XC Racer Blog Post

Southern XC (or was it CX) at Pippingford

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BY: Louise Robinson

Published: 15th April, 2012


Lance Armstrong famously said it's not about the bike. That kind of summed it up today, it was all about the SHOES!!


But before we get into the tale of woe that was my race, I probably should line up all my excuses.
A tumble on Thursday night while out riding with the lads did for my right arm. I (probably) was a little too gung ho on a new seesaw that, in hindsight, was weighted for a 90kg man on an extra large 29er rather than a 54kg lady on a lightweight carbon whippet. To cut a long story short, my complete inadequacy in the track stand department combined with the fact the seesaw did not tip until my weight was right at the end resulted in a fall from a significant height, quite a neat forward roll and a very bruised arm.


The race prep wasn't all bad though as I had fitted my new lightweight bars. Ant in the XCRacer shop had obviously heard of my prowess in spatial awareness (I am one of those girls who rides though a tight gap between trees by shutting my eyes and breathing in) and decided a narrow set of bars were in order. At 85g the MT Zoom carbon bars are significantly lighter than my previous bars so, although it's going to make the seesaw even harder, I should by rights have veritably floated over the race course today. Hmmm, I wish!


Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but carbon fibre is a close second.


The Southern XC race series start all the ladies races at the same time. This is such a good idea as  a)we all get to have a good gossip on the start line and b)even if each category is a bit light on entrants, by the time all the ladies are riding together you get a good number of people to race against, even if we are not all in the same category.
Pippingford is a venue with a massive potential to be a really fast, fun, technical course. However it is clay and inevitably gets a bit slippy in the wet. It rained every day last week. But the last time I rode here was at SingleSpeed UK so this time without having to stop every lap and down half a pint of bitter, and with an extra 19 gears to choose from it really shouldn't have been so bad.


I lined up on the second line of the grid with the other experts (I may be banned from riding this category next time if anyone had actually seen how badly I rode today!) behind the elite girls. From the gun, Rachel Fenton and Natasha Barry stomped away. I slotted comfortably behind Emma Bradley and bided my time in the slippy singletrack. I took advantage of a less than ideal line by Emma and Natasha and slipped ahead of them with Rachel getting smaller and smaller in the distance. It was all going pretty well, then I completely lost the ability to ride a bike! We entered the quarry section and I judiciously opted for the B line and promptly fell off in the slippery clay. Natasha hopped round me and so I decided to follow her down the A line of the next decent. Slip, off I came again and Emma and Fay Cripps came past. Now I was getting pissed off. I got back on and took the B line for the 3rd decent and ended up face down in the mud! I did manage to hop back on but soon realised I had left my chain behind. Struggling to breath and pumped full of adrenaline I just couldn't replace the chain. What seemed Iike about an hour later I fixed the problem but not before most of the ladies had passed me. To add insult to injury as I attempted to steam off and make up some lost ground my cleats where obviously so full of mud that as I skidded round the next corner and (tried) to put my foot out nothing happened and I just fell over, hitting an inconveniently placed tree stump with my shin. By now I had pretty much lost all enthusiasm for mountain biking and started contemplating taking up cake decorating. I carried on however and slowly managed to regain my lost places. In fact it was so slippery that race positions were being exchanged faster than Moshy Monsters in a primary school playground. 





Laps 2 and 3 became about staying upright. By my last lap I had worked out that the quarry section was quicker for me to run from start to finish (thanks to Leona Kadir for showing us the CX way) . This is where the shoes came in and studded soles were a massive advantage.  My shins hurt like hell, but at least this meant I stopped thinking about my previously bruised arm. Every inch of the course seemed hard work. Even the downhills were an effort as you could not lose concentration for a second.  My small chain ring saw some serious action today and with all the wheel spinning that went on I think I probably peddled a good mile or so extra to the distance I actually covered. Hats off to the elite girls who completed four laps, three was defiantly enough for me today. First expert lady back but fourth lady to cross the line after three laps was a bit disappointing. Maybe Rocket Ron's were an overly optimistic tyre choice; maybe I just need to get better at riding in clay. All I know is that I will be wearing long trousers for the next week or so.




Lou Robinson

XCracer.com

Four4th Lights

MT Zoom





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Louise Robinson

Mum, Pharmacist and XCracer Team Rider

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