Gorrick Autumn Series - Round 2

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BY: Louise Robinson

Published: 11th November, 2012

Q. What do you get when you mix a rotten cold and a mountain bike race?

A.  A hour and 50 minutes of wanting to die!

 

It all started badly enough. After a fabulous week holiday during the school half term, swimming with the kids and enjoying the all-inclusive bar.   I returned to wall to wall rain and about as much enthusiasm to ride my bike as my son can muster to learn his spellings.  Add to that the house alarm going off at 4.30am this morning (as it turns out because the batteries were going, but that did not stop me being rudely awakened, having the fright of my life and then lying awake in bed worried that some criminal gang was hanging around the garage trying to nick all our bikes). But I had committed to riding, so off I went.

 

This was Gorrick's 20th Anniversary event and in order to make room for a special anniversary fun race all the usual categories were re-arranged into the morning.  It was a bit of a shock to the system to be racing before 10am rather than the usual 2pm (and not to mention a logistical nightmare of getting the kids organised and farmed out to various places) but the sun was shining and the course was reportedly fairly dry considering all the rain we have had in the last week.

 

My first dilemma was what to wear.  At 9am it was about 0.5oc and the start of the race was a 15 second downhill which took the breath away and froze my fingers.  Long sleeves, leg warmers and full fingered gloves were a good choice. I have no idea how the guys ride in just shorts and short sleeved jerseys, my muscles just don't function at that temperature. Well to be fair, today my muscles didn't really seem to function at all.

 

I started in the vast ladies expert field of one, behind the sport men and just in front of the super master men. This did create a problem for the men in that they caught me up just after we entered the first section of single track but it did make a refreshing change for me to ride with other people. I usually end up riding a significant amount of my four lap race on my own, and it is a long way to go as a virtual time trial. Many thanks to the riders who passed me with care. The Mountain Trax boys and Banjo cycles lads being notable examples.

 

The course was a great example of the fabulous trails that we have in this area. Due to the rain some of the usual single track had to be removed (because it resembled a lake!) but the Gorrick team had managed to replace it with other trails and kept the fire roads to an absolute minimum. The result was a great course of un-relenting fun, with very little in the way of recovery. Crowthorn is technically a "flat" area but unfortunately no-one seemed to mention this to the Gorrick team (or my legs) about that fact. The first lap was OK; I didn't feel on top form but felt like I was going reasonably well. By lap two my nose had turned into a running tap, my legs had turned to jelly and my lungs into sponge.  All I wanted to do was stop. But that is the curse of riding for a team; you don't want to let anyone down.  Two more laps felt like an eternity. By the last lap I was practically going backwards. I have never been so glad to see a finish line (well, actually that is a lie, a certain 24 hour race at Eastnor was probably worse but I have erased that from my memory in the way the brain does with truly traumatic events).

 

So first place (and last) in a time approaching 6 weeks. Not my finest hour but an important learning experience.  The other advantage to morning racing is being done by lunch time.  Home in time to take the kids to McDonalds and spend an easy afternoon in front of the telly. Thank goodness for CBBC - oh I am a bad mummy I know!

 

Louise Robinson

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