Due to flight difficulties I arrived at Margam late Friday night, missing the practice day, so I intended to get up early and do a lap before the race at 10am. However, I woke up to heavy rain at 5am, which continued all day, so I decided it was better to stay dry, warming up on the turbo-trainer and racing the course blind. It probably didn’t matter too much since the trails changed so much from their dry, dusty condition the day before.
There was a strong field of international riders braving the cold and wet to line up at the start. I had a terrible start, my handlebars got tangled with another rider and I had to fight to stop myself being wrestled to the ground. Luckily I stayed upright and there was a fairly long open section before we hit a single-track climb, so I was able to make up lost time. By the top of the climb I’d managed to move up to 5th place, and since I had no idea what was coming up on the course, there was an extra incentive to stick to the wheel of the person in front.
Conditions were treacherous, it was raining, and the trails had turned to thick, slippery mud making it very difficult to have any kind of control over the bike. In between were several long fire road climbs, which suited me well. By the end of the first lap I was in 4th, following Lee Craigie and Lilly Mathews, and feeling strong. The conditions made the descents very slow and awkward, I had a few moments of sliding down steep banks on my behind, but at least there was time to recover before the next hard climb. On lap two, Lilly stopped with mechanical trouble so I got ahead into 3rd, gritting my teeth to try and take advantage and put some time into her.
It didn’t last too long though, by lap four she was on my tail, and got ahead as I got stuck behind a junior dabbing on a narrow kicker. I caught her again on a climb and it was a bit of a cat and mouse game for a lap. On the last lap someone shouted that I had a 12 second gap, but soon after the track looped back on itself and I saw her several minutes behind, having had a puncture. I’d been preparing myself to try and kill it on the last nasty climb so it was a bit of a relief got get such a lead. I couldn’t believe my luck, all I had to do was hold my position and I’d be on the podium. The mud was getting harder to deal with, there were a couple of steep banks where I decided sliding down off the bike in a damage limitation effort was the best approach, but other than that I quite enjoyed the trails.
At the bottom of the final descent I glanced back and saw British national champion Sue Clarke not far behind so had to put my head down and power across and windswept muddy field to get to the finish. I finished 3rd, first podium in a UCI race, so really delighted with that. Big thanks to WXC for all their support thankfully didn’t need to use the tech zone! I enjoyed riding my newly pimped bike – brand new forks and brakes from Magura were really nice.
There was a strong field of international riders braving the cold and wet to line up at the start. I had a terrible start, my handlebars got tangled with another rider and I had to fight to stop myself being wrestled to the ground. Luckily I stayed upright and there was a fairly long open section before we hit a single-track climb, so I was able to make up lost time. By the top of the climb I’d managed to move up to 5th place, and since I had no idea what was coming up on the course, there was an extra incentive to stick to the wheel of the person in front.
Conditions were treacherous, it was raining, and the trails had turned to thick, slippery mud making it very difficult to have any kind of control over the bike. In between were several long fire road climbs, which suited me well. By the end of the first lap I was in 4th, following Lee Craigie and Lilly Mathews, and feeling strong. The conditions made the descents very slow and awkward, I had a few moments of sliding down steep banks on my behind, but at least there was time to recover before the next hard climb. On lap two, Lilly stopped with mechanical trouble so I got ahead into 3rd, gritting my teeth to try and take advantage and put some time into her.
It didn’t last too long though, by lap four she was on my tail, and got ahead as I got stuck behind a junior dabbing on a narrow kicker. I caught her again on a climb and it was a bit of a cat and mouse game for a lap. On the last lap someone shouted that I had a 12 second gap, but soon after the track looped back on itself and I saw her several minutes behind, having had a puncture. I’d been preparing myself to try and kill it on the last nasty climb so it was a bit of a relief got get such a lead. I couldn’t believe my luck, all I had to do was hold my position and I’d be on the podium. The mud was getting harder to deal with, there were a couple of steep banks where I decided sliding down off the bike in a damage limitation effort was the best approach, but other than that I quite enjoyed the trails.
At the bottom of the final descent I glanced back and saw British national champion Sue Clarke not far behind so had to put my head down and power across and windswept muddy field to get to the finish. I finished 3rd, first podium in a UCI race, so really delighted with that. Big thanks to WXC for all their support thankfully didn’t need to use the tech zone! I enjoyed riding my newly pimped bike – brand new forks and brakes from Magura were really nice.
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