Shred National Trust at Wasing

The Shred National Trust team did the only sensible thing and avoided rolling into the race at 8am on race day and trying to do a bunch of practice laps. We pre-rode the track on Saturday, three fun laps on a track that was perhaps a little too flat for us but had plenty of speed to it. On Sunday morning we hid out in the hotel until 10am - troughing from the 'all you can eat' breakfast banquet and doing slightly too thorough a job of fuelling up for the race. 

We arrived on site and it was awash, word was that it was already crash central out on the circuit with the slippy Berkshire soil catching people out. Obviously 80% of people didn't think to switch (or even bring) a set of mud tyres to a summer race and so there was always going to be a lot of sliding going on. 

First rider of the day to race was myself, I absolutely love tough conditions - my fitness isn't that great but twenty years of racing kind of shows its use on days like this and for me it was a great chance to, for once, get inside the top 30 of the National Sport class field. The combination of my fully rigid carbon 29er on a single ring set up couldn't have been better for the track and my Shred National Trust skinsuit was not only a feast for the eyes of the one or two hardcore spectators but also pretty comfortable - like a shrink wrapped jelly on a bike! A quick word on laps, the race for the Sport cat was cut down to four laps for this event, normally I prefer a longer race but it worked really well. The front end of the Elite category only caught us as we went into our last couple of laps which meant less congestion on the circuit and all the slower Sport riders (i.e me) were off the track before the Elite finished. What should have been an overtaking nightmare on a short and tight track was actually completely fine. A good decision.

As the rain fell the track got even more cut up and the afternoon race for the Master and Vet was like the road to hell. The good call on laps earlier in the day was undone with a tough sentence for everyone in the afternoon. Five brutal laps that were still fast, but really tough, smashed up heaps of people, left poor wives and kids freezing in the feed zone a sense of humour failure all round. 

Brendan Murphy and Garry Pike were representing the team and despite some reasonable starts in the Vets race they both took a beating, Bren' eventually smashing himself and his bike up and pulling out and Pikey snarling his way into the twentysomethings with some bruised ribs and plenty of stories to tell in the van on the way home. 

All in all a good weekend for the team in terms of riding but not so great in terms of results - but that's mountain bike racing! 

Finally a quick good luck to Elite rider Luke Eggar who is leaving the Shred National Trust team to pastures new. We wish him all the best.