Welsh Cyclocross League Round 12: Pembrey Country Park

After being cancelled earlier in the month, the ever-popular Pembrey venue was rearranged to the last round of the series. Pembrey is all sandy well-draining ground and brings a welcome reprieve from plugging through the mud in December. Always fast, and normally something of a crit on grass, this year saw a shift to a different part of the park, butting right up to the beach and featuring some proper sections of sand.

I made an early start for the drive out west, aiming to have plenty of time to ride a brand new course and, having never ridden a course with a big sand component before, find a bike setup that I was happy with. The course was indeed something completely different: a long full-throttle section of fireroad to begin the lap, then a track that meandered up and down through the sand dunes, sometimes on hard-packed sand, sometimes through loose stuff. The lap ended with a bigger hill; up a set of steps and down a sandy dune to the finish line. It promised to be fast, with the only opportunity to catch my breath coming in the 30 seconds or so it took to ride down the descent to the finish each lap (a good job, as the run up the steps was sure to put me deep into the red).

I'd driven over through some heavy showers early in the morning, but it had stayed dry for the kids' races. No such luck for the main race, as the heavens opened just as we lined up at the start line. What had already felt like a barely adequate warm up (skipping my usual intervals for one more last-minute tempo ride around the course) now felt completely inadequate as I stood damp and shivering on the start line. Like I said Pembrey is always a popular race, and had indeed attracted a strong field, with all the main Welsh League protagonists in attendance looking for one more good result. The start - almost a kilometre flat out along a gravel fire road, promised to be fast and ruthless.

GO! 0 to 25 mph over gravel, banging bars and shoulders. Love it (I think). Photo by Howard Goldberg/Behnaz Dye

I got a good getaway from the second row, but got caught up in a little more body contact than I'm comfortable with at 25 mph as everyone jostled for position, and I dropped back to about 20th place. Despite a bit of rubbing of shoulders, the long open start did a good job of stringing the field out before we hit the technical stuff. I held my own reasonably well through the dunes, and avoided any major carnage on the descent back to the finish. The laps then flew by in a familiar pattern: a two-minute time trial along the fireroad; try to stay neat and tidy through the dunes; leg it up some steps and try not to lose too much time on the descent to the finish. Whilst I was riding this descent where some were running, I certainly wasn't as fast or as confident down it as some of my competitors. This had a knock-on effect on the start of the lap; this section was fast enough to allow a bit of drafting, but inevitably began with me trying to chase down the rider or group of riders who had put a few seconds into me on the descent.

Leg it up a sand dune, try not to throw up at the top, slide down the other side. Photo by Howard Goldberg/Behnaz Dye

As I accelerated down the fireroad for the fifth time, I felt the tell-tale feeling of a rear tyre that was softer than it should be. Yep, I had a puncture (the culprit was pretty obvious when I checked the bike afterwards - a wayward safety pin from somebody's race number was sticking out of my tyre!)... My first thought was to pack it in - only a good result could improve my position in the overall standings, and I wasn't going to get one now - but pride told me to get back to the pits and continue on the spare bike.

I got most of the way down the fireroad before the tyre lost all pressure, so I only had to limp over a few hundred metres of hard ground and then the rest of the lap was sand. This proved to be pretty rideable with zero psi in my rear tyre! Unfortunately I had nobody in the pits for me today, so it took me what felt like forever to find my spare bike when I got there. Oh well, the rest of the race was really going to be just for fun and pretty meaningless now, I thought.

I did three more laps on the spare bike, trying to work as hard as I had been before. I managed to catch and pass a few people who had overtaken me as I made my way slowly back to the pits, but I wasn't taking it entirely seriously any more, exemplified by exchanging end-of-term pleasantries and/or banter with a few riders as I lapped them, and when I caught some traffic on the climb up the steps, I was quite happy to plod up behind them rather than barge past at full gas.

I finished in 29th place - I was quite pleasantly surprised not to be further down the field - which was a completely irrelevant result in terms of the overall league, but other results had gone my way, meaning I hung on to my existing position in the overall standings.

That brings us to the end of another Welsh Cyclocross League season. It's been a busy, tiring and intense few months, but it's all been a lot of fun and a great series to be part of. More friends have been made, and more (hopefully friendly!) rivalries have been forged. No cycling discipline is as friendly as cyclocross, and meeting up with the same people week in and week out makes for a great little community. The atmosphere, with races for all ages and abilities, also can't be beaten, and neither can the quality of the cakes often being sold out of a rain-lashed gazebo. I've said it before but it bears repeating: the atmosphere at a cyclocross race is a little like that of a village fete, but one where nobody is surprised or disappointed by terrible weather.

This has been another year of racing not only cyclocross for me, but also road and cross country. Despite racing a season that began on the road in late February, I'm feeling less tired than this time last year. In fact, although the main event of Welsh League is over, I'm eyeing up a few other races over Christmas, and I may well put a bike in the back of the car and head off to one more race before the end of year. Then again, I might just treat myself to a slice of normal life over Christmas and put my feet up. Or if I'm feeling energetic, have a walk down to the pub.

Welsh Cyclocross League Round 11: Mountain View Ranch, Caerphilly

I skipped round 10 because everybody did: it was cancelled due to bad weather. I know what you're thinking: it must take some pretty exceptionally bad weather to cancel a cyclocross race. Well the combination of a course situated on a stretch of coastline exposed to the full force of the Atlantic Ocean and said ocean offering up severe gales for Sunday led to, if you'll pardon the pun, the perfect storm. Cyclocrossers will put up with most things, but nobody wants to race in 70mph winds or have a tree fall over on them, and the organisers had no choice but to cancel. Suddenly faced with a free weekend, I took the rare opportunity to do what normal people do on Sundays at this time of year: Christmas shopping followed by Sunday lunch.

After a two-week break from racing, normality (or dysfunctionality, depending on your views on shopping and telly vs bikes and mud every weekend) was well and truly restored this weekend. Before my race on Sunday, Saturday was a trip up to Builth Wells to help Claire out competing in a cross country (running) race: I had the relatively easy supporting jobs of clapping a bit and trying my best to help Claire get warm and dry again afterwards; she arguably got the harsh end of the bargain with a shift in the pits on Sunday, cleaning and swapping bikes for me.

