to barge through on my right, he rode straight into me and tangled my bars – F**K, I really don't want a crash at 40kph with a bunch of riders around me. He knocked me off my bike but I kept things upright (I was sitting on the top tube, chain was dropped feet skidding on the ground) but he came off considerable worse as I saw him tumble into the bushes – please, ejits, learn to ride a freaking bike and do not take other folks out of it – it is not like we don't have a job to go to on Monday morning!



Anyway, after that, I entered the singletrack almost last (55 starters in my race). The course is almost all singletrack and passing is a real difficulty. With my troubles over the last week, and even not knowing if I would race until the morning I took this setback as a nice challenge to move up as much as I can and enjoy riding my bike at race speed. I started pulling back people from the start but congestion in the trails meant that my first last was almost the slowest of the race, my last almost the fastest (data from the Garmin). Over the laps I rode past more and more riders, passing on the fireroad linker sections and then dropping them on the singletrack. Towards the end of the race, my legs even started to feel good – on the climbs I felt I could attack strong but wished I had been dicing more towards the front of the race. After a little over two hours I rode in for 21^st position.

It is funny looking at the results, in Israel (Man'nit) I beat Dave Fletcher on a flatish race and diced with him the following day on the European Champs course finishing a few seconds back while in the BMBS he rode to a great 3^rd position while I was in 21^st. I classed this race as a 'C' race and I guess that shows somewhat – roll on the hillier, more mountain bikey races in the UK :)

A really well run race and highly attended (all races were full - 650 riders!) - good job!

2009 British NPS Round 5 - Newnham Park

Newham Park, the home of many UK National Championships, World Cups and Bontrager 24/12 was the venue for the final round of the UK NPS.

I had a pretty chilled out week after the Drumlanrig race and my legs and body were feeling good for the race. The lap was pretty long at a little over 7km with around 200 meters of climb per lap - Elite Men would be doing it 6 times. 3 real climbs in the race with two of them being pretty steep. The course had lots of nice singletrack but unlike last week was pretty tame from a technical point of view. Two river crossings (the second being pretty deep) did spice things up a lot though.


Race morning arrived to clear blue skies and increasing temperatures - is this really the end of September. We had a bad nights sleep in the 2009 winner of worst B&B/Guest house - The Lamplighter in Plymouth (the owner is friendly but STEER CLEAR). I had a pretty good warmup (something that, despite 3 years of racing, still have not nailed to something I'm happy with) and lined up on the first row. (I had a great position due to the world rankings rather than series rankings - I only finished one UK NPS this year).

The race started at a nuts pace into a grassy climb, I lost some places right at the start and tried to make them up on the climb but as I soon realized, moving off the smooth line is a really bad idea and lost some more. As we crested the first climb, I know I was not putting the power I should yet I was feeling bad and my breathing was terrible. A pileup in front of my on the rocky steep climb half way around the lap (I had to dismount and run the climb to get around the bodies) let more gaps open. As I completed the first lap, I wanted to roll over to the car and quit - I really felt terrible. Another lap latter, same feeling. On the third lap I started to pass people who were either blowing up and pulling out, or blowing up and continuing. At the half way point, I started to feel a little better - I was lapping at the same speed but was feeling better and not so laboured. The climbs were comfortable, breathing was normal and I was enjoying myself - glad I didn't stop! The last couple of laps flew by and I caught another couple of riders (Ben and I had a good race with each other for the second half of the race - I attacked him on the longer climb when we passed a badly blowing Anthony O'Boyle) and I finished the race wanting to continue on for another few laps.

Splash!

With that, my last big XC race was completed - I finished in 15th which meant prize money and a solitary UCI world ranking point. Still, the second half of the race and that made up a bit for how sucky my start was.

The following day, Mel and I (and 498 others) rode the Newham 60 off-road Sportif type event. A nice course and a pretty chilled out pace (apart from on the steep climbs, we hammered them) was great for the legs. Afterwards, the sun continued and Mel and I roamed around the venue talking to so many people we wont see until next season. It was great catching up with all the TorQ folks, hearing some of Kate Potters World Cup stories and finding out what ditch Joolze has been sitting in recently.

