I had a few goals for the Bontrager twentfour12, one of them being to enjoy the Newnham course which I had never rode before, introduce the family to endurance racing and ride my socks off to keep a guy called Rob Smith in check.
Don’t ask me why, but I chose him as a target because his name popped up in a few races I have been in and he seems to be going well. It also turns out he blog’s for XC racer and his blog is worth a read see it at http://www.xcracer.com/viewblogpost.php?blog_id=202. It sounds like he had a similar race to me in the fact that we went a bit fast too soon and paid the price. The difference was that he did not have Shergies words of encouragement of “get up, get back on your bike everyone will be feeling as shit as you, if it was easy then everyone would do it!” At the time I thought it was a tad harsh but looking back it worked!
After my wobble four to five hours in I started to regain some momentum, then like an idiot I pushed again because I felt better. This saw me overtake a guy called Dean Pointer who I had been talking to at the start. I gapped him for two laps and then come lighting up time I blew again! He eventually ended up 7th, Rob 8th and another guy Seb Herrod in 9th. He put a 1hr lap in at the end so he must have passed me then I think. We all did 11 laps and in my conversation with Dean at the start he said we would do well to top ten this race, so I guess we did well. Talking to Rob on the way round the track it also turns out he is a similar age to me so I guess we will have many more duels as veterans.
I really enjoyed the event, the course the company and my family being witness to the madness that is endurance racing……………………………………………
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