12th January 2014: Red Kite XC Winter Series, Coed Trallwm

First race of the year, 12 days in.

I only made the decision on Friday to race on Sunday. I'd found out about this winter XC series and it looked doubtful I could make any of the later rounds, so decided to head up to this one. As of Friday, the racier of the two mountain bikes sported one working brake. Some fettling on Saturday afternoon put that right, so there was no excuse not to get back into the familiar routine of packing the car up the night before, ready for an early start and a 90 minute drive on Sunday morning.

About that drive...just getting there felt like a victory. Defying the forecast, the weather fell below zero the night before. Much grumbling and removing ice from the inside of the car windows in the dark, followed by an exciting drive across some ungritted roads above Sennybridge, tiptoing over the ice.

Still, arrived in good time, got signed on and managed half a practice lap and warm up before heading to the start with about 40 others.

It was a good course with something for everyone, or something for every XC racer anyway. Two major climbs per lap followed by technical descents on mostly surfaced all-weather sections with the odd cut-in section. This being January in mid Wales, the cut in sections were muddy and required, for me at least, mostly pushing uphill and tripoding down.

White jersey. For a January XC race. Hmm. Photo by CAC photgraphy

A long fireroad climb began the lap and sorted the field out into a rough pecking order. I came over the top in 4th place, with the top three still in sight but with no aspirations of catching them up - of more of a concern were the half dozen riders hot on my heels. Three of them passed me on the descent; I took one back on the next long climb and yo-yoed with the other two for the next couple of laps, never quite doing enough to get my nose in front of them. Crossing the line after three laps I found the race was over when I had been expecting to go round again! I was a mixture of relief and annoyance at this - I was flagging on the third lap and pouring gels into myself to try and recover for a fourth lap. But if I'd known that was the final lap I could have properly emptied the tank and maybe made up the gap to the guy in front who I still had sight of on the more open sections. Still, 6th place in my first XC race in 18 months didn't seem so bad.