With a large Irish contingent over for the races, it was like a little bit of Ireland over for the weekend. It also made the long trip home easier sharing beers with Robin, Paddy, Joe and Mel.

2009 British NPS Round 2 - Dalby Forest

Last weekend was a busy one – lots of things happening and one that I wont forget for a while. The second round of the British NPS series was been held in Dalby Forest, it was a UCI C2 event and also been used as a test event for a World Cup they hope to run in 2010.

An evening flight to Leeds and a quick car rental brought us to just outside Dalby around midnight, the day before the preride. Saturday morning was cloudy but looked like we were not going to get the rain we had lots of recently. Hoping for a dry course, we arrived at the race venue to see the usual pre-race buzz. The TorQ crew were already there and were expanded by the Australian contingent that are in Europe competing in all the European World Cups.

Start of the Men's race

After a lap of the course, I had to admit that I liked it. Lots of courses feel like you are always climbing, this course felt like you were always descending. Lots of swoopy wide singletrack sections, a lung buster climb, a 'standard' 3 minutes climb and a few technical sections. Before my lap, I heard lots of stories about how difficult some sections were, a big drop and a rooty/droppy section being the highlights – I can tell you, after some of the things we rode in Cyprus, these sections were easy – Mel had no issues with riding them first time around either. (Although she did hava a fall and a scare that meant we spent Saturday evening in Scarborough A&E – I'll leave Mel to talk about that on her blog though)

Robin Seymour

Race morning arrived to see a stacked field, around 50 of us on the grid. A quick blast around the start arena and we hit the singletrack – I didn't push too hard and made sure to go into the singletrack around 20th-25th. I was trying to see if I take it a little steadier at the start, if I would be able push a bit harder later on. The laps went by easily enough, I enjoyed the course a lot and had a lot of little battles – having looked at my HR data afterwards, I don't think I was pushing hard enough or was not recovered, my HR was way down - or maybe ut was the cold I had for the previous few days. One thing that surprised me was how poor some riders were on the technical sections – great on the fireroads/easy singletrack but very slow descending (maybe too much road biking for some?). Up the last big climb on the last lap I caught and passed 2-3 riders and was feeling good. I had a few more riders in my sights and was chasing them down.


With under two minutes of riding to go on a walking trail linker section that lead to the last technical section I was out of the saddle sprinting to catch another rabbit. Suddenly, my world was turned upside down and I crushed into the ground – hitting a tree stump with my right pedal. I have hurt my shoulders a few times since I started riding and feared breaking things before. The way I felt as I hit the ground, I knew that I had broken something – there was no doubt. As it happened, my crash was as close to the medic tent as I could have made it and with a steward in tow, I wondered over. Feeling like a ghost, dizzy and getting cold I answered a few questions and with nothing more than a look, I was diagnosed to have broken my left clavicle. Blood poured from me but that was the least of my worries. I asked one of the medics to find Mel and a few minutes later, he returned with a worried looking Mel and we started to plan the rest of our day. A trip to Scarborough A&E was in order :(

After arriving there, it took about 4 hours until I had been seen, X-Rayed and ready to try and get back to Dublin. Mel was a star looking after me and packing up our bikes and between my friends Alan and Fergal (who I called to help me with advice) and the VHI, a very complicated situation was made a lot more manageable. 22:20 flight out of Leeds seen us get to bed shortly before 2am. (We were still wearing our race gear until shortly before then!)

Results, report and photos are up here. I also have to mention Mel's second place which means she is now ranked in the World Top 100 (but bad for a girl that decided to do this mountain biking thing properly 18 months ago) and leads the UK NPS series - well done Mel!

More on the injuries soon... I would also like to say a big thanks for all the well wishes - it means a lot to me. It's really tough going from fully fit to injured like this, but in 13 years of high level sport, this is only my second serious injury so I shouldn't complain too much!

2009 British NPS Round 1 - Sherwood Pines

Despite having a great grid position, amazing bike and equipment and what felt like pretty good legs leading up to it – my first race in the UK this year was a big woopie cushion. Sherwood Pines was the venue for the first British NPS of the year and the course where I took part in my first British NPS in 2007. The course this year was shorter, about 7.5km and we were going to be riding 7 laps. Due to the nature of the course, it was going to be tough. The course was almost completely flat with a huge amount of twisty single-track among the trees. An untechnical course but reasonably fun.