Mountain View Ranch was a new course last year and a total mudfest; after a few very wet weeks of weather, this year promised to be no different. To make the most of home advantage I nipped up in the week and rode the course; it was a similar layout to last year and sure enough very wet. The next morning I hear from the organisers that they had decided it was too wet and have come up with a completely different layout! So I made time for another quick ride up the hill on Saturday morning to have a look. Even speaking as someone who relishes slogging through deep mud, it was a change for the better with more of a mixture of surfaces and also a few more interesting features: more climbing and descending, and a couple of fairly technical bits to contend with on the way down the hill. Still lots of mud too though.

After a long day in the car on Saturday, the luxury of racing a ten-minute drive from home was most welcome: no early alarm clocks and time for a leisurely breakfast before leaving the house. Knowing this was going to be a muddy one, I got a couple of wet and muddy practice laps done in plenty of time to clean the bike and put on clean dry kit, then headed off to warm up on the road.

The start was a 100 metre charge over grass and straight into some of the heaviest going on the course. The thing that sticks in my mind from the first few seconds of the race is sensation of cold, wet, muddy water hitting me from every angle. After that you're not really getting any wetter and you barely notice it.

I got a decent getaway, but picked the wrong lines in the first few mud sections - always a bit of a lottery - and slipped back a bit. Not the end of the world in these conditions, and I settled to the task of methodically picking people off ahead of me. Soon I was catching up with Mike, another AJAX rider who had made a good start. This is Mike's first full season of cyclocross and he has got better and better as the season has progressed - I think I may be seeing him ahead of me quite a lot of the time next year. Mike and I settled into a group of four that spent the middle part of the race pushing each other hard, with nothing more than a few seconds between us at any point. Great racing.

Some course-side mascots. Photo by Clare Dallimore

The stream crossing: how not to ride it. Photo by Behnaz Dye

By the middle of the race the course was a total mess; sections that had been rideable earlier in the day were now to cut up to the point where they were, at best, a choice between whether it was quicker to run or try and ride. A particular highlight near the end of the lap was ploughing through a stream crossing with a dead turn afterwards followed by a small rise. By mid race, water dragged along the course by the passage of wheels had turned this into a somewhat longer puddle followed by 20 metres of uphill through rim-deep slop. Busy with the challenges of looking for clean (figure of speech!) lines and sheer pain management, at some point I realised that the three other riders I had been racing were nowhere to be seen. Where did everybody go?! I had no idea whether they were now ahead of me or behind me! Glancing back on open stretches of the course, I caught glimpses of Mike and one other rider behind me, but I couldn't see anyone ahead of me, so it was just a case of keeping a gap, plugging on and praying for the sound of the bell.

Giving the commissaires my "Please ring the bell now" look. Photo by Clare Dallimore

I was taking bike changes every two to three laps (thank you to the long-suffering Claire and the ever-helpful Doug in the pits), and as I took a clean bike with two laps to go, I soon realised something wasn't right with the drivetrain. As I rode downhill to the bottom the course, I could feel the chain slacken and tighten again before being dumped off the front chainring altogether. I stopped to put the chain back on, normally a job that just takes a few seconds, but as soon as I spun the pedals, it was dumped back off again. Try again and this time it stayed put, but I got going again only in time to see Mike catch up and overtake me! The silver lining to this cloud was seeing the leaders come past at the same time, putting me a lap down but making this my final lap. Not knowing whether my chain could be trusted anymore, I ran the entire of the climb up the course - luckily for me this was now so cut up that there was nothing to choose between running and riding this. As I remounted at the top I managed to pass Mike and get a gap of a few seconds, and mercifully the chain stayed where it should (cleaning bikes at home, the culprit revealed itself in the form of a small stone wedged up against one of the jockey wheels). I just hung on over the finish line, the two of us separated by less than a bike length. We finished 7th and 8th overall.

Welsh Cyclocross League Round 9: Gilwern Outdoor Centre, Abergavenny

After a weekend off, the final third of the season begins with a short drive to Gilwern near Abergavenny, the first of four races in five weeks before the end of the Welsh League.
Mud was on the agenda before I even got on the bike; access to the car park was through a muddy field which required momentum and commitment to get the car through without getting stuck! Fortunately us cyclocrossers are comfortable with sliding through the mud, just normally on only two wheels. I raced here last year, and found the course similar: quite technical, with a fast descent and a long muddy climb each lap. I didn’t go particularly well here last year; and I had a feeling that, like Newtown, I was going to lose out to the people who were faster in the technical sections than me. Looking around as we lined up before the start, I also noticed that this was a very strong field, with all the main Welsh League protagonists in attendance plus a few strong English riders making guest appearances from over the border. This was going to be a tough one then. I got a good start this week and made sure I moved up before we hit the first corner. I then spent the first couple of laps drifting back down the pecking order: sure enough I was losing time in the twisty, slippery sections of the course, and on the fast muddy downhill through the woods. I settled in though, and made up what time I could on the power sections and the climb. Although I rode it in practice, this climb was definitely quicker to run, and the preceding 100 metres was so muddy that it made sense to dismount for that too, pick the bike up and run the whole section. This made for a total of about 1 minute of running each lap - suddenly those running intervals I’d been doing in training all autumn seemed worth it.

Carrying a perfectly rideable bicycle up a hill. Photo by Behnaz Dye.

As the race went on, much of the surface evolved from slippery grass to more playdough-like mud. This suited me more - there was more grip so less tiptoeing round corners, and the energy-sapping surface was hurting some of those I was racing more than it was hurting me. I went into the last lap just behind two riders I’d been with for all of the second half of the race, and my strategy was clear: stay as close to them as possible through the twisty sections (where they were both a little quicker than me), and then go 100% from the bottom of the climb, as the finish line was only a short stretch of tarmac beyond this. No longer interested in bike preservation, I rode the first of the mud this time, overtaking one rider in the process, and then ran full gas up the climb to pass the other. I was deep into the red at the top, but a glance over my shoulder as I turned onto the tarmac straight to the finish showed I had got the gap I needed. I finished 23rd.

