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Hempton X
The 12th round of the Eastern CX league was held at Hempton near Fakenham. The first challenge was to get across East Anglia on a Sunday morning. I found myself behind a bunch of 60-odd mods riding scooters in a big peloton. They were struggling to maintain 40mph so much of my time for sighting laps got cannibalised by the steering wheel gnashing frustration of my painfully slow progress. Thankfully I did arrive in time to watch Adam Lightfoot and Harley Pell win the Youth and Youth/girl categories respectively. Seeing Adam ride down the finishing road section over a minute ahead of the chasing pack left me in good spirits ahead of my V50 race. Looking at the results there were plenty of strong performances from the CCA youth section.
The course really lived up to expectations and made the long drive worthwhile. Set on an undulating sandy heathland with bombholes, greasy climbs, wooded boggy sections, grassy bits and pleasingly for me a nice road section. Managed a quick sighting lap followed by a brief crisis of confidence around tyre pressures. Before I knew it we were off in a 300m dash on the road to a gap in the hedge! I ended up having another good battle with a Mark Wyer over the last 2 laps with honours even after Graffham. Great fun and support from the CCA contingent but thought the V50 race was stopped one lap too early.
Managed to catch most of the V40 with some good battles between Tim Duckett/Dave Hadsley and Richard Lawrence/Dan Hall. Dave looking super strong at the moment.
Full results can be found at the link below.
http://www.easterncross.org.uk/race16-17-12.htm
The course really lived up to expectations and made the long drive worthwhile. Set on an undulating sandy heathland with bombholes, greasy climbs, wooded boggy sections, grassy bits and pleasingly for me a nice road section. Managed a quick sighting lap followed by a brief crisis of confidence around tyre pressures. Before I knew it we were off in a 300m dash on the road to a gap in the hedge! I ended up having another good battle with a Mark Wyer over the last 2 laps with honours even after Graffham. Great fun and support from the CCA contingent but thought the V50 race was stopped one lap too early.
Managed to catch most of the V40 with some good battles between Tim Duckett/Dave Hadsley and Richard Lawrence/Dan Hall. Dave looking super strong at the moment.
Full results can be found at the link below.
http://www.easterncross.org.uk/race16-17-12.htm
Comments
A typical poor start from me (30th on grid back to about 50th by the time we hit the first corner) meant a race trying to catch up and I would agree it was a lap short which gave me less time to do that but I had a good battle with about 5 riders including Daniel D.
Jackie had a chain off so she only got 3 laps in.
The results are not up for the team yet but with the youth performance I would imagine we got top spot this time. Well done to all CCA who made the trip North. saw that Iain DNF. Not sure what happened as we had to leave early.
I enjoyed my battle with Dave but couldnt hold on to him in the woods he was much smoother than me and never showed a moments weakness. Slightly disappointed to have just missed catching the group of riders in front and getting that elusive top 30 but nevermind, no punctures and no major offs. It was good to finally get some mud although that is it now, mud all the way to the spring!
Ill see if i can post some snaps if i can wind up my clockwork broadband enough.