BMBS Round 5 Newnham Park, Plymouth

Well that's it the season is finally over and its certainly been a busy one. Last weekend was the final round of the National Series and whilst Chris headed off the Yorkshire I made the long journey down to Plymouth. I had a quick potter around the course on Friday evening and found it to be really fun, a few steep climbs, a drop, the infamous pipeline descent, two river crossings and one twisty section through the trees. Unfortunately the team I was going to be riding with pulled out of the team relay but this did at least mean I got to chat to lots of people and hang out with the Buick clan.

Saturday dawned cloudy and grey and as I made myself coffee and ate some cereal it was a bit wierd with Chris not being there. I gave my bottles to Sara Flatt and Andrew and went with Imogen to warm-up. We rode up the hill on the road a few times and then joined the massed ranks of female racers going round and round in circles in the centre of the arena. It always feels a bit wierdly ritualistic to me going round and round in circles but it does serve a purpose. It was really exciting listening to the elite women being announced to the line since, this included Gun-Rita Dahle Flesja, multiple world champion and one of the best female racers in the world.

All the usual suspects were there for the Expert race as well as a few folk we hadn't seen before and as the (very loud) gun went off we all charged off the line. We all had the plan of sitting on Emma Smith's wheel I think since she has been the strongest competitor all year. She didn't go storming off as usual but seemed to be taking it steady and I was happy to do the same. Ont eh first hill however, Maxine obviously decided this was too slow and went storming off with Jessie not far behind. I perhaps should have gone with them at this point but decided to stick with my game-plan of steady paced racing since it was going to be a long and hilly one. Some of the masters riders joined us and we managed to keep the front two within sight for most of the lap and by the end Emma had overtaken Jessie with me following closely behind.

On the second lap I took an opportunity to go past Jessie on a slightly lumpy and muddy section and then at the top of the climb before the pipeline had a dig to get past Emma. This seemed to work quite well but I could not quite get enough distance between us for it to really count and on the pipeline she used less brake than me and got ahead again. She didn't get much of a gap on me either though se we continued riding in this formation until well into lap three. At this point I was closing in on Emma again and I was pretty sure I could get past her again on the last lap.

Perhaps I was a bit excited and went for it on the cottage descent but by the time a reached the second river crossing I realised I had a rear puncture. I stopped on the other side of the river and put some air in my tyre hoping the sealant would do its job but by the time I reached the feed on the first hill it became apparent it it hadn't. I stopped and put a tube in as quickly as possible hoping I wouldn't lose too much time. After my tube disaster at the nationals I put in some serious training on how CO2 canisters work and was able to do a pretty good job this time, well after I got the tyre off! By the time I got going again I was in 4th place with 5th closing in so I put the hammer down as best I could in the hope I might just scrape a podium.

Unfortunately I never quite made it back but it was a good competitive race. In the end Maxine took the win, with Emma second and Jessie in third. In the elite race Annie Last (Halfords) outsprinted Kate Potter (Cotic Bontrager) for a well deserved win with new National Champion Sue Clarke (SIS) in third. With so many foreign racers it was great to see the British girls doing so well. Bring on 2010...