Round 1
Ground, dry.
Company, good.
Position, happy with.
What more can you ask for?
I've just answered the "What more can you ask for?" question by signing up for round 2
Finished in 39th place.
Round 2
I ache!
I queued at the start line for 20mins or so with Jules and Danny to try and get a good position in the pack. We all set off and almost immediately the pack came to a full stop again, unfortunately I noticed too late and ended up flying over the bars and throwing my bike in the air. Fortunately both me and the bike came away unharmed and I managed to get going again but knew I'd lost quite a lot of places
I managed to claw back quite a few places on lap one, but on the 2nd lap a slippery root in the first section of single-track caught me out causing me to ram my fork crown adjuster into my upper thigh
being the double 'ard northerner that I am )probably...) I managed to shrug off the pain and carried on.To me the traffic jams didn't seem quite so bad on this round and even in the single-track sections there seemed to be more opportunities than there were last time to pass other riders.
Beforehand I definitely felt better prepared for this round and despite the fall at the start I still managed to finish 3 places better than the last round so I'm not too bothered about it, but it'd be interesting to know how much time I lost because of it.
That fall at the start seems to have knocked my bones about a bit so I'm walking like a pensioner this morning and my thigh's a bit swollen and bruised, but all in all I enjoyed myself and it was great to see so many familiar faces and shirts about
Finished in 36th place.
Round 3
I thought that was a good challenging course. My
only grumble with it would be that there weren't enough passing
opportunities in some of the longer sections of singletrack, but that's
maybe just me not being confident/aggressive/cheeky enough.
I'm amazed how well the course had held together after last week's deluges! Tyre-wise I opted for a Nic and a Ralph, and to be honest the Nic was overkill for 90% of the course.
I had hoped to break the top 30 this time so was slightly disappointed to miss out on it by 8seconds, but I'm 8 places up from ws1 and 5 up from ws2 so can't complain too much
My excuses are;
- I didn't get to the grid early enough; I ended up battling through quite a large pack so suffered with traffic jams in the single-track for laps 1&2.
- My gears suffered from the mud, so after a couple of laps I couldn't stay in the big ring. I ended up spinning in the middle one for the last lap and a half rather than pushing in the big one which caused me to cramp pretty badly towards the end.
Many thanks once again to Blondie for bottling and to everyone else who was there for shouting encouragement/banter/etc
Finished in 31st place. I'm amazed how well the course had held together after last week's deluges! Tyre-wise I opted for a Nic and a Ralph, and to be honest the Nic was overkill for 90% of the course.
I had hoped to break the top 30 this time so was slightly disappointed to miss out on it by 8seconds, but I'm 8 places up from ws1 and 5 up from ws2 so can't complain too much
My excuses are;
- I didn't get to the grid early enough; I ended up battling through quite a large pack so suffered with traffic jams in the single-track for laps 1&2.
- My gears suffered from the mud, so after a couple of laps I couldn't stay in the big ring. I ended up spinning in the middle one for the last lap and a half rather than pushing in the big one which caused me to cramp pretty badly towards the end.
Many thanks once again to Blondie for bottling and to everyone else who was there for shouting encouragement/banter/etc
Round 4
It's fair to say I'm a wee bit chuffed with my result yesterday
For my first full Winter Series I've found it a hard competition with some very good riders out there, but I have really enjoyed it. In the previous 3 rounds I've been trying and failing to move up from the 30-somethings into the 20s, so to jump 10 places from last time to reach 21st has made me very happy
I know I'm not about to find myself on the podium or anything, but from a personal improvement point of view I'm really pleased with how it's going.
Thanks once again to the TROGettes The help and support is hugely appreciated.
Also thanks to Andy and Ady for bits and bobs of advice which I think have helped me on my way (although I suspect cursing rather than thanking someone for teaching you about "interval training" is more appropriate).
It's great to see the results from others out there too! Pats on backs all round Lewis is going be a force to be reckoned with when he reaches the 18-39s!!!
For my first full Winter Series I've found it a hard competition with some very good riders out there, but I have really enjoyed it. In the previous 3 rounds I've been trying and failing to move up from the 30-somethings into the 20s, so to jump 10 places from last time to reach 21st has made me very happy
I know I'm not about to find myself on the podium or anything, but from a personal improvement point of view I'm really pleased with how it's going.
Thanks once again to the TROGettes
The help and support is hugely appreciated.Also thanks to Andy and Ady for bits and bobs of advice which I think have helped me on my way (although I suspect cursing rather than thanking someone for teaching you about "interval training" is more appropriate).
It's great to see the results from others out there too! Pats on backs all round
Lewis is going be a force to be reckoned with when he reaches the 18-39s!!!