Welsh Cyclocross League Round 8: Trehafren Fields, Newtown

The fifth weekend of racing in a row. I was keen to get one more result in the bag but also looking forward to a weekend off. This was also the longest drive of the season: Newtown is just over 100 miles away, so I treated myself to a night in a bed and breakfast, an 8 o’clock alarm and someone else to prepare my pre-race breakfast. I’d heard the course here was quite technical, and indeed it was. The first half of the lap was a straightforward blast across flat parkland - albeit into a strong headwind, but the return leg meandered up and down a wooded hillside, featuring a long run up a flight of steps and a couple of rooty, muddy downhills in the woods that would not have looked out of place on a cross country course. Rain was forecast but never really arrived, but the course was coated with enough sticky mud and leaves to bring bike changes into play. Fortunately my team-mate Craig had made the trip from Cardiff as well, with Doug, his ever-present and helpful dad, who did a great job in the pits for me. The race started with the long straight grassy section, and the headwind made things reminiscent of a road race, as a large bunch sat in behind those who toiled on the front in the wind. I lost out in the first couple of pinch points, but got through lap one just about cleanly, surviving having someone directly behind me crashing on a technical section, hitting my back wheel hard but not doing any damage or taking me down with him. It soon became clear that, fun as it was, this was not a course that suited me all that well. I was getting round all the technical sections, but not as fast as the good bike handlers, and taking the ‘safe but slow’ lines on some sections. Several times I would chase down a gap of several seconds on the long straight into the wind, but then be unable to drop the rider I caught as he sheltered behind me out of the wind. The only time I was gaining was on the long run uphill. By the last couple of laps, I was on my own and happy just to maintain my position. Some sections of the course were by now very treacherous but I managed not to make any major mistakes (making some minor ones is OK, at least that way I know I can’t push any harder in the corners without falling off!). I crossed the line 19th on a bike very heavy with mud, despite have changed bike twice.

Welsh Cyclocross League Round 7: Melin Mynach Park, Gorseinon

Another trip out west to another familiar, and often muddy, venue. The course on Melin Mynach Park winds down (and of course back up) a hillside and is always heavy going. Despite racing in unseasonably warm sunshine for the first day of November, there was indeed plenty of mud on offer.

Photo by Lucy Harvey

This race would have been the epitome of a solid but unspectacular race for me, were it not for (spoiler alert) the last lap. A decent but not fantastic start slotted me into the top 20. As things settled down I dropped a few riders and spent most of the race close to, but not close enough to catch, the next group ahead of me. As with Carmarthen, the course deteriorated as the day went on, and one long mud section at the bottom of the course became quicker to run than ride.

Suffering in the November heat. Photo by Lucy Harvey.

As I took the bell and prepared myself for one last push, I broke my rear derailleur. There was no point even checking the bike for damage; I switched straight into damage limitation mode and just picked it up and started running to the pits, which were three-quarters of a lap away. I do a bit of cross-country running as part of my training, so I’m used to running through the mud, but nothing could prepare me for the ordeal of running almost a mile carrying a heavy, muddy bike, tired after 50 minutes of racing, and watching competitor after competitor effortlessly pass me as I inched my way towards the pits. According to my GPS, the run took to the pits took me about nine minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. I ran, walked and staggered along, stitch burning in my abdomen. I couldn’t even push the bike along the floor for some respite, because the broken rear mech was fouling the spokes. I got the spare bike from the pits and rode the last 500 metres of the race flat out, powered by pure fury and the chance to re-pass a couple of riders off before the finish. I finished 30th, down from around 15th at the end of the last lap. Not the end of the world, but a disappointing way to end a race.

Welsh Cyclocross League Round 6: Carmarthen Showground

The middle Sunday of a block of five race weekends in a row. I put Brecon behind me and settled into the familiar pattern that the weeks now followed, leading up to every Sunday. The blow of a 65-mile drive to Carmarthen Showground was softened somewhat by the clocks changing, making what would otherwise have been a pretty early start one hour more bearable. After a largely dry start to the season, Carmarthen got us down to the business of plugging through mud. The course wound around a couple of fields that, following a Saturday of heavy rain, ranged from muddy to completely saturated. Further showers through the morning promised that the course would deteriorate as the day went on. The start was an 800m charge along a (relatively) dry gravel section to string the field out, then straight into one of the worst sections of mud. I got a good start this week, but this was undone by someone coming down in front of me on one of the first muddy corners. I was out by the tape on the left-hand edge of the course with nowhere to go, and literally had to come to a standstill whilst the downed rider picked his bike up and got going again, all the time watching the pack stream past on my right hand side. By the time we got going again I found myself down in about 30th place. My first thought was ‘another bad first lap; here we go again,’ but I buried those thoughts and kept my cool, helped by the encouraging sign that I was able to pick off riders steadily. Around half the lap was deep thick mud that soon spread the field out. Back-breakingly hard work though it is, these are conditions that I enjoy, trying to use power smoothly and looking for the constantly-changing least-worst lines. By around half distance I found myself following Adrian from Forza once again, and the two of us stayed more or less together until the finish, pushing each other on, catching and dropping a few more riders ahead of us in the process. With two laps to go I took a clean bike; the number one bike was riding OK, but I had watched the rear derailleurs of a couple of competitors succumb to the mud, and Adrian pitted at the same time so no time was lost. The lap finished with the only real technical section of note; two times up and down a small bank that was badly cut up. Adrian was notably smoother and faster than here, so to beat him I was going to need try and drop him somewhere before this on the bell lap. Halfway round the last lap I launched an all-or-nothing attack and got a gap of a few seconds. Now just the simple matter of burying myself to the line. I hung on to finish just ahead of Adrian and 7th overall, one place better than Aberdare and my best ever Welsh League finish.

