A fantastic but not-so-successful trip for me

Well I've just got back from the BUCS weekend in Dorset and we couldn't have asked for better weather, apart from at night perhaps, where on a hill with clear skies it dropped into minus numbers, but got a nice tan during the day however.

DAY 1

Went to get the van at 8.30 and didnt get it till before 9, so it was gone 10 by the time we had got to Stafford, picked Alastair and all his kit up, and got on the move. We got to the UK Bike Park at about 3pm, which wasnt too bad timing to be fair. We set up straight away for fear of it getting dark early, 

then headed out to walk the courses and we all got a little practice in.

We drove into Blandford for tea (fish & chips) then came back and went to the party tent for a while, until it got a bit too cold to bare, then we turned in.

DAY 2

After a cold and not so comfortable night we woke up strangely early at about 6am, and was out of bed and in the van with the heater on eating breakfast by half past. At about 7am we wondered out to walk the downhill course again before morning training started.

Unfortunately the vast majority of the cross country track was not marked out yet meaning we weren't able to actually do any practice laps until about 3pm on Saturday.

The afternoon saw the Downhill Championship events which for those not experienced at descending on big bikes with big suspension looks rather daunting. George was first out of our pair to go down and felt good about his time, and looked much more competent at traversing the Rock Garden than a lot of the entrants we had seen. His second lap was very a similar time, making a good consistent set of runs, and only 30 seconds off the podium time. Alastair put a slightly faster time down with around 10 seconds faster than 

George, yet still a long way off the podium where the Elite ranked riders stood.

After our guys had done their runs, Dan and I headed out onto the cross country course which was finally taped out. However it wasn't as we expected! It was in fact a bit of cross country, followed by 

a lot of technical downhill work then a massive climb up the ruined uplift track. On the first time round Dan came off pretty quickly and I didn't realise for some time after. He had come off over his handlebars and his bike had gone sideways, bending his saddle rails and brake lever. This would ultimately put him out of the race on sunday. I went for a full lap (or as close as i could get to it without crossing the bottom of the downhill course we had to go on). There were a couple of other cross country riders i had near me who i stuck with all the way round as we tried to 

figure out the best lines for all the turns; I still maintain that they dont exist and you are in fact meant to fall off for the audience's enjoyment. My leg that put me out for weeks didn't quite like the uphill part but I thought I should put up with it as long as possible.

The evening brought along probably the most entertaining part of the weekend: the FourCross race. This is Alastair's speciality and it showed believe you me. The course for this was unfortunately just a very short straight and not the full course with the bend in it so we didn't get as much as a spectacle as we'd all have hoped. The event saw quite a lot of carnage, mostly at the same jump on the course, and whilst a few bikes were written off most riders emerged unscathed. After a few practice runs (in the dark with pathetic little 

floodlights) the proper racing began in a knock out form, the top 2 of each round go through to the next. Alastair blitzed his first couple of runs and kept his form in the others. And then the final, which was a little understated as no-one knew that was actually it, but it was certainly the fastest of the races. Alastair disappeared out of the gate and took the lead quickly but on the second to last lap he was just overtaken by the local elite ranked rider (who isn't a student) Steve Atkins. This does mean though, that Alastair is the current best 4X riding student in the country, and we're proud to have him.

DAY 3

Again we found ourselves waking up relatively early and cold, so followed the same procedure as the previous day: get in van, heater on, have breakfast. Once it warmed up a little we headed out back onto the cross country course so i could show dan how to descend the tricky downhill course (which I wasn't completely competent at either, probably down to lack of a full suspension downhill bike).

 After just a few sections his mind was made up that he couldn't ride the full course with a hole 

in his leg. After a short rest I went around again and came off for about the third time, second in that place. I went round the course thinking my leg wasn't too bad, even after the long slog up the uplift track, but I was mistaken and the next slide down the downhill made me think twice about ruining my season on the road for the sake of a crazy mountain bike race, so after a gallant attempt to get back up the uplift track, I decided I'd had enough and threw in the towel for the weekend.

We're now all at home, reasonably tanned, thinking it was great fun and how perhaps we all could have done better, but an enjoyable weekend that we wont easily forget will mean the lessons learned on the tracks these days will stay with us, and for me, giving up in a race will never be an option again.......see you at my road race next week.