National 4X "the UK Bike Park" rounds 6&7

I went to the UK bike park last weekend for the double round of the N.P.S 4X.

It took me a while at first to get into it and find the right line for me. It was very wet with rain all through the day on Saturday and sunny but still very muddy on Sunday. The course was quite a long one.

It had a very long straight at first with many big and varied jumps. Then it was into a left 180 berm which was very hard to cut. A step down into a step up took you to a very nice right hander. It was a very wide turn with most people going round the berm to keep speed. A few more jumps took you to a hiped and slightly off-cambered corner to a left berm to the small finishing pedal.

My 4 moto's were pretty consistant on Saturday. I managed to get a couple 2nd's and a couple 3rd's. This to my surprise led me to the "A finals." The 3 other people in the final all were very fast down the first straight so I expected to be at the back going into the first berm. It was exactly this but the corners got me back up to them fast. I took the last corner wide to hit off a bank and pedal past on the inside of 3rd place. I happened to do this in a race before aswell with the same person. I was happy to see the same gap he left before to get the podium.

I felt a bit better going into the moto's this time as I knew what to expect already and it was not raining.

My 4 results went 2rd, 3nd, 3rd, 1st with a puncture in my second race. I was pretty sure this would lead me to the A-finals again... and it did. I got prepared for what was going to be my hardest race of the weekend. Depending on the result of everyone also determined who would take the series too. I got a bad gate again but I had the same plan. However, the curent series leader took a fall near the start . We all just managed to stay on ourselves and I stood in the number 3 spot.
I tried taking the inside line that saved me before but I wasnt comitted to it as I was happy with another 3rd.

I was really happy with my weekend performance and I would like to train for 4X as well to see how competive I can really be.

Here are the podiums;

thanks to DMR, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, Mojo, Mace, Nike 6, Twenty26, Funn and Geax.

Molfre N.P.S round 4

This weekend teammate “Lee Huskinson” came along with us to the race at a last minute decision. He managed to blag his way in late as he raced on his DMR ex alt hard tail in senior the weekend before to get some points. The laughter began straight away as he arrived at mine about 1am on Friday morning wanting to cook his microwavable noodles.

We left in the early morning and arrived at lunch time. The weather looked fine but the rumour was that torrential rain was coming in for the whole practise day Saturday. We walked the course first of all. The very start was different with a few more grassy corners than last year. A couple more jumps were put in and the switchback section and past the road was new. A new road gap was put in but the landing was a slight bit uphill... not really what I was expecting. After this it joined the old track to the bottom with the finish on a straight with a take-off half way. It was more of a spectator thing and many people thought it was bad as it didn’t have a landing but I liked the challenge to keep as low as you can to pedal through the finish.

After walking the course we set up camp and got the bikes out. I changed my tires to spikes for the supposedly wet practise the next day. There was nothing else to do so we went up to the 4X course to do some jumps and cornering. I watched Lee section this corner and he soon got to that stage where it doesn’t look real because of how fast he was going. I gave him a go on my bike and he went faster; looked pretty cool. It wasn’t long before we went down, had something to eat, watched a DVD and went to bed.
I woke up to rain... any racer knows it’s always so much harder to get out of bed when you can hear the rain coming down outside. Pete from Mojo gave my Fox 40's a servise so they continued there unbeatable performance.
I got 7 runs in on practise day. Seeding runs were cancelled yet again this NPS, due to bad wind conditions at the start. Practise went on until 5 with a lower starting point. I found the switchbacks the hardest part of the course as they were blind turns so it was hard to judge the speed. The course was very straight forward to do but this only made it harder to go faster than everyone else. And at the end of the day it’s a race.
There was a lot of talk about seeding will be in the morning as well as the race run. Thankfully at the riders meeting it was announced it would be a normal Sunday with practise.

I did 3 practise runs in the morning. 2 were to try a new line at the top and see how the track was and I did a practise race run down on my last run which was right at the end of practise. I felt pretty confident with my riding on Sunday and wasn’t nervous. I did a run with Lee and followed him through the switchbacks. He was rapid with only the braking bumps slowing him down a little. He would surely be on a good one if he kept it upright.

It came down to race run... I pedalled hard off the line. All was going well until the first real corner; haha. I got a drift on too much and it made me slow out of an important bit. I was on a mission and it went very well through the switchbacks. I hit one so hard I ground out. I pedalled hard along the off-camber hill with headwinds pushing me back. I hit a corner faster than I had in practise and this meant I couldn’t slow down for the next very tight corner in time. I slid out and found myself rolling about in the dirt. I got back on and pedalled like crazy to the finish. I ended up a disappointing 13th place and yet only 4 seconds off of a podium and 9 seconds off of the win. If only I stayed on for once in a national and I would be there. Still, I am going to the national 4X this weekend coming at the UK bike park. It will be a nice break from the usual and a race without any pressure for me.

the Elite podiumthe expert podiumthe elite girls podium

the Junior podium

Thanks to, DMR, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, Mojo, Mace, Nike 6, Twenty26, Funn and Geax.