Sherwood Pines BMS R1

Sherwood Pines the opening round of the British National Mountain bike series:

With two consecutive wins on the past two previous Midland xc rounds I was feeling good, my forme was slowly coming together and with lots of early prep work on the MTB I was feeling ready for the first National. I arrived mid-morning on the Saturday afternoon & set up the caravan, the weather was mild but slowly brightening up and looking to be a nice day.

The new Forme Winscar race bike was all set with some brand new Racing Raplhs from schwalbe on to my new Kenya CX Pro tubeless wheels.

The course was flat, with a few false flats where you could put the power down, and get  going, there was a lot of single track which meant passing would be limited so positioning would be crucial into the first piece of single-track and be a decisive part in the race, after three laps I had the course drilled in and was feeling ready for the race the next day.

Race day: with a good night sleep I was feeling ready for the race today, with a start of 12 I had plenty of time to sort everything, meaning I could take my time and not rush with anything,

On the turbo, I was getting focused I was racing for three laps so around an hour, the start was delayed slightly due to an unfortunate crash, once we started I moved quickly into the top 8 then into the top 4  and me and three other riders were away with a nice gap, I stayed at the back watching other riders, and working out my moves for the last lap, by the second lap one rider had dropped of and one was of the front with around 6 seconds,  we were slowly closing down on him when he burped his rear tyre and had to stop, so it was just the two of us away now with a nice lead  with 2km of the second lap to go I attacked into some single track where I knew I could ride it fast, and a gap appeared, on the long  start finish straight, he was slowly winding me back in, but once into the single track I kept the pace high and the gap slowly grew over the remainder of the last lap, once on the finish straight  I threw my arms in the air, taking my first ever national MTB win,

I’m mega happy with the results and feel I rode it really well; I’d like to say a massive thanks to all my sponsors for the continued support

Picture Credits go to Ray Mortlock @ www.raymortlockimages.wordpress.com