Bouncing Back At Whinlatter

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BY: Tom Newman

Published: 27th March, 2015

It's always a time of mixed emotions for me at the first race of the season. Excitement that I'll be able to put my training into practice again, nervousness that I haven't been training as hard as other people but mostly I just want to get out there and ride my bike hard and enjoy myself!

2014 was a varied year for me. I won a couple of regional races but I was suffering with back pain during races and ended up pulling out of the National XC at Cannock with pain I just couldn't endure for a whole race.

So, like Julien Absalon, I finally gave in the to allure of the full suspension bike ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmoKHXpFVIY ) and bought a BMC Fourstroke, albeit a slightly less bling version than Absalon's. Obviously I wasn't influenced by the fact it was the bike that won the XCO World Champs!  

So with a couple of months to go before the first XC race of 2015 I started training on my new bike. It immediately felt more confident on the descents (pretty predictable) but it also felt faster in the technical pedally stuff too, where I could stay seated and keep spinning the pedals with much less effort than a hardtail and with more traction on the back wheel in the climbs.

It's all very well training on a full suspension bike and it feeling great compared with my hardtail, but how would it fare in a race where other people would be riding to their limits on lighter bikes than me? I was about to find out. 

After an early start and a long drive up to the Lake District from Sheffield (thanks Natalia and Marcel), it was time to test both my legs and the new bike at Round 1 of the Nutcracker Altura MTB series. 

As is often the case at this time of year, I was recovering from a chest infection, so wasn't feeling on top form but I was just about recovered enough to push myself hard. The weather helped and it was bright sunshine and with only a breath of wind in the air.

A busy start on a fast fire road saw people jostling for position into the first section of singletrack and I managed to stay with the leaders. The greasy woodland descent wasn't ideal for bunched up racing on the first lap but I managed to avoid piling into anyone!

The first proper climb was a steep, long drag up a narrow track with some rocks and roots thrown in for good measure. I felt a bit over-geared here with only a 34T - 36T I had nowhere to hide and mashed my way up the climb.

The main descent used a section of the red trail backwards, which was fun, rocky and flowy, but you had to wrestle the bike around the flat hairpins that were designed to ridden up rather than down.

As I settled into the race I was in 3rd place at the end of lap 1, but I had gone a little too hard and had to take the pace down a touch. I was soon battling for 3rd and was overtaken and put back to 4th with no real answer.

The rider in 5th then shot past me on the greasy descent (great pass Hamish!), with an all out battle for 4th place then lasting for the rest of the race. We were fighting to go into every bit of singletrack before each other and it really helped both of us keep a good pace through the race. 

Eventually Hamish dropped me and I wasn’t able to respond, until the last lap where I found my legs and brought the gap back to 2 seconds on the finish line, settling for 5th in the Expert category.

Overall a great race put on by the guys and girls at Nutcracker, which was made even better by my new full suspension bike! The bike really helped me stay relaxed in the race (well as relaxed as you can be when your legs and lungs feel like they've been doused in acid!) and really helped me keep the power down in the pedally, rocky and rooty sections of trail where I would have been out of the saddle on a hardtail. The rear suspension design is fantastic and even on the climbs, you lose very little power to the dredded pedal bob. There's always a part of me that's saying 'what about those extra grams' though...

For results and event photos check out Roots and Rain - https://www.rootsandrain.com/race3351/2015-mar-22-nutcracker-altura-xc-1-whinlatter/categories/

I can't wait for the next Nutcracker, which is due to take place on the 26th April on the famous World Cup course at Dalby. See you on the start line!

Images courtesy of Lisa Metcalfe MTB Photos- https://www.facebook.com/LMetcalfeMTBphotos 

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More on the Nutcracker Altura XC Series 2015 Rd 1:

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