Last weekend I was racing the third round of the UK Gravity Enduro series in Afan, South Wales. The weather for this round couldnt really have been more different than the previous rounds windswept rain. Blue skies and bright sunshine made for dry and dusty stages which was great fun on the way down but the heat made the transitions pretty tough. The stages were really varied but in general were longer and flatter than Innerleithen and the transitions to and from S2 were very long indeed. S1 started with some trail centre turns and then went into a fresh cut loamy wiggle through the trees before crossing a fire road and heading down a very long rocky trail centre traverse which seemed to go on forever. S2 featured the recently built Blade decent and was super rough and rocky, everyone who made it down with their bike in one piece breathed a sigh of relief at the bottom. S3 began descending a trail centre climb which meant there was some very flat turns before using a flattish singletrack to connect onto a section of fresh cut switchbacks and then back onto trail centre singletrack. An uphill finish made this one of the least popular stages. S4 was a real stand out, using the same start as S1 but when it crossed the fireroad you dropped down an extended section of super steep fresh cut which made for some nervous riding. S5 featured the widest variety of terrain - starting on trail centre singletrack it then dropped down some fresh cut steep and along a jeeptrack straight with 3 high speed bus stops. A 100m pedal then put you back on natural singletrack through some trees before joining the 4X track for some jumps, berms, the rock garden and then it was into the field for grassy off-camber chicane and lastly a big finish jump. We arrived Friday and managed to do a full practice lap which was tiring but allowed us to do less riding on Saturday and have a bit more rest. This really helped with the seeding run as I knew S5 much better than the previous rounds and also had the energy to pedal my guts out. This paid off with my best seeding result so far finishing 19th. On Sunday I made it round with an incident free lap, certainly no mechanical problems and just a quick over-the-bars on Stage 4 which probably didn’t lose too much time. As usual at the end of each stage I felt like I should have pedaled harder or done things faster but realistically without significantly improving either my fitness, skill or out and out balls I dont think Id have done much better. This meant I finished 20th in Masters which was a good step forward from the previous rounds. Overall it was a top weekend of riding bikes in the sun with your mates. Thanks very much to my supporters - One Planet Adventure, Hope Tech, Renthal, Thule, AM Sport. Results - https://rootsandrain/race2318/2014-jun-22-uk-gravity-enduro-3-afan/
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:28:49 +0000
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