As some of you might know both Martyn and myself (matt) live very close to Hanchurch and in the small period of time when it’s not like a bog or overgrown with brambles there is some amazing natural and man made single track some of it built by our very own Martyn (Dibley) who is the course designer for this event.
Last year was the first time there’s been an event at Hanchurch and it was met with glowing reports with the only ‘a nice to have’ was bigger climbs and descents… (The descents I can understand, but climbs… Please).
Race day and with it come my hangover, the sun and a feeling its going to be a long day… As I’m in masters I don’t start until 2 so I strolled over around 12ish to find Martyn standing in the arena with a massive grin on his face, its seems he’s built a proper technical course and some of the ‘roadie’ mountain bikers have asked for their money back due to it being to technical… The comment which kinda summed it up for me came from one of the stalls: “Courses have got to easy these days and it’s nice to see a proper mountain bike course again… I’d be too ashamed to ask for my money back if I couldn’t ride it!!!”
As I wasn’t sure of the course a couple of us went for a wonder around. (Stu the Yeti rep on a fully ridged bike). The course consisted of kick ass single track, small rock gardens, linking sections of fire road, two VERY fast decants and a stinker of a climb… A proper mountain biker’s course!!!
Start Line: And the only plan I had was ‘get into the single track first’ and take advantage of knowing some (not all) of the trails but the only flaw was a 1mile fire trail and a missive climb to get to the first section. With the sound of the gun we were off, I slipped into 3rd place and held the wheel of the guy in front until the top of the last climb and made a do or die attack for the single track just beating the 1st place rider. Like a dream I managed to open up a massive lead to the point I couldn’t see second place that was until my hangover truly kicked in along with cramp and I went backward on the start of lap 2 dropping 6 places…
Screaming friends at the side of the track were great motivation and with my second wind coming at the end of lap three I managed to claw my way back up to 4th only narrowly missing out on a podium for the race. On a bright side this was the midlands champs I didn’t go away empty handed, I picked up 2nd place with was a nice bonus.
Martyn and Christian didn’t have any better luck, Martyn broke his front mech and was stuck in big ring where as Christian had been suffering all week with the after affects of all that rain at Bristol the week before; but he still managed to finish high enough in the race to get 1st place in the Midlands Champs – Expert cat.
Next race in 3rd round on the Nationals with the National Marathon champs the next day… See you there.
June 19, 2009
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