Welsh Cyclocross League Round 5: Brecon Leisure Centre

I seem to like to follow a good result with a bad one in 'cross; after a decent race at Aberdare, today was a shocker. Brecon is a regular on the Welsh League circuit, and I've raced here many times, so I knew roughly what to expect. This year was a little different though, as the race had been awarded Category A status, attracting a particularly strong field for a round of the Welsh League. Looking at the start list it was clear that (on paper at least) there was no chance of repeating last week's top ten finish; a top 25 would be a more realistic aim. It had been another dry week in Cardiff but the microclimate of the Brecon Beacons conjured up some light rain on the drive over on Sunday morning. The circuit, around leisure centre playing fields, made good use of a couple of sections of banking that were left greasy by the rain and had a few steep or cambered sections. Everything was rideable in practice, but it would be tricky to ride all of it without making mistakes, even more so as legs tired and the course got cut up. Practice involved a lot of riding and running different lines around the trickiest corners, and agonising over tyre and tyre pressure choices. I was gridded this week, very flatteringly someone had decided I should be on the second row, alongside a lot of top quality riders and with most of those I benchmark myself against starting behind me. I managed to throw away all this advantage off the line, missing my pedal and taking a couple of revolutions to get clipped in. I drifted back far enough to get caught up in chaos as we hit the technical sections for the first time. As everyone was forced to run a tricky camber, I lost my footing and slipped over, enough to cost me a handful of places. Later in the lap I was forced down again as a rider ahead of me slipped; another handful of places lost. As things started to settle down, I tried to make some progress back up through the field, but it wasn’t really happening. I was struggling to put the power down in a straight line, and making far too many mistakes in the technical sections. A couple of laps of trying to drop a small group ended with them dropping me instead. By now I was getting into a downward spiral; frustrated, I was mentally losing my cool and concentration, culminating in tripping and falling on a dismount over the planks. From then on it was damage limitation: I drifted backwards, getting caught by rider after rider, powerless to stay with them as they passed me. Just when matter couldn’t get worse, I started to bonk completely on the last lap, and crossed the line utterly spent and shaking from head to toe, having wrung out every last drop of energy and desperate for some food. I finished 36th. I have no idea what happened here. Could have just been an off day, could have been not eating enough in the morning. I did feel a little under the weather in the days beforehand, so I may have also been brought down by a bit of latent illness. A Sunday to forget in any case.

Welsh Cyclocross League round 4, Aberdare Country Park

An unexpected four week gap between my first and second races of the season, thanks to injury. I felt like I'd lost a little ground, both in terms of scoring points and fitness, having not been able to train as much as I'd like. On the other hand, I was fresh and rested and my bikes were clean and perfectly maintained, as I'd not been able to ride them all that much! Dare Valley Country Park was another new venue on the calendar, or at least one not one I'd raced at before. Despite a very dry first half of October, the course was only 80% dry, traversing low-lying boggy ground twice each lap, one section of which required a long dismount and run, and dragging steadily uphill on either side. Attending one round out of three meant no gridding for me, but fortunately the start was wide open and I got away fairly well from the third row, slotting into the lower reaches of the top 20 at the end of lap one. I then made slow but steady progress for the first half of the race, picking a few more riders off; I was holding my own or losing only a little time on the fast, dry downhill sections of the course, and making up time in the muddy sections and particularly the long drag uphill. The course finished on top of the hill, and in the second half of the race it became clear that I was going to have to make the most of this. Once again I had settled into a group of three riders, becoming two of us in the later stages: just me and Adrian from Forza RT. He was slightly quicker than me on the fast downhill section, so I was pleased to make it to the bottom of this neck-and-neck with him as we entered the long, muddy run. Then, I thought I'd blown it: I stumbled in the mud, bike on my shoulder, and landed on my knees in the mud! Somehow I bounced straight back to my feet and managed to stay with Adrian. There was nothing for it then but to go full gas for the two or three minutes to the finish, and I managed to get a gap of a few seconds and hold onto to it on the uphill drag to the finish line.

Last lap. No pressure. Photo by Helen Breese.

I hung around for coffee in the cafe and post-race presentations, and was pleasantly surprised to earn some prize money for only the second ever time in the Welsh League. I'd come 8th overall, my first top ten finish since 2009. A nice way to get back into the swing of things after injury.

Injury time

I was stiff and sore post-race for a couple of days, which I put down to my hard crash in practice; I got through the race on adrenaline but I was soon seizing up a bit afterwards. Ironically, having got away with no lasting damage from that, I then managed to go over on my ankle walking round the office at work, tearing some ankle ligaments in the process! For the first couple of days I thought I really wasn't sure how much damage I'd done; plenty of rest saw things start to improve and I was able to get gently back on the bike after the first week, but it has taken three weeks, a few trips to the physio, and a lot of ice and stretching to get back to more-or-less normal. Early season plans put on hold then. I'd planned to make the trip up to Aberystwyth two weeks after Llanishen, but although I'd resumed some light training by then, and my heart wanted to race, my head knew it was still out of the question. Ditto for Hereford the following week, a notoriously bumpy and technical circuit and therefore the last place to test out a dodgy ankle.

Welsh Cyclocross League round 1: Llanishen High School, Cardiff

Down to business then. The first proper race of the season was met with anticipation and a certain amount of anxiety. Despite being as well prepared for a cyclocross season as I've ever been, you don't know where you are going to slot into the pecking order until things get underway. The weather forecast added another layer of complexity in the run up to the race; playing a game of "will it rain or not". In the end conditions were dry, and the ground fast, with the rain conveniently holding off until just a few minutes after I'd got home and unloaded the bikes and kit from the car. Round 1 being all of 3 miles from home did mean a nice gentle introduction to the Sunday morning pre-race routine, and a little extra time in bed before heading over for practice. The course was looking fast, but reasonably technical, with no forced dismounts but a few sections that would be tricky to ride and, for the likes of me anyway, meant playing percentages and running with the bike rather than lose time attempting to ride them and making mistakes. Away from those, I managed to crash hard on a fast but fairly straightforward section of the circuit, getting tangled up in the course tape and coming down hard on the back of my head. This was only a few minutes before the start, and at that point I was pleased just to get up and be able to make it to the start line with my ears no longer ringing. It was only after the race that I realised I'd cracked the back of my helmet in the process. Around 140 people signed on, but the organisers had wisely chosen a starting circuit where we could start 20-abreast, meaning I got the luxury of a front row start! I got off the line well, perhaps even a little too well; I was about 10th into the first corner and soon losing touch with the faster folks ahead of me and coming under pressure from riders behind. I therefore slipped backwards a little on lap 1, but still avoided any major bottlenecks.

