XC Racer Blog Post

Back on Track Rd 1

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BY: phil Morris

Published: 12th April, 2012


Round 1 of the back on track XC series returned to Storridge the home of Tracy and Ed Moseley. I did this event last year and really enjoyed it. The course was fairly short but one of the most enjoyable of the season, with some great flowing single track.

The night before the event I decided to do the ELBNO marathon which is on my doorstep. And after a cracking night ride and coming home in second place behind Nick Craig and just ahead of Sion O'Boyle. Getting home at eleven o clock perhaps was not the best prep for the race, but the plan was to see what I felt like in the morning!!

So on route to the event I wasn't sure if this was such a good idea after all, but even if the legs decided not to play, I knew having ridden the area before I would have an enjoyable ride!

On the morning of the race we watched the start of the CRC spring marathon, which put us a bit behind as the children's race started at 1230 and we arrived at the race at about 1210. So I quickly got Hali-Rae signed on and to the start line with Mummy to help her race in the under 10's. Off they went and she did Dad proud managing to ride nearly everything! Well done Hali-Rae, especially as she was not 100% on route to Storridge!! Only one thing to mention, on finishing she had a crème egg for her efforts (Think this should also be introduced to the senior races!).

Next up it was my turn. I went out for a practise at about 1300 and the course was great, similar to  last year with the same mix of single-track and short sharp climbs! One of the major plus points to the course is how spectator friendly it is with the riders coming into view at least 4/5 times on a lap!

It was soon 2 and time to start, I lined up next to Ed Moseley, Mark Davies and Christian Aucote, the elite and expert all went together. And then the other categories all followed behind us. I felt a bit like last year in the masters been up against Ed again. I did have a plan for the race and it was to get ahead of Ed and try and slow him down on the descents, because I knew how fast he would be on his home turf.
Off the start I got in to the lead and for the first lap tried to push a good pace hoping to try and get a small gap. This wasn't to be the case as coming into the start for lap 2 Ed and Mark were still right on my tail. With a poor choice of line Ed managed to get past, before we hit the single-track and i put in a big effort to get back past, which I managed so I was hoping to repeat lap 1. Unfortunately Ed had other ideas and he managed to nip past and I remember thinking oh bugger that blown it as we headed down! As I thought Ed left me for dust and quickly got a gap. I did now have a small gap back to Mark. I did try to limit the damage Ed was doing on the descents but this was getting quite scary as I was very close to losing it on a number of occasions. I decided to try and push on and hopefully Ed would slow a bit. The rest of the race was fairly uneventful with Ed slowly gaining time on me on each lap. On the last lap I knew that nothing short of a major problem for Ed I was racing for second.

  
I did finish 2nd which I was pleased with as I knew that I would be up against it on Ed's home ground. I was pleasantly surprised with how good my legs felt after the race the night before which was good.

Once a again a great little event which hopefully will grow, Rd 2 is at Top Barn on the 29/04/12 so get yourselves there as I would highly recommend this event for a race for the entire family.

Thanks to all the organisers for a very friendly enjoyable atmosphere and great race course!

Thanks to my supporters Donna, Hali-Rae and Ryley.

Pictures thanks to Mark Evans

Finally thanks to my sponsors
Xcracer.com
Accelerade
MT zoom
Exposure lights





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phil Morris

Fireman, dad, racer and team stalwart...

www.xcracer.com

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