Bringewood Midlands round 1; 2nd March

It started off looking like a wet weekend was ahead. To our pleasant surprise the wind kept the course dry through the light overnight showers. Both days though were dry and the course was kept hard packed and dry.

Just before putting my bike in the van to go to the race "Funn" had sent me new bars, stem, grips, seat and seat post for my DH bike, so I bolted these on quickly. It took a while to get the feel of the wider bars at first.

In practise I found that I was getting up to speed pretty quickly. I practised with Bill, Will, Sam and Nathan most of the day. All being fast riders and showing me a range of different attacks to sections. Bill had an interesting one... about a 3 foot hop over a tree stump; but ended up trying to go too fast too soon and flew over the bars the second time around.

After probably the longest sleep I have ever had (11hours) on Sunday I made an early start to cook some porridge and walk the course. I found a couple new lines and got them dialled in practise.

My first run; I told myself at the top... right just go down in your limits and get a time first. And I usually do. I kept it at a good pace all the way to the last road. I pedalled over the last road and back into the depths of the woods, stormed around the left hand berm, even getting a drift going on.

Unfortunately though I had the bike too laid over and saw the inside tree homing into my face and nothing else. My head was nearly taken off and I was well dazed to say the least. I got up and got on my bike. But stopped where there were some people to gather my thoughts and sort the bike out. my brake lever was facing down and my stem was out of line and the gear shifter was snapped off and in the front wheel. After a few adjustments and tucking my shifter behind my number board I cruised to the bottom, making sure I was composed enough to make some style points back on the last jump.

After my dad said, “well that’s it for today then...” I was well up for fixing myself and the bike back up to at least get an alright timed run. There was not a lot I could do about my helmet which was cracked inside and out. But with this in mind I went up again.

My second run; This time I really was going to take it easy. I literally cruised down and I was seeded on my first run so I was well down there. I caught a rider up that soon let me past. And I just took everything really easy. I got a time of 2mins and 33 secs. I was 7th now and I came 8th by the end of all the riders. Sam Dale won with a 2mins and 25 secs. So I was happy to know that I was only 8 seconds off the pace on a chilled out run.

So for a first race of the season it could have gone a lot better but it’s also comforting knowing that I have improved with the new bike at this early stage.

Well everybody likes some shots of people falling off...

Thanks to my sponsors; DMR, Fusion, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, Mojo, Funn, Mace and Nike 6.0
Check out my new website... www.molloyracing.com ... coming soon!