24th
May
2011

The Dalby World Cup weekend started with the Pro Sprint Eliminator; a 4X style race around the town of Pickering. Before the heats, riders had to qualify in an individual TT with half the field going through. I made the first heat, to be pitted against fastest qualifier and eventual second place Thomas Litscher along with last years winner Moritz Milatz. I started strong and up to the mid-way point was second and through to the next round. Moritz then flexed his muscle and pulled past me leaving me in third. Still, a good evening of racing to open the legs and with a great crowd, left me walking away with a smile on my face.

Saturday morning I headed up to the course to get some laps in. First lap went well but on the second lap I burped my tyre on one of the roots which litter the most technical decent, Medusa’s Drop, causing me to hit the deck hard. I brushed myself off, finished the lap and did a spin on the road without feeling any ill effects, other than finding Ross Adam’s ‘spin’ pace a little uncomfortable! My legs felt decidedly tired for what ever reason but I took it as a good sign as is so often the case. Later in the day as my body went into recover mode, the damage from my crash became more apparent as my left side stiffened up and ribs became tight. I had obviously hit my chest harder than I thought and bruised my intercostals, never a pleasant thing to do especially before a lung bursting effort.

Warming up on Sunday I forgot all about my injury and got some good efforts in. As the gun went and the sprint started I didn’t feel all there, but moved up slightly. For the rest of the race I suffered trying to get what I could out of my legs but never really moving anywhere. When your not feeling your best and not getting the result you want the suffering is ten times harder than when your on form. A good philosophy Trevor picked up recently sums it up well ‘its not all about winning on good legs but what you can do on bad legs’. Off days are part of every sport and especially hard to hide from in XC (even more so at a WC where everyone is watching, although the support is great), but you have to make the most of it or else loosing your head becomes habit. I finished 115th, what can be classed as my best World Cup (all be it in the new U23 less field) and beating my number board (133).

A few days nice and easy to let my chest and legs come back then a some local races building towards the National at Wasing in a few weeks.

John.