AJAX team photo post-race. Massive crack in the back of my helmet not pictured.

The pace was blisteringly quick, quick enough to allow for a little drafting on the straights as things settled down. I spent much of the race yo-yoing in and out of a group of three; the other two riders carrying slightly better corner speed than me, whereas I was clawing my way back up to them on the straights and the couple of drags uphill on what was largely a flat circuit. I started the last lap a handful of seconds down on the two of them, and despite emptying the tank on the last lap I couldn't close the gap. I finished 15th overall, exceeding my expectations a little.

Cross is here

So it's been radio silence on here all summer, but now that the autumn approaches I thought I'd resurrect this blog.

So far it's been another year of racing more than ever. In addition to dabbling on the road I've raced a fair bit of cross country. So no excuses for not being race-ready for the cyclocross season. Having said that, after a busy spring and early summer of racing I made sure I took things fairly easy in July and August to make sure I hit the autumn mentally and physically fresh. Late summer is a great time of year to chill out and go for lots of long rides!

A few of us from Ajax have also got an evening cyclocross training group going, which has been great for honing technique and fitness. All in all, I'm as well prepared as I've ever been for a cyclocross season. Will that translate into results? Time will tell, starting with round 1 of the Welsh League on 13 September.

Epilogue

Cyclists love numbers, so here's a few. I've raced 31 times this year, in six cross country races, two road races, two time trials, ten cyclocross races and eleven criteriums. Five times I've raced more than once in a day. I've raced in every month of the year with the exception of April. I've won the grand total of one energy gel, one water bottle, three bottles of wine, and £10 in cash. Probably not enough income to turn pro on.

It's a relief to have reached the end of the year, and I'll be taking a complete break over Christmas. Compared to anything I've done before, this year has been a big step up in terms of commitment, particularly in the last few months, when motivation to get out of bed and train on cold dark mornings has not always been there. That said, there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that it was worth all the effort, and every hard training session makes embracing the pain of racing that bit more bearable.

I've learned a lot about bikes and bike racing this year. Having dabbled in cross country and cyclocross for years, this year I've learned how to do it all (a bit more) properly, such as the value of a proper warm up and a good look at the course beforehand, rather than just rolling up at the start line and hoping for the best. XC and CX are both require a lot of preparation, and sometimes assistance during a race. Thanks to everyone who has helped me out on occasions this year, when one pair of hands wasn't enough. I've also jumped two-footed into the deep end of road racing. To stretch that metaphor, I was initially the annoying one splashing around and making a mess while everyone else serenely swam lengths. Thanks to everyone who has had the patience to teach me all the unwritten rules.

One of the best parts of racing cyclocross week in and week out has been become part of the little community that turns up to each race. As well as building up little rivalries with other racers, and exchanging exhausted handshakes at the end, the whole atmosphere is great: the kids races, the mums and dads cheering them on (and the kids who enthusiastically cheer on the seniors), the folks selling home made cakes.... It's a bit like being at a village fete, albeit one with terrible weather.

As for 2015, will I do it all again? I'm sketching out plans in my mind already. I'll probably continue as jack of all trades and master of none again throughout the spring and summer, but cyclocross will be the priority again so the season won't begin for real until September. Before then I'll try and get a bit more cross-country racing done than last year. As for road racing, I'll just continue to be the idiot in the doomed early breakaway.

14 December: Welsh Cyclocross Leauge final: Mountain View Ranch, Caerphilly

The last race of the year, and the end of my cyclocross season. The Welsh League wraps up comparatively early (most cyclocross leagues run into January), which suits me fine as it means I get to take a break over Christmas and not have to resist all the temptations it brings. But first, there was the small matter of one more hour of pure sweet hell.

As this round is local to Cardiff, I took the opportunity to ride up and take a look at the course on Saturday. This turned into something of a cyclocross clinic, as I was joined by another David from Ajax. He was entering his first cyclocross race, and I'd promised to go through the basics with him. What I didn't realise until we were chatting on the short ride to the course is that he'd never ridden off road before! He coped admirably, with only a bit of falling off in practice (better then than in the race).

The course meandered slowly downhill across open ground, then briefly into some woods, returning to the finish gradually uphill across an old section of golf course, taking in some fun drops in and out of bunkers on the way. It was a hard slog in practice, and promised to get harder by race day. It was a dry and crisp morning on Saturday, and some of the ground was firm from a frost. However, it was clear that it was going to be very heavy going - parts of the ground were already very wet, and rain was forecast overnight and into Sunday. I didn't mind this, and part of me was even relishing it - we hadn't had a really wet race all season, and I didn't mind getting muddy one last time. In fact, I don't mind at all getting wet and muddy during a race, it's the trying to stay warm and dry beforehand, and then sorting out a nightmare of wet and filthy kit afterwards (and of course trying to get yourself warm and dry). All very well if you are a pro with a motorhome waiting for you; somewhat different when you are getting changed in a car park and have to clean your own bikes and kit.

Race day indeed dawned wet; not chucking it down, but on-and-off rain blown along on a brisk breeze. Compounding this was the fact that the course was on top of hill and a bit more windswept. As I expected, I arrived to see that the course hardly resembled what I had ridden yesterday: everywhere that had been green was now brown! A quick recce revealed that the bottom, wetter half of the course had cut up about as much as I expected - it was all still rideable, but parts would become quicker to run during the race - whilst everything else, on better draining ground, was muddier than yesterday but holding up comparatively well. It was still muddy enough to mean changing every scrap of kit, and washing the bike after practice. I decided to forgo my usual last-minute ride of the course before the race in the interests of keeping the bike clean, and headed off for a long road warm up.

