Juice Lubes Series Round 2

The Second Round of the Juice Lubes South West series, hosted by Fully Sussed, saw a return to the old favourite Newhnam Park. After a brutal but absolutely fantastic course for the first round of the series at Wheal Maid Valley, I had high hopes for the Newnham course… and it delivered!! Jay and Maddie had somehow managed to shoehorn all of the Newnham classics along with a few new bits into the 3.5 mile lap.

After snapping a chain and somehow completely annihilating my nasty X7 front mech at the last race I did (British XC Series round 2), I was determined to at least finish this one, and was hopeful of a decent result in the process. A late course pre-ride with James Davey confirmed that the rumours of a killer course were true.

For the second time at the SW Champs, I found myself gridded on the front row and fortunately managed a fairly good start. I settled into second place quite early on, and with James disappearing off with the elites almost immediately and Fully Sussed - Certini team mate Fin Clay and South Fork racing's Ed Welsh just out of sight behind me I decided to try and sit on sport rider Sam Barley's wheel. I managed this for about three quarters of a lap but couldn't quite keep the pace so decided to just try to keep it on the limit and ride as smoothly as I could! This worked for most of the race, until however, I reached the final lap. I had somehow managed a crash free ride right up until lap 5 (final lap) where I managed to crash twice! The first one involved the Bear Pit and one of those, foot out of the pedal, steep rooty descent, mud in cleat, moments. Which resulted in a trip over the handle bars to visit a rather interesting rock I had spotted on a previous lap! I promptly picked myself up and jumped back on the bike trying my best to ignore the complaints of my bruised body, and the rapidly swelling lump on my shin, only to find my saddle facing the wrong way! When I finally got going again I knew that Ed would be catching up fast so I scoffed a torq gel which gave me such a boost that I managed to reach terminal velocity on cottage return! I rode the single track through the woods quite well and forced my legs to maintain a decent pace through the field bit. I then reached the rooty steep thing on the side of the river and proceeded to topple over the side of the bank on the right, landing in stinging nettles and brambles and narrowly escaping a nice little paddle in the river (yes I know, that was a stupid place to crash but all the best riders crash on the easy bits, my personal best is the Fort William car park right at the bottom of the DH track however I am looking to improve on this in the near future). I scrambled back up the bank and struggled to get going again, but fortunately a glance over my shoulder revealed no sign of Ed just yet! Through the river crossing, which today was rather tame for Newnham and up the stupendously steep grassy hill was the next obstacle; I almost managed the grassy hill but my wheel slipped right near the top forcing me to jump off and run the last couple of meters. It was here that I noticed that Ed was just at the bottom of the hill, I knew that being so close to the finish it would be unlikely that he would catch me unless I made a mistake, so I just tried to ride a sensible pace down the last little downhill section and through the woods. Other than nearly flattening a few riders in the under 12s race with my wagon wheels, I rode the last bit of the track without incident to secure second place in the Junior category.

Well done to fellow Fully Sussed riders Fin Clay and Lucy Allen for winning the mixed pairs category of the Juice Lubes Jam yesterday! And to Lucy again for winning the South West champions Jersey today!

Big thanks to Fully Sussed and to Certini for getting my bike sorted for the race!

Harry Forshaw

Fully Sussed

Certini

Here is a link to my Strava of the race for those who are interested in such things http://app.strava.com/activities/53815482

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