A lot of things to like
I'd been looking forward to this. I love the Gorrick racing so the idea of an Enduro (outside of their normal classic) was enticing. I'd ridden these trails many years ago as it was the closest riding to my old job, so a bit of nostalgia thrown in there too. After a brisk Bontrager TwentyFour12 where we stuck in a no-mans land 5th place, I was keen to make more of a race of this, so a few trips to the track and some hill circuits on the road bike meant hopefully I was back up to speed.
As such I uncharacteristically offered my services for the first lap. There were two other contenders for this. Lea, normally the first off as he hates it so much so we make him do it, and also Frazer. Not because of his trademark fast start. This time it was because he was well and truly hungover after his wife's birthday. Not better hangover cure and I'd been stitched up the same way at the previous years Bonty after sinking a few too many with the Trek 69ers.
Still I was keen so threw the Directeur Sportif card and lined up. It was a rolling start behind a quad bike ably controlled by friend Paul Howard who had helped designed the excellent course. It was a bizarre situation that had riders suddenly caning it and then hauling on the anchors to stop themselves hugging Paul and I showed far too much gentlemanly courtesy so was right royally hustled out of position by the time the peloton went full tilt. Cue lots of hard work trying to overtake people who are already going full speed, which meant lots of time in the red! I was hoping the new skinsuit and Dark Star would help me a touch.
I could see Garth and The Ringer (Steve Webb) of Singular off in the distance and set about trying to get back in touch. The fireroads offered some great high speed road style action with mini peleton's forming and finally after a god almighty effort I latch onto the back of Steve's group of 5. Recoup a touch in the next bit of singletrack and then I took off on the next fireroad. In my mind I was thinking, "This will show them, nice and fast" but in reality after a couple of minutes solid effort I looked over and saw them all nicely just sitting on my wheel. Luckily the next bit of singletrack meant I could catch a breather but some sketchy line choices had me off. Just as I tried to get back in contact I came off again! This time the legs were fading and I found it super hard to keep them in sight. Still what a first lap and great to be back to close racing!
Pretty much the remainder of the race was spent going as fast as we could but not checking the results to help us focus on the fun and not position, until we caved in and checked half way through to see we were in 5th, 2 minutes behind 4th and a further 2 mins behind 3rd. Still, nothing we could do so opening the lovely Hophead racing beers from our latest sponsors Dark Star (www.darkstarbrewing.co.uk) we settled into a well worn furrow of fast lap followed by swift glass of Sussex's finest. Strong enough to loosen you up on the singletrack, weak enough to not throw you off.
As darkness set we kept on hammering along enjoying the lap time after time. It really does make a good race when the course is excellent but I was definitely starting to feel a little cooked towards the end and kept on making some schoolboy errors in the dark wooded singletrack, throwing myself to the ground a few times thanks to some fresh dew on the roots. The WTB Wolverine's still kept on working awesomely but think a lack of night riding was to blame. Best get that sorted for Dusk till Dawn in a few weeks time when I partnering super fast enduro rider Rob Dean. Nervous to say the least.
So we finished 4th after a last minute overhaul and set about congratulating Steve Webb who was riding an awesome race to win the solo cat by almost half an hour! Not that he realised this at the time though. He stopped at our (and his) pit area to wait to see if 2nd pace Sylvain Garde would come through and we'd be treated to a last lap decider, XC meets Dual! He could relax though and I've never seen someone sink a pint so quickly as that first celebratory Dark Star. So many good things from last weekend. Friends, drinks, bikes.
I love racing.
All images once again courtesy of the ever generous Joolze Dymond – http://www.joolzedymond.com/joolzeD/Home.html