It was soon time to head to the line - a 100m charge across grass and straight into the boggiest section of the course. I got an OK start across the grass and then the next few hundred metres were chaos. Everyone bogged down in the mud, some trying to continue to ride while most ran; I stayed stubbornly on the bike a little too long before cutting my losses, shouldering the bike and sprinting through the mud for all I was worth. Another short stint back on the bike and then off again for a corner that was quicker to run, nearly ending up on the floor as one of my mud-clogged cleats refused to release smoothly as I swung myself off the bike. Another rider then slipped in front of me on a short rooty climb, forcing me to dab. All in all it took half a lap before I felt like I had any breathing space at all, as opposed to being shoulder to shoulder with someone. Nevertheless, I felt like I was moving forward rather than backwards, and was pleasantly surprised to have Claire count me through as 18th at the end of lap one.

Quintessential cyclocross. Photo by Howard Goldberg.

The race settled down remarkably quickly. By the end of the third lap I wasn't really in touch with any other riders but seemed to be alone. However, I couldn't relax, and knew I had to work hard to maintain my position in the top 20. The course was now in such a state that lines were changing every lap, and two sections that had been rideable earlier now forced me to shoulder the bike and run. As happens in bad conditions the race was also becoming one of attrition; I made up a few spots as riders pulled over with mechanicals from mud-packed drivetrains. The mud didn't seem to be affecting my bike too badly (I've finished races on bikes where the wheels would barely turn anymore), but I had the luxury of a pit crew today, so I made use of them and took a clean bike about two thirds of the way through the race.

It was then just a case of grinding on until the bell. In fact I never heard the bell, as I got lapped by the race leader on my final lap, cutting my race one lap short. Fine by me.

Across the line and straight into a waiting warm jacket, then into one almighty clear-up operation. The weather was getting wetter and windier, and by the time the car was packed my hand were numb. The cafe next to the course was a godsend; everyone piled in there for end of season presentations and some well-earned hot food.

Just the small matter of the results then. I was pretty sure I'd made the top 20, but was very happy to find I'd equalled my best rest of the season with 14th. In terms of the overall standing in the league, this was enough to mean I hung on to a place in the top 20 (20th, to be precise!).

30 November: Welsh Cyclocross league round 9: Gilwern

The end of the season is in sight, and in a way I am quite glad. It's been a long year of racing, and I felt completely wiped out after the race at Pembrey. Training also gets more and more difficult to fit in as the days get shorter. Just two rounds to go, both of which are quite close to Cardiff, meaning a little more time in bed on Sunday morning.

Gilwern is another new venue to me, as it only held a race for the first time last season. Practice revealed it be quite interesting - narrow, bumpy, twisty and greasy at the start of the lap, quite a long woodland descent to an open field section with literally a spiral of tape to negotiate, then a blast across the field and up a gravel climb to finish the lap. In complete contrast to Pembrey last week, it was only really the final third of the lap where it was possible to go full gas for more than a few seconds.

The race started half way round the lap, so that the climb could spread the field out. I got off the line well, but got squeezed hard at the first bottleneck and lost out pretty badly. It was a pretty hectic first lap, with plenty of leaning on people and being leaned on into corners! The race then soon settled down for me, into a familiar pattern of damage limitation on the slippery technical first half of the lap, and trying to claw back time on the open sections and up the climb. These are the sort of conditions where everyone is going to make mistakes and I had my fair share of two wheel slides, some of which ended up sending me pretty wide and into the bushes or through the tape. I managed to stay upright for the whole race though.

It was a bit of a frustrating race; I was going as quick as I could through the slippery corners, and the front end broke away from me from time to time to confirm that I was right on the limit of grip/my technical ability. Nonetheless, plenty of people around me were making it look a lot easier (and faster), and so I was losing time and seemingly powerless to do anything about it. The slippery sections also deteriorated as the race went on; I seemed to try a different line through some sections every lap, none of which seemed any better than each other. So, that's yet another weakness identified and something to try and work on for next year. In spite of this, a relatively thin field meant I came home in 24th place, securing an unspectacular but respectable haul of points towards the overall league standings.

23 November: Welsh Cyclocross League Round 8, Pembrey Country Park

Good old Pembrey. Butting up almost to the beach on firm, sandy and well-draining ground, this course always makes a change from mud. It's also pretty flat and open, so is usually a bit of criterium on dirt, favouring those with the biggest legs.

I arrived to good weather - sunny and mild for the time of year. Mind you I suppose some people would argue that's not good weather for cyclocross! The course was a bit more twisty and technical than previous years, but still very fast.

Practice and warm up done, I overheard one of the marshals remarking on the size of the field - 165 riders had signed on, smashing the previous record for the league, itself set only a few rounds ago. As we rolled to the start it was obvious that this was going to mean some stiff competition: as well as all the usual suspects, I was gridded next to Steve James, a rider who is up the pointy end of National Trophy races (and due to ride the World Cup at Milton Keynes the following week). Probably not someone I was going to beat into the first corner, or at all.

Remedial cyclocross tip 101: if you forget to start your Garmin and only realise this after the commissaire has said "I'll start you in the next ten seconds", this is not the right time to start fiddling with it. Consequently not the best start of my life, down in 40th place or so into the first bend. But who should I see leading the field as I look ahead? Yep, the man who started next to me on the third row, Steve James (who went on to win the race).

I picked a few riders off in the first half lap or so, but after that each position gained, or defended, was a struggle. By the nature of the course, there is a lot of time spent pedalling flat out, and aware I had not made the best start I was trying to wring out every bit of speed I could and accelerate as hard as possible out of each bend. I found myself in a fight for position with one rider or another for most of the race; wheel-to-wheel racing like this is great, but I seemed to be the one getting gapped more often than creating a gap! It also meant I'd been riding at 100% pretty much continuously since the start, as there was very little rest anywhere on the course. Therefore when I found myself alone with about three laps to go, I did seem to back off a bit, and even thought that I might blow up completely, something that has never happened to me in a 'cross race before.

