Gorrick Spring Series Round 4 - Frith Hill

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BY: Louise Robinson

Published: 2nd April, 2012

Glorious sunshine, a cool 14 degrees, dry and dusty trails… could it have been a better day to ride bikes?

The only downside to all this sunshine is the slight nagging doubt that we may be burning all our matches a little bit early. You know, the philosophy that says we will only get so many days of sunshine a year and if you get them all in before May it is going to be a pretty crap summer (again!).  Oh well, nothing we can do about it, just get out and enjoy it.

And enjoy it we did.

Round 4 saw another fun single-track course with the obligatory tricky bits, short steep climbs and mulchy, energy sappy flat new bits that seem to have become Gorrick's stock and trade as of late.  As the course pretty much runs through my back yard (well it is quicker to ride to the venue than drive) I headed out Saturday afternoon for a sneaky peak at the freshly marked course.  It was dire! Lots of newly cut heathland which didn't flow and just sapped your strength.  It left me most disheartened. However by 1pm on Sunday, when I rode my practice lap, I was amazed. The newly cut mulch had cut down to firmer ground underneath and the bomb holes, switch backs and tyre ruts had been worn into some semblance of a racing line. I am not sure at which point the race course improved (or indeed at which point it headed into decline as by my fourth lap the firm ground was definitely starting to be replaced with knee deep dust) but hats off to all the early birds who did the hard work.

So how did my race go? Well pretty good really. We headed over early with the kids in tow to watch fellow club riders in the masters, vets and fun races. A special mention is deserved by Kathy Beresford who made her return to racing debut today after a near catastrophic crash in the warm up lap at the Southern XC at Perham Down  last year won her a free ride in a helicopter, enough metal  in her hip to drive airport security into a frenzy and nine months rehabilitation.  Kathy took a respectable 2nd in the ladies masters behind Emily Iredale who knocked out two cracking laps and looks set to take the series.

 

 

Kathy Beresford (Mountain Trax) 

 

As usual the ladies entries for sport and expert were pretty thin on the ground (two and two respectively) and, because of all the dust kicked up by the men's sport race, the organisers held us back a minute or two to let the dust settle so it turned out to be a pretty lonely race. Four laps was hard work but I was pleased to produce fairly consistent laps without quite as much "dying" on the last lap as I expected.  Given there is only about 120m climbing per lap, practically flat compared to many XC courses, Gorrick still managed to sneak in the odd killer climb. Short yes, steep  fairly, traction…NO. But with short climbs come short descents with very little recovery time and add in mulchy heathland and tight hairpin single-track and you just know you are going to work hard.

Kids deposited with Grandparents - lets race bikes!

But a good time was had by all and this was my second first place in the series so far - although due to a slight administrative error with the race numbers (my dutiful hubby picked up the wrong number for me) I am currently masquerading in the results as Ruby Baker (sorry Ruby and hope everything is OK with you as we didn't see you today). Anyway, Timelaps are on the case in sorting it out (thank-you boys and sorry again) so no damage down to the series points. The last race of the series is only 3 weeks away  and any course on Porridge Pot Hill WILL involve some serious climbing…oh can't wait!

Lou
XCracer.com

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