This post has been a little delayed partly because I was
hoping to find some pictures of the race and partly due to the fact I have
actually started reading for my degree!
To say I was unprepared for BUCS cyclo-cross would be a
massive understatement. There are some golden rules to follow when preparing
for a race and I followed none of them on the basis that I was just going to
see how it goes. However, once the race started, I quickly remembered that I am
the most competitive person on the planet and that ‘taking it easy’ wasn’t
really an option.
Just to give you a bit of background about the discipline of
cyclo-cross it sits between road cycling and mountain biking on the cycling
spectrum (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAA014IZTf0).
It is the discipline I first competed in and won two eastern region titles as a
junior so I have a relatively good pedigree. The ‘golden rules’ I previously
mention include: Training for the event, warming up, knowing the course and a
pretty basic rule of knowing your bike and kit. So jumping on a steel bike I
have never seen before 10 minutes before the start of a race was…less than
ideal. I wasn’t going to let any of this get in the way and after a few good
battles I finished in 11th place and 2nd BUCS team thanks
to great rides from my team mates, Andy (7th) and Joe (17th).
As you can see the picture the bike I was riding was
probably twice my age which made it so much sweeter to beat people with all the
gear. It also proved that, in the words of Lance Armstrong ‘it’s not about the
bike’, shame everything else that has ever come out of his mouth has been
bullshit.
In other news winter training is continuing to go very well
every time I get on the bike I feel stronger and I am lifting more weight in
the gym each time I go. It’s all building well for a successful season and I am
going to make the most of my last three weeks in the peaks before heading back
to Essex for Christmas.
