Bog Snorkeling at Crowthorne Woods

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BY: Louise Robinson

Published: 9th February, 2014


I do like this venue. It’s fun and twisty, lots of drops, roots and bomb holes and very little in the way of climbing. So little in fact, even Al Fairburn - Singular single speeder extraordinaire, chose to ride gears (and I didn’t even realise he owned a set!).

The start of the Gorrick Spring series is traditionally well attended but this year the ladies Expert category surpassed itself with 12 riders turning out to do battle on a rather soggy race course. This was a larger field than the men’s expert race and is fabulous for locals like me who have such good quality racing on the doorstep. Gorrick regulars Iwona Szymd, Natasha Barry and Maxine Filby were there plus Mel Alexander, Maddie Horton and Ruth Owen-Evans. That’s pretty hot competition in anyone’s book.


The Start of the Expert Male race - Paddy Atkinson's first ride for his new team XCracer - Picture courtesy of Vermont Images

So I lined up feeling a little bit outclassed and downright cold as the wind howled around us. I always suffer with the cold and tend to wear more than most but just looking at Maddie with bear arms and legs made me feel chilly. She showed us all how to keep warm however, blasting off the line and hurtling up the first climb. I had a reasonable start for the first 10m but due to the large (all things are relative) number of ladies entering there was some jostling for position and I ended up at the right hand edge with a “brake or get impaled on a metal spike option”. I chose the brake option and put myself dead last by the time we hit the bottom of the start decent. Not a great start!


Mike from !st Gear Cycles found a nice dry bit for photos - for more of his shots see his Facebook page

Given the amount of rain that has fallen in the South in the last couple of months, it is a miracle that the entire venue was not underwater. So it was testimony to the hard work of the Gorrick team that they managed a drag a race course, kicking and screaming, out of ground that ultimately had ambitions on becoming a bog snorkelling venue.
Thanks to a bit of impromptu babysitting by the grandparents I was able to ride a practice lap on Saturday afternoon and, despite nearly drowning on my ride over to Crowthorne Woods from Swinley Forest, found a fun and almost entirely dry race course. Well, apart from the three stream crossing obviously. However, more heavy rain on Saturday night and 100 mtb wheels later the course took the inevitable nose dive. We saw the classic "wet race course on a dry day" phenomenon where the course gets worse before it gets better.
A bit of creative course design part way through lap 2/3 re-routed riders round some of the worst of the mud at the mid-course point but it was the penultimate climb that took the brunt of the damage. What is usually a dusty, loose, short steep climb turned into something out of Mountain Mayhem, the mud was 6 inches deep, the width of the entire trail and enough to drag every last ounce of strength from your legs.


Same spot, a couple of laps later - but overall the course held up well (Vermont Images)


So after a fairly appalling start I managed to work by way into 6th position up the first climb. After sitting in through the first section of single track I was able to move into 5th position and this is where I stayed for the remaining 4 laps. The four girls’ in front disappeared in front of me while Ruth Owen Evans hung on behind me. My specialised ground controls were great, a bit draggy on the dry fire road but fabulous in the mud and wet rooty sections. I really enjoyed the race. A world apart from the last two Brass Monkeys races which left me cold and miserable (nothing to do with the race organisation - just the weather).

Mel Alexander took the win, with Iwona just 40 seconds behind. Maxine took 3rd and Maddie (despite a poorly tummy) 4th, all within 1min 40 of 1st. Fabulous riding to all the girls but especially to Iwona who is showing the benefit of some serious winter training and is definitely up with the "big girls" now.


XCracers Ant White goes incognito with a bit of fly catching - But Mike caught him on camera, there is nowhere to hide!

In the other categories, XCracer’s youngest and newest recruit, Paddy Atkinson took 8th place in the men’s expert race. An excellent result given the fact Paddy's usual category (17-18years) would be 2-3 laps of today’s course, so the 5 lap expert race was practically an enduro for him. The rest of the expert race was dominated by the Mountain Trax Vauxhall Motors boys who stomped round to take 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Al Fairburn was turbo charged in the men’s super-vets category, taking the win over Matt Craner and our own Ant White who took 3rd. The men’s Super-Masters saw a ding dong battle between Kim Little and Steve Web, with Kim snatching victory by only 5 seconds. This must have been the closest category - just 1 min 17 seconds separated first and 5th placed riders with Four4th Lights rider Pete Moore showing a growing strength just over a minute down on the leaders.

Once again a great event by Gorrick. Thanks to all who helped, raced, bottled or just cheered us all on.
See you at the next one!

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Louise
 

Louise Robinson

Mum, Pharmacist and XCracer Team Rider

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This blog post was written by a third party and their views do not necessarily reflect the views of XCRacer.com

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