British NPS R5 - Hadleigh Farm - Expert Win & Series Title :)

Last Sunday I got the chance to race at Hadleigh farm the olympic venue where Jaraslov pipped Nino Shurter to take the Olympic Gold Medal. I went up to Essex on Saturday to feed for my Dad in the Open race and to have a sneaky few laps of the Course in preperation for Sundays race. The course was quite technical in places with line choice being crucial to carrying speed and staying on the bike, I took all A lines apart from Triple trouble. I had been told it was easily rideable but I didnt fancy hitting the deck and ruining a race for a couple of seconds. Onto my Dad's first National event at the most technical venue of the Series. He was riding the Open race as he was going away Saturday evening for a weeks holiday. The Open race is usually 3 laps but hadleigh is a reasonably short course at 5km so they had an extra lap doing 4 now. I missed the start of the race as I was just finishing my 2nd practice lap so went back to the Car and got myself sorted to feed him after the first lap where he was sitting in 8th position just behind Stuart Selwood. Dad continued to ride hard with a faster 2nd lap than the 1st but this took its toll later on in the race. He lost 1 position on the last lap but a brilliant result finishing 10th position in his first ever National event on proabably not the ideal course for his riding style. Hope to see my old man race some more National events. I travelled back home after his race and got a good nights sleep ahead of my race tomorrow, I travelled back up to Hadleigh with Steve Jones early Sunday morning to get another lap or 2 in so I could really nail my lines come race time!

Sunday morning came and the weather was a little undecided wether to rain or stay dry and luckily it opted for what we all wanted SUN!. Me and Steve went out on a practice lap when the course opened at gone 10am, I knew what lines I needed to take after yesterdays pre riding but made a silly error looking back to see where Steve and that was and the front tyre slid out going into one of the rock gardens. The bike bounced around 10 foot and I came away with grazed right elbow & shoulder but luckily the bike had no damage at all. This didnt put my head in the right place before one of the most important races of the Season but I remained calm and tried not to let it effect my race. The Expert Race was scheduled to kick off at 12.45pm but started a little late at 12.57, we had 6 laps of a demanding 5km olympic course ahead. The start was steady with Dexter Hurlock leading the charge with myself on his wheel just before the ramp up before we hit the first little rock garden where I took the lead and never looked back!. The next obstacle was the leap of faith which I didnt find to challenging compared to some of the technical aspects out on course. I put in a pretty fast first lap with a nice gap then settled into a good rhythm which I maintained for most of the race but with 1 chain drop and a burped front tyre on lap 6 the results may differ from that, with all other lap times very similiar to the top 10 Elites. I won the Expert race by a clear comfortable margin of over 7 minutes even with losing the chain once and loss of air and having to stop and gass the front tyre on lap 6. This win Secured the National Series with Maximum Points Scored as they take your 4 best results out of 5 and I won the 4 Rounds I did. This also bumped me up 1 position in the National rankings so am currently nationally ranked as the 1st Expert male rider :). This year has been a real learning curve for myself at only 18years of age and 1st year doing National events apposed to just Southern's & Gorricks. I have learnt alot this year and have progressed way more than I thought was possible in a year but it shows that hard work pays of in the end. Next year will be a whole different ball game than this year with me being a big fish in a small pond but next year ill be a small fish in a big pond and trying to mix it up with the best Uk Xc riders out there. In my opinion I have definately made the right decision with regards to the category I rode this year as I am still young and learning. If I would have gone straight into Elite from a Junior last year having only done 1 National event it would have been way to bigger jump from 3 laps to 5 on a Standard course. This year I taken racing alot more seriously than an in previous years and all the little things do add up to a big difference and this came around by picking up some higer profile sponsors ie Aw Cycles & Strada wheels.

Results from Sunday are avaliable via the link - http://timelaps.co.uk/assets/uploads/EVENTREPORT.aspx?eventid=261HadleighFarm18/08/2013#Expert Male

A big Thanks to my Main Sponsor for all the support, loan of the Bike, Kit, High 5 Nutriton, team van and Much more!.

Also a big thank you to Strada Handbuilt wheels for various sets of wheels but mainly there carbon 29er wheels that they built up for me, these made a big difference in the way the bike handled and responded.