As I started my bell lap I had another rider in sight up ahead, so it was back to full throttle for one more lap. I managed to close the gap, and create a small gap of a handful of seconds, but I had to work hard all the way to the line to stay ahead.

Apart from a less-than-perfect start I had ridden hard and mistake-free all race, but I had a feeling I was further down the field than normal, especially given the large turnout. Indeed, the results revealed that I'd only placed 33rd. Somewhat disheartening when you know you couldn't have tried any harder.

2 November: Welsh Cyclocross League round 6 - Melin Mynach, Gorseinon

More mud.

After the surprise of a dry-ish round at Brecon, normal service resumed. I'd raced here once before in 2012 and had a nightmare with a bike that clogged to a standstill with mud. After heavy rain on Saturday, the race on Sunday was always going to be messy. The drive down the M4 through some torrentially heavy showers on Sunday morning just rammed the point home.

A recce of the course proved entertaining; a real mixture of surfaces and only a couple of sections that promised deep mud. It was going to be mostly wet and slippery rather than thick, clogging mud.

My usual pre-race routine is to recce the course an hour or so before the start, then change into my race kit, have something to eat and drink, and warm up on the road for 20 minutes, leaving 20 minutes for one last look at the course and last minute faffing. As I warmed up in the rain while the youth race took place on the course (and hence churned it up), it became clear that this was one of those days when a lot of the information I'd gleaned in practice was going to be irrelevant, as I'd be faced with a much wetter and muddier course than an hour ago.

I lined up in my now customary 30th or so on the grid and got a rather lacklustre start. After a short sprint, we went more or less straight into a series of slippery switchbacks, where I seemed to be continually on the wrong line. Claire called up 32nd place after the starting loop. Ho hum. I settled down though, and picked a few people off on lap one whilst trying to re-learn the best lines on the now much muddier course. A perfect example of this was a small gravel ditch at the bottom of the course. This was rideable in practice, but a bit tricky, and I'd devoted a few minutes to making sure I could nail it. However, I never rode it once in the race, as the corner immediately prior to it was so muddy it was quicker to run, and once off the bike I may as well run through the ditch before remounting.

Claire called up 28th place at the end of lap one. Slow but steady progress made then. After a few laps things went quiet and I seemed rather on my own, first time that's happened in a race for a while, and it's hard to make sure you keep going hard when you are under no pressure, particularly in tricky conditions. I tried to press on though, while staying focussed and not making any mistakes in the increasingly slippery corners. I found the limit of adhesion a couple of times as my tyres slid sideways, but I always stayed upright.

In the last couple of laps I caught one rider but also came under pressure from behind, and had a good last lap tussle with one rider, right to the line. The lap ended with a series of wide but muddy corners, then a dismount for a set of planks and a short sprint to the line. I held onto the cleanest line through the muddy corners, got to the planks first, jumped back on and managed to do just enough to cross the line ahead. At the time of writing I don't know where I came overall; the judges are probably still trying to work it out having spent the afternoon trying to read increasingly muddy numbers on peoples' backs. They had a difficult job to do today.

It's three weeks until my next race now. I'm looking forward to the break. It will give me a chance to take a week off from training, and give the bike some much needed TLC. Oh, and clean the inside of the car, which looks like someone's been mud wrestling in it.

26 October: Welsh Cyclocross League round 5. Brecon Leisure Centre

The middle round of three Sundays in a row of racing cyclocross, and the half way point in the season, for me anyway. I've settled into the rhythm now of packing the car with bikes, kit and food, and unpacking it all in a much messier state several hours later.

Brecon has a reputation from being a pretty muddy race, not helped by hosting the British Schools Cycling Association cyclocross championships the day before our race (why didn't we do cyclocross in PE when I was at school), meaning the course is well-used by Sunday. However, despite a fairly wet week the weekend was mostly dry, and I was pleasantly surprised to find the course holding up well as I rolled round in practice. I've raced here before and the course was largely unchanged: twisty sections up and down grassy banks, interspersed with a couple of flat blasts across playing fields and two sets of planks to dismount for. A classic grass roots level cyclocross course really, and a good one at that.

I was gridded on the 4th row and got a decent start. Apart from a couple of corners, the first kilometre was wide open and allowed plenty of space to move up. I held on to a place in the top 25 on the first lap - it was reassuring to still be able to see the front of the race for all of lap one and not have the leaders disappear after a few corners. I was far enough up the field to avoid any bottlenecks, but I was in the thick of it and had to fight for position and avoid a couple of the inevitable first lap crashes.

As things settled down, I found myself part of a group of four riders that gradually fell apart and reformed throughout the middle part of the race. One rider kept getting a gap in the more technical sections; two of us worked together to pull him back on the straights. There was very little rest on the course, and I was giving it 100% to stay with the group. I realised this was even more critical when a glance backwards revealed another half a dozen riders breathing down our necks.  If I backed off or made any mistakes I would fall rapidly back through the field. Gradually, our group fell apart once and for all, with me running third out of the original four. I was still working as hard as I could, desperately trying to keep in touch with the rider in front, all the while aware I was being caught from behind. The last couple of laps became a fight to defend my place. Despite riding as hard as I could whilst keeping things smooth in the increasingly slippery corners, one rider caught me. I stayed with him for a few hundred metres, but as as soon he had a gap I was powerless to respond. On the bell lap I was then being caught by another rider, and had to claw out the last of my reserves to maintain the gap I had.

I finished the race feeling completely exhausted, nauseous, and a little dizzy. But I was satisfied with my race - I'd lost the battle I'd been in mid-race, but I could not have given any more effort, and I'd managed to ride smoothly and make no big mistakes despite being on the rivet all race. I'd crept into the top 20 in 19th place.

