Well, having hardly ridden my bike since Round 1, and just getting back from a weeks holiday in Italy, where much pizza, pasta and gelato were eaten, and much wine and Aperol Spritz were drank, I lined up with fellow Belgians Crossjunkie, Dave, Mark and Nick, feeling less than on tip top form. This worrying lack of form manifested itself in a 55min hellish wheeze around the rather heavy going in places course. However, I did have a good tussle with a rider throughout the race, and finally came in in 76th place.
Round 4 – Duncombe Park
Four days later and Belgians Ben, Nick, Rich, and I are back at it again – this time at Duncombe Park, Helmsley. The course was marked out on a shallowly sloping area of country parkland, and split into two distinct sections, linked by longish slogs across grass in one direction, and a concrete road in the other. The first section was the more interesting, as it wound its way through a small area of woodland, and included 3No. log jumps. The second section simply comprised a series of turns, in and out of each other, on grass land. Again, I had a good race with the people around me and came 63rd. This success, I thought, merited the large bottle of Belgian beer I had stowed in the boot of the car. The beer was shared out amongst the Belgians and made a fitting 
end to a great day.
Yep, good day all round and my first taster of summer cross racing. The only problem was being beaten by a pair on a tandem!!
ReplyDeleteOh well - still a good day out. Besides those two on the tandem were fair old motoring
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