The race started and I felt to be going backwards from the start – I rode the singletrack well but the draggy fireroad sections I fell apart on. 30 minutes in, I felt crap and was ready to stop. I bit of a mechanical issue added to my headache. After another 30 minutes later, I was half way through and soldiered on. On this course, where group riding is imperative (speeds are high and drafting is paramount), I rode almost always by myself. It was one of those days, where, if I was training, I would call it quits early. I finished up after 56km in 2:23:45, over 9 minutes off the winner. Looking back, I have never had a good race on a flat course – guess I'll need to fix that some time soon. These things happen, my training has been going well and I'm looking forward to the next NPS round in Dalby Forest in 4 weeks.

Results are available here and Joolze has some pictures up here.

Fuel for a 100km marathon

This is the fuel I used during the marathon in Drumlanrig. 8 bottle of TorQ (about 500-600ml in each) and 8 gels... Yum yum :) My saddle time was around 5 hours.

2008 British Marathon NPS - Grizedale

With tired legs Mel and I both woke on Sunday morning to find another dry sunny day. (Mountain Mayhem this weekend looks like it will be a muddy one though so I must not have completely great karma) This time around Mel and I made sure we had plenty of time to make it down to the race course and at least have a partial warmup. My warmup consisted of 15 minutes riding with 3 tempo efforts – a whole lot less intense then before an XC race but then again, I was going to be riding for 5 hours!

The course

The course was a little different then the previous days – the first technical climb was removed and replaced by a much longer fireroad climb that brought us onto some really nice trail centre type single track that eventually brought us back to the top of the technical climb. The rest of the course was unchanged. Total elevation gain per lap was 330 meters with a distance of about 12.5km. For the 100km race, it would be 8 laps (obviously!)

The race start - pic from here

The race started gently enough with William Bjergfelt and I losing the rest of the field by the top of the climb. Unfortunately, a few of the other main contenders where not in the race. I raced on William's wheel until the second climb where her increased the speed and seeing as it was a long race, I decided to not go to much into the red and I let him go. I knew from previous races that he likes to start fast. I rode pretty steady and on a rocky technical descent that claimed many puncture victims both days I passed William who was having his own tire issues. About another lap later I seen William on my tail again but again, he left me on a climb – I just didn't seem to have the legs anymore after the previous days excertions.

The rest of the race went by reasonably well – it is always around the 3rd or 4th lap that I ask myself, “why am I doing this”. I have been riding for 2.5 hours and I'm still only half way. Once I get to the 5th lap though, your mostly home and in these events, I find the last lap time... Only 12.5% to go!

A little over 5 hours later I finished up in second behind William – there really was not that much interesting things during the race apart from lapping people although I did get to like lots of the singletrack. With the pre-ride, XC and Marathon, there were sections that I rode 17 times... Gotta know them by now.

There is a report available here, race results here and Mel's report here.

As I mentioned earlier – Mel and I are off to Mountain Mayhem this weekend. Please please please let it be a dry one!

2008 British XC/Marathon NPS - Grizedale

Last weekend saw Mel and I head in the silver bullet to the Lake District in England for the third round of the British National Points Series in XC and Marathon racing. This time our travel plans brought us via an overnight ferry to Liverpool followed by a 2.5 hour drive to the race grounds in Grizedale. For the final 15km, I was really glad to have GPS – the roads were crazy. All very small and windy. The area itself was amazing – beautiful rolling hills, old cottages and not a hint of buildings from the last 100 years.

Getting back to business, the preride went fine. The XC course was pretty hilly (about 275 meters per lap over the 9km lap – I would be doing 5 laps) and reasonably enjoyable. It started off with 2 km of rolling/climbing fireroad followed by a pretty steep technical single track climb which brought us to a man made trail centre type traverse/descent to another fireroad climb (and some fireroad descending!). After this was a technical descent that I actually got to really like, although it claimed a huge number of puncture victims, a bit more fireroad and then a really nice single track descent back to the start/finish area. I liked the climbing in the course but I'm not much of a fan of trail centre type courses.

