Bank holiday weekend and another mammoth trip south for some epic racing in Wales! Kerry and I got up in the wee early hours of Friday morning and headed to Cardiff for the big Welsh weekend of racing! The journey down wasn’t so bad, a little slow at the hot spots of Manchester and Birmingham but otherwise it was a relatively good trip. That is mostly due to the fact that we now have a sat nav, so our days of wondering around aimlessly are distant memories at the back of our minds. . . . . . . . .well almost normally we have at least a few recalculating episodes. It has however brought new challenges to the table, it always predicts time of arrival so a currently favourite game at the moment is beat the sat nav – not that I’m competitive or anything :)
Saturday was the XC event and boy was the weather horrible it just poured with rain the whole time! It’s funny because like most when I look out the window in the morning and see horizontal rain coming towards me my initial thought is to jump straight back into bed, but this Saturday I was glad I didn’t. Margam park hosted the racing this weekend and a new track had been cut for the race, mixed with the rain it turned into two and a bit hours of cracking fun! The climbs were not for the faint hearted and the descents ha ha they were just amazing. There were loads of off camber sections where the bike was just drifting the whole way down, other parts of the course turned into massive mud slides where it was a case of get off the brakes and go for it, I had a rather impressive power slide on the go at one point. I finished 9th in the race and was stoked with the result. Rossara Joseph took the win, with Lee Craigie 2nd and Cait Elliot taking 3rd slot!
Lewis Kirkwood continued his impressive form in the juniors finishing 5th, nice work!
Normally the day after a race is a relatively chilled out affair but that was not the case this weekend as on Sunday the marathon events were taking place. I entered the 75km race which consisted of 3 25km loops. I was a bit apprehensive that such a big loop would lead to a rather boring course, but once again I was more than impressive with Margam. The first 5km of the course was a rather brutal climb that was followed but some really tasty climbs and descents. A big thumbs up to the course designers, its one of the best enduro courses I have ever ridden. I really enjoyed the event on Sunday and even though my legs felt a little tired at first it didn’t take long for them to warm up. I managed to win the marathon – yee ha!
Kerry and I stayed with some family friends this weekend – Rob and Ann. They showed us how hospitality was done Welsh styleee and we truly had a fantastic time. Big thanks to you both and all your family, it was so nice to meet everyone. Hope to see you all soon.
Kerry was a star once more having to deal with the pouring rain on sat and like normal not being bothered at all by it.
Cracking weekend, I defiantly want to see more of Wales and what it has to offer mountain biking wise!
Yee ha
Les
