Shrewbury National CX Rd 6 15/1

Cardinal

Jan 15th was the last event in the national trophy Calendar for 2011/12 CX
It took place in Shrewsbury on a day that started off frosty... However after the first few races and some sunshine the event became rather muddy and extremely slippery.perfect for the youth event at 13.30 !
Disaster struck as the gruesome twosome, Theo and Cam warmed up... Theo’s hanger snapped on his No 1 bike!

A while later I waited in the pits with number 2 bike and spare wheels whilst Daniel calmed the lads nerves at the start line and collected the clothing ,bottles etc as is the normal procedure through the series.
Very soon the boys came round on their first lap... Theo got off to an outstanding start...

Cam slipping sliding and during first lap took a tumble and came into the pits for a bike change. However a few laps in Theo –saurus was on fire in what have must have been his best national CX race of the season.

Theo ended in 10th overall on the day a massive achievement, Cam came in 23rd.

From the overall national series Theo came in 19th and Cam 21st. a credible first season for CC Ashwell youth at National series.

tduckett

I dont know about credible, flippin brilliant id say. well done lads

Theo-saurus

here's my report
Cam, Luke Morgan (Welwyn wheelers) and I, all lined up for gridding at the start of the final round in the national trophy series. We had already ridden the course once but about half an hour before the start the rear mech hanger on my 57cm bike broke. I was left with one option: my dad’s 52cm bike, we quickly swapped the pedals and wheels, flipped the stem and put the seat up by about a mile. The reason why the mech hanger had broken was due to the shear amount of mud, as it came to the finish line you had to run up some stairs, run up and down a hilly corner and run across a slippery adverse camber; this became the main technical point of the race. It looked and sounded a lot easier than it was, the bank was way more than a 45 degree angle and that with the help of the mud saw many falls.
I was on the last man on the second row of the start and it was 30 seconds until the UCI man blew the whistle. Me and Cameron had a great start as we sprinted across the smooth tarmac straight, it missed out some features on the first lap but it wasn’t long before we were on to the adverse cambered bank, I managed to make up a lot of places by running low down with the bike on my shoulder. I when the course went back onto tarmac towards the woods I was about 8th. In the forest it was muddy and lumpy and I’m surprised it didn’t fall off; it was a game of going as smoothly as possible whilst whipping through the slippery mud. As the last lap bell beckoned I realised that I had let down my game and I probably should have been catching the bloke that past me a while ago, there wasn’t much difference in the wood so it was up to the last bits of mud, hill and camber... unfortunately he finished ahead but I managed my best placing of the series in 10th place, unfortunately Cameron didn’t as good a race and he came of a couple of times but he managed to recover into 23rd

Cycling Weakly

That really is a very high standard of performance - well done.

Mark F