25 October: Maindy Criterium (4th cat/veterans)

A one-off trip back onto the tarmac. Maindy Leisure Centre in Cardiff boasts an outdoor 500 metre velodrome. This was a one-off end-of-season afternoon of racing. I'd come along for some extra training, and to work for a couple of guys from AJAX who needed to grab a couple of points in order to move up from 4th to 3rd cat. My job was to try and shut down any attacks, and keep the bunch together to ensure they could pick the the points they needed in a bunch sprint.

About 25 guys started, not bad for a road race in late October I suppose. After two laps done practically at walking pace, the first attack came and it all got fast and furious. A group of three got a gap, which I did my best to claw my way across. Once things (relatively) calmed down, I realised team mate James (who needed points) had missed the move and was out the back of the now-depleted bunch. I dropped back to him and tried to help him close the gap. By the time we started to work together the gap was about a third of a lap. Over the course of the next ten laps three of us worked hard and made no impression on this whatsoever, and then watched it start to grow instead of shrink.

After this things are a bit of a blur. James agreed the best thing was to lose a lap so that he could conserve energy in the bunch. As they came round to lap us, there was another attack, which I tried, and this time failed, to close down. In doing so I fell out the back of the bunch. With a cyclocross race the next day to worry about, I cruised round cooling down for the remaining few laps of the race.

19 October: Welsh cyclocross league round 4. Carmarthen showground

Welcome to the season proper - with mud, and lots of it.

Another long trip, this time into West Wales and a showground on the outskirts of Carmarthen. We were sharing the venue with a car boot sale, which apparently had been in full swing since 6am. 6am!! Now, I know racing bicycles around muddy fields in the Welsh winter may seem a pretty eccentric way to spend your Sundays, but the fact that some people are prepared to get up at 5am on a Sunday for the chance to buy some bric a brac just proves that, well, to put it diplomatically, everyone is different...

It was a blustery day, but bright with just the odd light shower around. It soon became clear that the wind would be a bit of a factor, but the mud more so. The course was flat apart from where it snaked up and down one small section of banking. The lower lying sections were more or less under water, and the parts being used for the junior races were already getting very churned up. I don't mind it when the going is heavy, but changing every scrap of your kit and washing your bike after warm up is a bit of a drag.

The start was 200 metres or so of unmade road, and then straight into the mud. It was impossible to move up on the straight, but I was on the inside for the first few turns and managed to brake late and pass a good few riders down the inside of corners. The first lap was crazy - there were lots of tight switchbacks in the mud, and everyone was passing and repassing into them, rubbing tyres and bodies while all the while looking for the least worst line through the quagmire. Add to that a couple of riders crashing in the pack and you have a recipe for mayhem. Wonderfully fun mayhem.

It seemed like I was managing to gain more places than I was losing though. After a lap things began to settle down, and I soon got into what would be a race-long battle with two other riders, the three of us sometimes locked together, and never separated by more than a few seconds. Another thing I love about cyclocross is these battles. You try to work out where another rider is weaker or stronger than you, all the while pushing to the limit. Indeed, I learned from my fellow competitors that the muddiest section of the course, although rideable, was quicker to run, as they both passed me doing just that as I turned my pedals slowly through the mud. In the end I came second in the three way battle; one rider opened up a gap that I couldn't close on the last lap, while the third pushed me hard all the way to the line. It's good to race all the way to the end like that; it certainly keeps you motivated!

This was one of those solid but unspectacular races. Despite the race-long fight for places, I struggled to find that extra gear and really push hard at times, particularly on the faster sections of the course where I grasped an opportunity to recover from time to time. I finished 26th, which I suspect is more or less where I will end up in the championship.

5 October: Welsh cyclocross league round 3 (Foxley, Hereford)

A long drive for the 3rd round (the 2nd for me) of the Welsh league in, er, England actually, just over the border.

After a good start to the 'cross season, I signed off my last write up by noting that there would be weeks where things didn't go perfectly, and courses that didn't suit me. Well, this was both!

Another new venue to me, of which I'd heard two things: first, it's as bumpy as anything, and second, stream crossings are a major feature. Practice laps showed that this was indeed the two things you most needed to know. A long tarmac drag uphill started the lap, and from then on it was twisty woodland stuff, with two dismounts for planks, two stream crossings (the second rideable if a bit tricky, the first most definitely a run, up and down a steep bank), and relentless bumps. Practice went OK, and while I enjoyed the course, I knew it didn't suit me as well as it would some other riders.

I was still making up for missing round 1 in terms of placement on the grid, and so was left to find the best start position I could in about 30th place. I moved up a few places on the long tarmac charge at the beginning of the lap, and then the first few corners were quintessential cyclocross: jostling for position - literally, with lots of body contact. Everyone rode hard but fair, and that close proximity fighting for position is one of the things I love about this sport.

Down to the second dismount and it all started to go wrong. I've a bad habit I'm trying to kick, which is unclipping and balancing on top of the pedal on fast dismounts, as a security against not being able to unclip at the last minute. Well today I learned why that is a bad habit, particularly on a bumpy course. My foot slipped off the pedal as I swung my body round and I crashed in front of the planks. I was straight back up as riders swarmed all round me, and I got going again and tried to compose myself. I then had a weird situation of trying to run a 'systems check' of damage to bike or body, whilst simultaneously trying to settle back into the race. It soon became apparent that all was not right - my saddle was loose; I'd broken either one of the rails or the seatpin, and it was hanging on by a thread as I bounced over the bumps. I got back to the pits as quick as I could on a bike on which I was unable to pedal seated, picked up the spare bike, and got ready for a race of damage limitation.

I came out into some serious traffic, and it took me the best part of the next lap to settle down, get used to riding a different bike (my budget does not stretch to two identical cyclocross race bikes - this was my older, not very racey cyclocross bike), and begin picking the riders in front of me off. I then moved up the field steadily but unspectacularly all race, but crossed the line in 44th.

Two rounds gone, and I suspect I have had my best and worst result of my season. Time will tell. Right, I'm off to practice dismounting and remounting on the bumpiest bit of ground I can find.