National XC R2

BY: phil Morris

Published: 7th May, 2013

RD 2 of the National XC series at Redruth. This was going to be my second visit to Redruth after doing the Fully Sussed race there in early april . So I knew it was going to be a cracking course very worthy of a national XC. The details of the course have been described by my wife in her blog. So I get straight to the race. As per usual the regular face's were all in attendance on the start line.

This was possibly my first race where I wasn't freezing my nuts off or getting blown away!! After a few laps of the warmup circle it was time for the gridding. I was gridded in 2^nd so get position for a good start. On the gun I got away well and knowing how important it would be to get to the single track first pushed hard to stop anyone passing. Reaching the first decent in the lead I knew that I could dictate the pace as passing on the decent would be almost impossible. After the first decent was the main climb of the day and still trying to maintain a good pace, I managed to reach the top still leading, with Jon Pugh right on my wheel and we had a small gap back to 3^rd. I managed to hold the lead down the next decent and up the climb. It was on the last climb of the lap that Jon managed to nipped past and soon had a small gap. By the end of the lap Jon was about 50yards ahead of me and then there was a gap back to 3^rd. The next lap I maintained a good pace trying not to lose too much time to Jon.

At the end of the 2^nd lap I had lost a bit more time to Jon but nothing serious, but I had increased my lead over 3^rd. The rest of the race was fairly uneventful, I continued to push as hard as I could and managed to hold Jon to a reasonable gap. Also I managed to gain on 3^rd on every lap.

All in all I was pleased with my race as I don't think I could have done much more on the day, and it was a vast improvement on the previous weeks performance at the welsh.

The course was one of the best XC courses I've ever raced, a great test of all round MTB'ing. Really hope to see this return next year. Well done to the Fully sussed team for a great event.

Thanks To Duncan Baldie for the pics

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