After managing to avoid it all year I finally gave in to cyclocross on Sunday and took part in the Irish national championship race in St Annes park. I raced there last year and really enjoyed the course, and after months away from the race scene I was beginning to miss it so thought it would be good to give it a go. You have to have a special bike for these things and Darragh Maloney was kind enough to lend me his brand new crossbike for the day.
I rode a couple of laps to get used to the bike before joining a chaotic bunch of 50 or so riders all trying to get into a good start position. Unfortunately there was only myself and Fran Mehan in the female race so it didn’t count as a national championships and we had to start at the back of the men’s pack. The first few minutes were mental, some very dirty tactics going on as the big bunch tried to squeeze down a very narrow track. I got cut off by people cutting the first corner and saw someone literally push a guy off the course to get into a narrow tunnel first.
Somehow in all the chaos I managed to keep my eye on Fran who was just ahead of me. The course was brilliant, faster than last year with less bits to run (suits me, my run-bike transitions weren’t the slickest!). There was loads of singletrack that was slightly muddy making it more fun, drifting corners on skinny tyres and cantilever brakes really pushes the limits of control. As riders began to string out I got onto Fran’s wheel and managed to skip ahead at one point. It was hard, I’ve done no anaerobic training since September and you really have to push all the time to keep the pace going.
For the next few laps there was only seconds between us, Fran got ahead on the second lap so for me it was a case of trying to stick to her back wheel. My front brake was really really noisy so there was no chance of sneaking up behind her! By lap four she had pulled away a bit and though I still had her in my sights, I was struggling to keep the pace going and getting a bit sloppy with getting on and off the bike. Coming into the last lap Fran came off on a slippery corner and I thought I might still have chance to catch her. I put my head down and managed to close the gap a bit, but couldn’t quite do enough to fight back. It’s all about the split seconds and there was 30 seconds between us in the end. Full results and photos are here.
After years of slagging it I really enjoyed the race, I might have to try and get my own bike for next year so that I can do more! Apart from anything it’s a great training workout and it definitely showed me a few things I need to work on before the start of the mountain bike season. Thanks very much to Darragh for loan of the bike (especially for cleaning it after!!) and to Greg May/DCU for organising a great event.
Kona? KONA???? Well I never!