Shiny things and first race in Expert

It's been another busy few days, mainly for Rachel more than me. After househunting exploits on friday, she then headed back to Worcester to collect some shiny things from the post office for us courtesy of the nice people at Clee cycles. Cue obligatory photo of shiny things...


I was so glad to finally ditch my rather heavy, and rather unreliable superstar seatpost, which was bought in a moment of uncharacteristic carbon lust on my part, and replace it with the 140g beauty in the photo. The gold seatpost clamp added a bit of bling to my otherwise rather plain-lookinh bike, and the gold i-link cables will go on once the current XTR numbers have had the comprehensive "english summer" treatment!

New bits fitted, today was my first go at racing Expert, and i managed to pick a pretty competitive one to start with - the 4th round of the Gorrick Spring Series at Porridgepot Hill. It seemed like everyone was out fine-tuning their race form before the first NPS next weekend, and i can't pretend i wasn't rather intimidated lining up with the likes of Ade Lansley and Gareth Montgomerie. I pootled around the course with the man largely responsible for my racing addiction, Andrew Cockburn, and was rewarded with probably the best Gorrick course i've ever ridden. The only downside was, it was a bit short and lacking in places to eat/drink, and stories of 15m laps from the fast boys earlier in the day made me think i'd gone for the right option to get a decent training race in.

The start was pretty fast, i settled in behind a super-charged Nick Evans (he's always pretty good at shifting it off the line), and somehow found myself quite high up the field for the first couple of miles, and able to keep an eye on the faster experts.

Sadly, the situation didn't last, and my lack of hard session told on me as i dropped back through the field. Paying for my fast first lap, i managed to hit something in the trail on a really innocuous section of the second time around, and do a huge roly-poly into the shrubbery! Having straightened my bars, and shaken the stars circling my head in true cartoon style, i went off in pursuit of the place i lost whilst taking my close-look at the vegetation.

As the laps went by, i started to feel the crash and the high-pace of the opening lap more and more, and by the last time through the longish climb was proving hard to get up in middle ring (in spite of Nick's jibes about his "big ring" - read that how you will!!). In spite of the fact that i was the second-last person to finish, or put a more flattering way, 23rd in the expert race, i still feel like i had a good race - i felt pretty comfortable on my new bike, my descending didn't seem to suffer unduly from the hardtail experience, and the guys ahead of me provide something to aim at!
Full results are up at www.timelaps.co.uk/ if you're interested in seeing how badly i really did. Andrew C. did well to come in 10th in what was a very competitive field (if i do say so myself!). Whilst at the race, i also picked up a nice new set of tyres - thanks so much to Jenny for them, and Richard for delivering them - and sorry i didn't get to meet up with you to say thanks! Hopefully, the weather will be dry enough that they're all i need for the rest of the season (oh, i do make myself laugh sometimes!).

Next up is the Sherwood round of the NPS, the closest thing i have to offroad riding on the doorstep, hopefully i'll be a bit better prepared for that one...can't let Rachel edge ahead!!