A birds eye view of the course

As I had taken last week week as a mostly recovery week my legs felt pretty good during warmup on race day – I was also pretty motivated after my first two XC rounds in the UK this year. The race started (8 minutes early!) and I made sure to keep myself out of trouble in the first few bends. The pace quickened as we approached the single track climb and sure enough some people made a mistake and I ended up running chunks of the climb! I stayed in contention (or at least could see) the lead group for much of the first lap but then settled into a group of riders (Christopher Minter, James Fraser Moodie, Billy Joe Whenman and Anthony O'Boyle) some riders came and went but it was mostly that. On one of the laps, I passed Robin by the technical zone, he had a puncture – I didn't think of it again until I seen him at the start of the climb on the fourth lap – he passed and I latched on. I paced myself off him and ended up passing 5 riders in the space of half a lap. This, I think was the most important part of this race, or any race I did in the UK this year. I was simply not going hard enough, I was taking it too easy and not being aggressive enough during the middle of the race. Robin even said I looked like I was sleeping as he passed. I eventually lost Robin on a descent (kinda hard to stay with this guy when the trail turns downward!) but kept the pressure on and eventually finished a British NPS XC best of 9th position.

Mel and I after the race

The course did suit me reasonably well, it being pretty hilly and I enjoyed the race. With that – it was back to the B&B to fuel up and get ready for the following days 100km marathon on a very similar course...

A report can be found here and results here.

2008 British XC/Marathon NPS - Drumlanrig

8 hours of suffering (and loads of driving) – that was my weekend – but I loved it!

It all started on Friday morning when Mel and I packed up the Silver Bullet (my little car) and headed to Belfast to catch the Ferry over to Scotland. We left with loads of time so our trip to Drumlanrig Castle was pretty chilled. This trip was for the second round of the British NPS Cross Country and Marathon series.

A slightly damp course (but warm humid weather) welcomed us on our preride. The track was basically 90% twisty, rooty, rocky single track with about 180 meters of climb per lap. The Elite men were to do 5 laps of the 7.5km course but with an hour to go, it was upped to 6. (Dohh) The course is very similar to the Epic Club Course except a lot longer and a little more technical.

Mel riding a particularly beautiful section

Race morning arrived and I felt pretty good – my legs felt fine in the warm up and my heart rate was responding. After the last gridding nightmare I was at the start with lots of time and had as good a position as I could ask for without being officially gridded – all good so far. The race started fast up the hill and from the start I felt pretty good – my legs were working and half way around the lap the leaders were still well within sight. Now comes my unlucky (stupid?) bit. On one of the fast fireroad sections I was passing another rider on the inside (I let him know where I was, lots of room for both of us) and some how my front wheel slid out – I couldn't believe it. I was unhurt (slight cut) but the front rotor on my bike was taco'd. I could see it swerve horribly and knew it was taking away all my power. (I guess a mistake I made here was not to calm down and try and fix it properly – it was so bad, you would try to spin the wheel as hard as you can with your hand and it would stop in a quarter turn!) I rode on anyway and caught a few that had passed by but coming into the start/finish area, another spill – I just couldn't believe it – I picked myself up and then suffered through the next two hours of the race. I wish I took my spare wheels with me (didn't think I would have room as I was picking up some new equipment from the UK) and switched them as I genuinely felt very strong but I think the wheel robbed a lot of the power. Two crashes in the first 7km of the XC race (neither were after hard efforts, I was pretty recovered/concentrated during each crash) and 0 crashes in the remaining 137km of racing I did during the weekend...

Second lap - still hammering in groups

See the slight cut? Picture from here

So that was Saturday, a 19th place and my body felt toast. I was really wondering how I could do another 100km the following day. Regardless, Mel and I went back to a Thai restaurant we found the previous night and filled up on rice.

