After missing out on racing the NZ cyclocross championships I was keen to find some alternative races to scratch my cyclocross itch. We had a holiday planned to the UK to see family following the NZ champs race, so I looked for some racing during our time there. The first two rounds of the Hope Supercross series in Bradford provided an opportunity to experience racing at a higher-level than we have in New Zealand, and as expected, to learn a lot.
The first two rounds of the Hope Supercross series were a double-header, and after a slight adjustment to accommodate the filming of a zombie movie in the original location, the races took place at Wyke in Bradford. This course was based around a purpose built road cycle circuit, and the 3km course made good use of the small area available (e.g. it was very compact with a lot of cornering!).
The course
The weather had been mostly dry in Bradford leading up to the race and when we arrived on Saturday morning we were greeted with a dry and grassy course. The course started on the tarmac with a gradual uphill and long right corner which provided a nice safe start before the first bottleneck. The course then headed off onto the grass with a few turns before a set of well-built steps to run up.
After remounting and riding down a gradual descent there were a few more turns before the main technical obstacle of the lap which was a nice pair of up-and-down chicanes on off-camber. I was embarasingly slow at these turns, which was disappointing, but probably unsurprising given that I haven’t practiced features like that since Huttcross stopped being allowed to use the stop-banks fully.
After the chicanes, the course went through the pits for the first time before continuing on more fast grassy sections. There were two more slightly technical sections on the lap, with one long out-and-back off-camber section with a switchback on the off-camber at one end, and a small off-camber rutted section.
The course was mostly dominated by high-speeds and lots of short punchy accelerations. Just before the finish straight on the tarmac were some very well-made hurdles which should have been simple to hop, but given my nervousness I didn’t feel like trying to hop so committed to running every lap.
During practice I tried to get used to the dry conditions, which were unlike anything I have raced in NZ, and attempted to get used to the new bike, new tyres and the bike I was borrowing as a pit bike. All in all, quite a bit for a short half-hour practice session and I definitely didn’t manage to get anything fully dialled in!
I settled on running my new Challenge Grifos and foolishly ran pressures that I had been running in NZ on much stiffer sidewalled tyres and slower courses (lesson 1 of n). These low pressures and supple sidewalls saw me burp air out of both the front and rear tyres during the race resulting in four bike swaps. Thankfully David and Dad handled the swaps perfectly and increased the pressures in both tyres to around 26psi.
The race
There were 42 entrants for this race, with a few pros, and a few riders over from Europe. The gridding was done based on UCI points, then other rankings, then randomly. I was lucky to get called up fairly early, gridded around the top 25. I got off to a clean start, but was very conservative and didn’t push. I felt like I had a lot to learn, and I didn’t really know what my body was going to be able to cope with.
Along the start straight I lost a few places (should have gone harder at the start: lesson 2), then bailed out of some overtaking opportunities rather than taking the places that I could have had (lesson 3: elbows out!).
The race soon strung out into one long line, and I felt physically fine holding the pace, but kept letting gaps open by not quite following the lines of the people in front: lesson 4 - trusting peoples wheels at flat out race pace requires a lot of confidence and quick reactions!
The concertina effect was also strong which meant that I was sprinting out of every corner and there was no way that I had the aerobic fitness to sustain that (lesson 5: need to be stronger aerobically). Nevertheless, once the gaps did open a bit I was still losing time in the corners just not holding the speed that the others around me seemed to be able to (lesson 6: work on high-speed dry CX cornering!).
6 lessons to be learnt from just the first half a lap!
I was getting a little frustrated in the second lap and started to rush some of the mildly technical sections which led to more mistakes, mostly clipping pedals on off-camber sections or out of corners (lesson 7: patience). These mistakes led to be crashing a few times for over the first few laps, which burped my front, then rear tyre. Thankfully uncle David had borrowed a bike from someone in his club (thank you!) and I got to practice swapping bikes.
Eventually I calmed down, and David had used his sense to up the pressures in my tyres to a more secure pressure. From about half-way on I started to feel like I was properly racing rather than just making mistakes and recovering. I started to be able to catch a few people and was pushing on right up until what I thought would be my penultimate lap. Sadly just as I was coming to the line I was pulled aside to let the leader come through to finish his race. He was about 15s behind me at that point, so I was a bit disappointed not to get to finish on the same lap and maybe make up a few more places, but that’s racing.
In the end I finished 33rd out of 42 starters, about seven and a half minutes (1 lap at my pace) down on the winner Thomas Mein. I came away quite frustrated and disappointed that I hadn’t been able to race cleanly in front of my family. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I was raring to go for the next days race to try and put into practice some of the lessons learnt in the race. Some of those lessons needed more time (getting fitter…), but I was looking forward to having another go.
Thanks
For the weekend in Bradford I was riding my new blue crux that will now be left in the UK, and a loaned bike from a member of my Scottish families cycling club (thank you!). My parents, Aunt, Uncle and cousin Jamie all came along to Bradford for the race as well, but sister Katy was sorely missed after she picked up a bug. It was wonderful to have so much family around and to be able to make a weekend out of my selfish racing schemes.
Uncle David has a lot of experience in the pits, having helped Cameron for years, and it was amazing to have his calm head and help for the weekend. Dad also did pit duties to help with bike changes (there were a few on day 1!) and did a great job. Thanks to all my family for their support and help over the weekend.
Banner photo: The Cow and Calf above Ilkley - one of my old hill-rep hills.