2004 BUSA MTB Champs, Bringewood Forest, Shropshire
CUCC had a successful weekend Bringewood near Ludlow.
With a total of 14 competitors racing for CUCC we had one of the biggest
entries in the competition. The event started with the Downhill for which
we managed two entries- not bad considering the area we come from. Sam and
Ash both put in solid rides against competition on full downhill rigs. At
the moment I can't remember their final placings, but I think that Ash was
marginally faster over the two runs.
The next day saw the XC racing. The course was based on that used for last
year's national championship but wet weather preceding the event had left
some of the singletrack unrideable. This lead to the course being shortened
so that it essentially became a monster climb on a mass of fire road and
mud, followed by a long technical decent from around the same
height as the DH course. The downhill contained many loose damp off camber
sections and proved a far greater challenge than races we've done this year
in Thetford and the gorrick series.
First up was the Sport race at 10.30. Jon Blackburn, Bart, Jon Everitt,
Ash, Howard and Chris all competed with Jon B coming out on top after a
slow start (sorry about that Jon) to finish in the top 10 overall.
Starting at 1.00pm was the men's XC championship event. After looking at
the lap times for the sport riders, the race was increased in length to 5
laps in order to bring the times closer to the 2 hr mark. Racing for
Cambridge were Jon Ellis, Joe Grundy, Steve Fancy and myself, with Joe
Steve and I all looking to get into the top 20 and get our half blues. Also
riding was Cambridge based rider Paul Newton.
The race got off to a frenetic start and never really calmed down as the
long decent gave you time to recover slightly before the pain of climbing
was resumed.
After 5 laps we had 3 riders in the top 20 with Joe in 17th, Steve in 14th
and myself in 6th. This was enough to beat the squads put out by bath and
Southampton but unfortunately not enough to win team gold as Loughborough
packed their 3 riders between 7th and 13th place. Overall, team silver was
a good return on the increased training the side of the club has been
putting in this term and certainly bodes well for the big events to come
this summer.
In the women's championship we had 3 riders following Katy's injury and
Kat's decision not to ride Bart's purple monster after seeing the course.
The race was over 3 laps and was dominated by an experienced squad put out
by Loughborough who took all three podium positions. Our riders acquitted
themselves well despite their lack of race experience with Emma coming in
6th even though she ran down most of the descents.
Andrew
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