One word to decribe my race is a dissapointment. I begun the day, hoping for a good result, I felt a top five was realistic and achieveable but anything can happen on the day. This proved true, as I lined up on the second row of the grid, focusing on the first part of the race which is so important in cyclo-cross racing. The usual countdown began, 30 seconds...15 seconds....Then bam, the gun goes off and the race was underway. A decent start put me into the top 8 riders. The pace was high, lined out along the straight 200 metres after the start. As we approached the next corner, I tried to change down a couple of gears for the exit, however, there was a problem. My shifter had managed to get something caught in it on the start straight, some grit or something and I couldn't change up the block, so was stuck in my biggest gear until I could change bikes at the pits. Stupidly, I missed the first set of pits, they were based on a corner and I was too busy trying to fix the problem and whizzed past the pits, just realising how big a mistake I had just made. I was gutted, after such a good start, but I tried my best to keep my cool and lose as little time as possible before the next set of pits. I found it tough to stay in the front group in such a big gear, as the speed of riders like Steven James out of corners is hard enough to match with a choice of gearing.
I got to the second set of pits trailing the front group by around 15/20 seconds but that gap was significant on a course like this and would need a massive ride on my part, to get back into that group. It didn't happen for me, every lap that passed, I was losing time to the front group and I soon realised that I wasn't going to make the top five, however there were a couple of riders about 30 seconds in front of me who were fighting to get into that front group, and thought if I can get myself up to them then I am a step closer to the top five, but as with the front group, I was losing seconds here and there each lap and never really managed to make an impact into that gap. I spent a lot of the race working on my own, frustrated as the race pulled further and further away from me, but there was nothing really I could do, I was riding as hard as I could. The laps ticked by and with 1 lap to go I was still no closer to the riders in front of me, I rode on to finish in 9th place, dissapointed and feeling slightly sorry for myself, I tried to tell myself 'that's bike racing' but I was still really gutted. The only aim of my cross season, ruined in the first hundred metres of the race by some grit. It's hard to take but I have just got to move on and look forward to the road season ahead, which I am very much looking forward to, get some good results and see what that brings.
The last race of my cross season is this Sunday at the final National Trophy Round in Shrewsbury, I will still have a poor gridding position, but I hope I can push myself into the top 20 riders and finish the cross season with an acceptable result. The forecast is dry and very cold, but I've been told it's going to be muddy, not sure why if its dry, but I guess only time will tell.
Here is a link to pictures of the race, taken by Simon Parker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonjamonbda/6680229377/in/set-72157628826934605/lightbox/
That's all for now, thanks for reading!
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Taylor
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