2012 British Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships
Wasing, Berkshire
Race Report By Carla Haines U23
With last weeks Round 5 of the British Mountain Bike Series postponed due to waterlogged fields, it was a miracle to see the sun beaming for this race!
Last year I was the U23 National MTB Champion, so It was time to defend my title. I was very nervous for this race as I really wanted to win it and have another national title to my name. There were six riders starting, two of which were competition for me.
A similar course to Sherwood Pines; sweeping single track, short fire track power climbs and a couple of slightly technical sections, it was going to be a pretty fast race! For me Wasing wasn’t my sort of course, but there’s nothing I could have done to change that.
My race wasn’t until 14:37 in the afternoon; where the temperature was high but a nice cool breeze to ease things down. I’m used to competing in the morning so it was kind of a shock to my body that I was waiting around a lot. This made me more nervous and I couldn’t sit still for 5minutes!
As it was a hot day, a warm up was essential but not too much as I didn’t want to overheat before I started. When we were finally called for gridding I was able to switch my mind into race mode and focus on what was about to happen. A whistle start and I hit the pedals as hard as I could, sprinting out of the saddle for as long as possible. I was leading to start with all along the fire track, until we hit the climb and I slowed down. Katy Winton and Annie Simpson both passed me at this point but I hung on in there as much as I could. The gap slowly got bigger and I was starting to lose sight of them. This agitated me but didn’t want to let it override my mind and start worrying, I just focused on what I had to do to chase them down. Racing on your own is the most difficult part but as long as you do what you have to do, you forget your by yourself.
To be honest my riding was all over the place on the single track; my lines weren’t right and I just felt messy! I was still there on 3rd spot which was a podium, but I really needed to get further up. It just didn’t happen for me. It was good that the Elite Women went off a couple minutes before; I ended up catching the back end of the riders which gave me little goals to catch the next one.
So there it was a 3rd spot in the National Championships. Not what I was expecting let alone what I wanted.
I was very disappointed in myself, I felt I let myself down and a complete failure it took me a while to actually think of one positive from the race. Winning last year to 3rd this year felt painful and heart breaking. Its one race and it didn’t happen so I just have to learn from it and think about what I have to do next.
I want to thank WXC World Racing for their backing over the weekend and the sponsors who support the team. J
Next weekend (28th and 29th Aug) is the final round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series in Val D’isere. Keep an eye out on how we are doing.
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