XC Racer Blog Post

A (Ridiculously Delayed) Enduro 6 Report

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BY: Oliver Herdsman

Published: 23rd May, 2012


Enduro 6 - Catton Park - May 6th
 
This was only my second pair's race and my first ever mixed pairs - the first ended badly with me taken away in an ambulance on a spinal board and spending the next 6 months with chest and back pain.  This was bound to be better, realistically there was little chance of it being worse.  My team mate was fellow XCracer rider Verity Appleyard - I had only met Verity once before, very briefly at the XCracer team launch but knew she was fast and so was really looking forward to racing with her! 

I hitched a ride up to Catton Park on Saturday afternoon with Emma Bradley, a member of the Cotic/AQR race team and we met up with Verity and Emma's race partner, James and headed out for a lap and a bit of the course.  It was all a bit muddy, I was sliding all over the place and by the time we'd made it halfway through the lap I had pretty much decided I'd swap out my dry weather, hard pack friendly Maxxis Aspens for some Dirty Dans I had brought along.  After some discussion with the others I thought maybe I'd chance it, in the hope that as the trails were ridden, all the slop would be pushed out to the sides and the trails would clean up.

A lot of pasta, too much bread and a fair bit of hummus later, it was time for an early night in preparation for the 10 am race start .

Verity and I (mainly Verity) had decided I'd take the 800m run straight into two laps, then she'd take two and we'd continue like that until it was all over...I'd struck lucky and as hoped, the trail had cleared up a lot! There was still plenty of mud but it had become sticky, not slippery and it was the kind of sticky that gave you super grip in the corners but didn't cling to every part of your bike and body and weigh you down - it made for a lot of fun riding especially in a really twisting singletrack section between the trees, around halfway through the lap.

 

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