Success at World Marathon Series for MTVM

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BY: Ben Thomas

Published: 11th April, 2013

World Marathon Series - Roc Laissagais - Laissac, France

 

This past weekend the Mountain Trax - Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team raced the first European round of the UCI World Marathon Series in Laissac, France.  The event took place over 85kms with 2800 metres of climbing. The European winter continued with snow and bitterly cold winds making another appearance on Saturday. No matter, the 22nd edition of the Roc Laissagais was happening and thousands of riders lined up on Sunday morning under brighter skies.

 

With the top 20 in the Elite Men's and Women's gaining automatic qualification for the World Marathon Championships the competition was high. Ben was gridded near the front on row 2 just behind the reigning World Champion, after being gridded slightly further back Tim quickly moved forward on the opening fireroad sprint to join lead groups.

 

After the recent weather the trails were sodden with water in areas, with rivers flowing down some of the descents. The team's Schwalbe Rocket Ron tyres were ideal for the conditions and kept the riders moving in the right direction.

 

Having now recovered from his February illness Tim was keen to start collecting some more results.  He had this to say about his race, "I'd had a great couple of weeks' training leading into this and so was really up for this one. After the seemingly never ending cold snap back home I was hoping for some warmth but incredibly snow greeted us on Saturday morning. It's like it is following us! On race day I felt a little sluggish warming up but as soon as the gun went off the adrenaline kicked in and I was off! Sadly my progress was slowed by a puncture after only 5km but after a quick change I was off again. My seatpost, however, was slipping constantly, which was odd as I'd had zero problems before. Maybe number 13 wasn't so lucky for me! I was making good progress though, especially on the descents. The post kept slipping though and the novelty of having to stop every couple of kilometres was starting to wear thin! At around 65km an over zealous use of the allen key finally did for my seatpost clamp and I was forced to stand for the final 20km. They say you don't know what you've got till it's gone - this is so true, I really missed my saddle! So not the result I was hoping for but a fun weekend and the form's coming.

 

Ben's race wasn't without incident but a good start put him in a fighting position. "About an hour into the race I started suffering from stomach cramps which was pretty worrying and painful at the time, I wasn't far off abandoning but after half an hour of taking it easy on the climbs I started to feel much better. This little recovery spell left me feeling fresh later on in the race as others faded so during the closing couple of hours I moved up a fair few places. The Scott Spark 29er was great fun to ride on the awesome descents and really helped with traction on the steep slippery loose rocky climbs. I wasn't too sure where I was but knew I couldn't be far off a good result when the German National Champion only just caught me with 2 miles to go. I'm super happy with 17th place, the hard work this winter is starting to pay off."

 

Ben's top 20 finish earned him automatic qualification for Great Britain's World Marathon Championships team.  This will be the second consecutive year Ben has had the chance to represented his country. Tim's selection for Worlds now belongs to British Cycling's selection panel to decide, there are several more months before their decision is made and therefore plenty more opportunities to impress. This year World Champs takes place in Austria at the end of June.

 

The team flew home from Toulouse on Sunday evening and after a couple of days' rest will be back in training ahead of next weekend's Southern XC Series Round 1 in Hampshire.