Spalding Cyclocross

After last weeks Lantern Rouge (last place) performance, it was time to make a trip to Spalding and have another crack at the crazy world of Lincolnshire Cyclocross.

This weeks course was a school field and to be fair, suited me down to the ground. There was little of the wooded ups and downs of last week and plenty of fast flat sections on grass that suit a tester down to the ground.  Of the technical parts of the course, there was a tight turn and bump which I decided to run through, a ditch, which I decided to run through and a long jump pit which I managed to negotiate twice on the warm up laps.

Ready to race I lined up at the very back of the peleton and waited for the race to get under
way. Once the stampede started, I clipped in, flicked it into the big ring, and just went for it. The aim was to get as high up from the back of the field as possible - and this seemed to work. Once settled in, I found myself moving up the field gradually which was unheard of just last week !

Again, it was hard hard work all the time and full concentration for the whole hour. I messed up getting on the bike again and again but didn't fall off once. Bottled the sandpit though and ran through that after nearly coming to grief on the first lap !  My running the lump and ditch strategy worked really well though and overall my finish must have been 30 or 40 places better than last week - I was made up when I finished and had had a much better cross experience !

It will be a few weeks now before I can get to another event which is a shame, but my outlook about cross is a lot brighter after today !