I awoke on Sunday to a pretty sore back and dead legs but as the morning progressed they seemed to loosen out. Unfortunately, Mel and I seemed to mess up our timing a little so I ended up rolling up to the start line of the 100km Enduro without a warm up – ahh well, at least I was on the front row. I knew it would be more the 5 hours of riding so lots of time to get warm during the race – besides, I was saving energy! :)

We did 8 of these 12.5km laps

The race started and for most of the first lap a lead group formed with Nick Craig, William Bjergfelt and Duncan Jamieson with myself and Stuart Bowers just a little back. I didn't feel particularly bad but I knew I had put in a hard effort the day before. I let a bit of a gap open to Start towards the end of the first lap and from then on I mostly rode by myself (except when lapping). The course had more fireroad then the previous day but a few really nice additional single track sections. I actually enjoyed this course more (maybe it was all the extra power I had without the rubbing rotor!) and felt that I got a lot of single track riding practice in. In the end, I rolled in 15 minutes behind Nick Craig (the winner – he didn't race the XC race the day before) but a little over 4 minutes off a podium (damn). The race was really long at 5 hours and 29 minutes but I didn't suffer nearly as much as the previous day – I didn't (couldn't?) push as hard and my average HR was really low for a race – it was over 5 hours though so I guess that can be expected. It was amazing the amount of drink that I went through during the race – 8 gels and 8 550ml bottles of drink – no cramps and I felt okay when I finished (it would have taken a very very big stick to make me do another lap though!)

After all this – the worst bit was still to come – the drive home. A two hour rush to Stranrear, then a relaxng ferry ride, then another 3 hours from Belfast. I woke up this morning and I felt like I was hit by a train.

Thanks to Rachel Wisdom for doing the feed on Saturday's race (I need to find someone for the Marathons, stopping 8 times does not help your racing much) and well done to Robin for coming 3rd in the XC race.

Mel had an interesting weekend of racing too, but I'll leave her to talk about it on her blog (posts up soon)

Results are available here and there are reports/photos here and here.

British Cycling Whyte Enduro Series 100km - Round 1

Another day, another race report. These double header weekends require lots of writing :)

So, after the disappointment of Saturdays race I was hoping for a better one on Sunday. The Thai meal that we had in The Swan on Friday night was good enough to entice us back again. Another 4 portions of rice between us and we were good to go. (We actually even ate a ton more when we got home before going to bed... Cyclists eat a lot!)

My calf muscle was pretty sore all Saturday evening and sure enough when I woke on Sunday morning it was still sore – I decided to take a quick bath, hoping that would loosen out my legs a bit, when I headed out to the car to pack up the bikes my legs (and body, minus my shoulder) felt amazing. I thought today could be a good day. Magdalen House put on a huge breakfast for us of exactly the right kind of foods and with that digesting we headed to the course.


The course was a little different from the XC course, a little longer, a little less technical with most of the nice features of the XC course remaining.

I warmed up a little (15 minutes) and stood at the start early. Front row for me today – I was not having a repeat of yesterday. The gun went off and we sprinted off, the initial pace was not that high and my legs felt good so I was enjoying it. Duncan Jamieson and William Bjergfelt of Felt Racing started to up the pace about a quarter way around the first lap with Matt Carter and myself following. The Felt guys really picked it up about half way around the first lap and Matt drifted off the pace. Decision time for me, do I follow the Felt guys or ease back hoping they blow. I eased back a little and stayed with Matt but the early pace seemed to have effected him a bit and for the next lap and a half I found myself by myself. Exactly what I didn't want, so I eased back a little more to be joined by Matt (again) and Paul Ashby. We worked together for the next two laps when Paul upped the pace a little on a short single track climb – Matt dropped off so we continued regardless. Enjoying the company, Paul and I decided that we will just work together and ride the race, with 50km to go, it was still a long way and lots of windy fireroad still to cover. Paul got some great pulls in but seemed to tire a little during the 6th lap. (Being a local, he was still hammering the singletrack though – was fun trying to follow his line). For the 7th and 8th laps I pulled through as I still felt really good and fresh. I upped the pace a lot from a third way into the last lap and midway around the Paul let me know that he was going to drop back a little so I rode the final section alone. It was funny, 95km into the race and I still felt great – guess I should have gone after the Felt guys on the first lap.

