XC Racer Blog Post

Fully Sussed SW Series Final! August 5th

Share on Facebook  Share on Twitter

BY: Oliver Herdsman

Published: 12th August, 2012


The fifth and final round of the Fully Sussed South West Series was held at Idless Woods, near Truro which meant a painfully early 0430 start  and a 3+ hour drive due west.  I arrived, quite uncharacteristically, in fairly good time at 0815, registered and then got out on the bike for a practice lap.  There had been intermittent heavy showers on the journey down but now the sun was out and the air was warming.  

For a change I made it to the start on time and lined up among  the the Elite/Expert/Sport crowd ready for the whistle - when the whistle came I was still messing around with the GoPro or Garmin and so didn't get the start I wanted.  Little mistakes like this drive me crazy when I think about them later and really reflect my inexperience - at least I won't make the same mistake again, hopefully.  Right away we were into a short sharp climb and I was able to retake a couple of places I lost due to my short attention span, though it quickly became evident that I had chosen unwisely with regards to tyres.  Though the weather had come good, all the rain of the day before meant that there was a lot of mud anywhere that had tree cover and with the big (2.2) Maxxis Ikons that I love so much on the bike I have very little mud clearance, virtually none on the front.  Things were getting sticky pretty quickly.  Mud just wasn't being shed at all and my front wheel was slipping out all over the place, silly me.  The Fully Sussed team weren't lying when they said there was going to be a lot of climbing in the lap - all the climbs were manageable and none were long enough to be considered a grind but when you added them all together they made for tired legs and a sweaty brow.  

 
Sweating it up a climb. Photo by Snapper Chick

Honestly, I find it very difficult to recount the twists and turns and the details of a lap following a race - I can remember how I felt and what I was thinking but that's about as far as it goes.  For that reason I thought it a good idea to film the lap to help jog my memory.  Unfortunately my GoPro has an annoying habit of turning itself off at will and so the resulting video was a lot shorter than I had hoped.  I'll still have a go at editing it into something worthwhile so you can have a taste of what it was like.

Back to the race and it was going okay, I came in at the end of the first lap feeling good but way back in what I heard as 7th.  I started to push a little harder and I was beginning to gain some confidence (I hadn't been off road in over a month so had forgotten how to ride a MTB) so I could take the many fun descents with a little more speed than in the 1st lap. The subsequent lap saw me move up to sixth as we continued to battle with the mud and strangely the heat (my car read 22.5 degrees when I got back to it after).  I was feeling alright up until the tail end of the penultimate lap when, quite unusually, I got a bit of cramp in my right hamstring.  I managed to ease it out with a bit of spinning and standing up the climbs and I came through for the last lap having gained another place.  As often is the case, the last lap is the one I enjoy the most and despite getting a massive gob of mud right in my eye, this time was no exception.  I charged every climb as much as I could and got all the speed I could out of the descents and in the end finished in 4th place, just of the podium I have been chasing all the series long.  

 
Photo by Snapper Chick

Fourth in the final round left me in second place for the series which I was pretty happy with!  My target for next year is to get into the top three for every race and perhaps win the series - why not.

A massive thank you to the fully Sussed team, the series has been great and I'm already looking forward to next year.  Thank you to all the marshals, I must marshal a round next year.

Video to follow once I work out how to use a simple video editing program...

Oliver Herdsman

xcracer.com
Mt Zoom
Acellerade





Blogger Info:


Oliver
 

Oliver Herdsman

Read More By Oliver
Disclaimer:

This blog post was written by a third party and their views do not necessarily reflect the views of XCRacer.com

Advertise your business/event here »