Saturday was the final round of the Supercross Cup held in Tymon Park, Tallaght. Rain the day before left the grassy park extremely greasy and with a more technical course than last week it was set to be an interesting race. It was good to see a few more girls out this week in a 75 strong starting line up out for 9 laps of the course.
leaders show how it should be done
We set off at a blistering pace and with so many riders close together it wasn’t long before the first pile up as someone fell jumping over the first set of nastily high boards. After some early fighting for positions, things strung out fairly quickly and I settled into a rhythm with a combination of burning legs on the flats and concentration to wrestle the bike through muddy sections. Although I knew more what to expect pace wise after last week, it felt no easier, my legs were a bit tired from the weeks training and I had to force them to work.
...and how not to do it!
The course swooped up and down a steep bank several times, and with sharp corners at the bottom of each descent and only tape separating riders going up and down, it was a sure spot for some crash action. It felt stupid to ride so slow on the corners but it seemed the only way to avoid coming off. Next was a nice bit of mtb style wet rooty singletrack through the woods, which got extremely sketchy on 30mm tyres.
For most of the race I could see Fran Mehan not far behind me each time the course looped around on itself, so I had to stay on my toes. After the last race I felt I didn’t push myself hard enough on the corners, and I ought to test the limits a bit more to avoid losing time on them. This, combined with the slippery conditions, meant I ended up on the floor a couple of times after hitting corners or off camber sections with too much speed. I wasn’t the only one, I think the poor marshals spent all day re-taping sections that people had hurtled through accidently! When you get the balance right though it’s great fun, two wheel drifts through the mud at high speed with minimal control over the bike.
Towards the end conditions seemed to get greasier, and on lap 8 as I came down the grassy bank the bike suddenly went from under me and I wiped out completely, slamming into the ground and sliding down the hill. It took me ages to figure out how to untangle my bike from the barrier and course tape before I could get back into it. At that stage I couldn’t see Fran behind anymore, and having already been lapped by Robin, I lost my mojo a bit and wasn’t fully in racing mode. The last lap I took a more conservative approach to the slippery parts and instead tried to use my efforts to go fast on the flatter sections.
I won the women’s race and finished 34th overall (results here). Could have done better, should have at least improved on last week, but looking at the results it was mostly due to crashing/slacking on the last couple of laps! Again another great days racing and a big thanks in order to everyone involved in organising and supporting. This video strapped to Robin’s bike gives a good taste of the race.
It’s great to have so much variety with training at the moment, I change my mind daily about which kind of biking is best – cross was yesterdays thing, today its mountain bikes…!