Yeah, for dry conditions

In the end, the 100km (or so) was covered in 3 hours 55 minutes – I finished strong, didn't bin myself and finished in 3rd place so I was pretty happy. I even gone a slight tan from the race :)

The Mens 100km Podium

A have to say a big thanks to the Torq lads for all there help over the weekend – this year I will be riding under their team colours. It was also the first time that I got to extensively use all their nutritional products and I've been blown away by them. Especially the Torq Gels and Torq Recovery. The gels are the easiest to take I have tried yet, gave great consistent energy throughout and I didn't have stomach cramps afterwards (lots of gels do that to me). The Recovery drink, well, I felt great after the race and the following Monday despite all the racing and traveling - enough said.

There is a report and photos available here. Also, Mel had another great race and you read about it on her blog.

Now my focus has switched back to the K-Capital Series, the final round taking place in Castlewellan this weekend. Probably my favorite race course :) Lets hope it doesn't rain...

2008 British National Points Series XC

Last weekend seen me racing abroad for the first time of the 2008 season, indeed, it was Mel's first race abroad ever. We were heading to the first round of the British National Points XC and Marathon series. We packed up on Thursday evening and flew Dublin to Stansted Friday morning hiring a car for the 1.5 hour drive to Thetford. The morning was uneventful apart from us taking a slightly more scenic route to the course.

We arrived to find Robin and the Colnago/Ergon crew already setting up and rain clouds brewing. Bikes were quickly built up and as we finished the heavens opened for a downpour – I really hoped this was not a sign of things to come... (it sucks running for a plane after a marathon race with everything covered in mud). We got two laps of the 10km course in – it was pretty simple, about 5km of flat fireroad and 5km of (almost) flat singletrack. Not really my style of course but by the end of the weekend I really did start to enjoy the swoopy nature of some of the trails.

An overview of the course - really really flat

On Wednesday I had booked ourselves into a B&B close by so after our preride we headed to Magdalen House. On arrival, we got one of the nicest welcomes I have had from any place. Picture it, we arrive mucky from a pre-ride and we are greeted with a bucket of warm soapy water and a hose to wash down our bikes etc... closely followed by tea and coffee. Great :)

A nice Thai meal (not exactly PRO) the night before with a double helping of rice in an English/Thai restaurant, The Swan, had us ready for bed early.

Saturday we woke to find a beautiful morning and the news that it had not rained from yesterday during our preride – this meant the course was going to be super fast. Sure enough, when we arrived we found out that Elite men will be doing 6 laps (that's a little over 60km!) and the Elite ladies will be going for 5. I warmed up well and arrived at the start 10 minutes before the start – the shock when I seen that everyone was already there and gridded. Crap, 7 rows back I'll be starting in last, the WORST thing for a course like this which was basically going to be a road race with the singletrack helping to form groups. The race started and I worked hard to make up places... I passed about 20 riders and had made my way up to around 15th - 20th (I think, could be way off) then disaster struck. On a fireroad section I was hammering along trying to catch more people when the rider in front swerved right and hit me square – attempts at staying upright failed and I went down hard. This section was a bit of a blur but I remember seeing bodies flying over me. I hit my shoulder (that I hurt last week) badly and got a large bruise on my calf – my neck was also very stiff (still is). I was doing around 30-35kph at the time and considering, I actually think I got away reasonably well. My front wheel was a bit out of true and there was various other injuries to my bike but nothing race ending. I eventually got up and started to ride again, winded, annoyed (now I was way back) and pretty sore I knew that it was the end of today's race. I decided to refocus for Sundays marathon but continued for another 2.5 laps just to open up the legs and learn the course a bit. Mel, on the other hand had an amazing race on the Sunday, but I'll let her talk about that one. I have to say a big thank you to the Colnago/Ergon guys for helping me out with my bike – they retrued the wheel back to perfection – thanks a million :) Also, thanks to Eammon McConvey for helping out in the feed zone. And well done to his son Conor, who scored a fine 3rd place!

Picture is from here. More on Torq tomorrow :)

Results can be found here and a report and photos here.

With a downer (for me) for the first day, I was hoping Sunday would be different. It was, but I'll write a post about that tomorrow.