London League Penshurst

A little personal victory for me yesterday -following 6wks of doing bashing my head against the turbo twice a week, I finally cracked my way back into the top 10 in a League race. No great shakes really; a few seasons ago I was rarely outside of the top 10, but over the last few seasons various factors have conspired to keep me languishing in the teens, at best.

One of these factors involved the buying of a house. But now I have a shed, and all the cross bikes can go in it, so, suddenly jumping on the turbo has never been easier -though I'm a little way off having some form of permanent set-up, but it's a start.

I first went to Penshurst Off Road Club on my Raleigh Lizard when I was 12 or 13, when it was nothing more than a sprawling mass of forestry and Rhododendron bushes. As it is still predominately a DH venue, the format for Addiscombe CC's race rarely changes from year to year, it is mostly a question of heading down one of the descents and then winding your way back up again. I've always enjoyed racing there as it can be pretty tricky and although the race is never won on the descents, it can (as it was for many yesterday) easily be lost.

The sky was blue and the ground was frosty and boggy. Everything felt to just be working a bit better and I rode mostly on my own from the first lap. I came home in 10th place, at the back of a line of usual suspects, also beating a few riders who I haven't been close to for a while.

pic by Aoden Higgins

Interesting that there were lots of MTBs which should have been at an advantage on the descents, but were clearly out-gunned on the climbs.  Think I've only done about 6 races this season but a reflection of this season's conditions are that I already need to replace a headset and BB from all the bike washing.

1 Sylvain Garde Addiscombe
2 Darren Barclay Arctic SRAM  at 1 56
3 Matt Holmes Arctic SRAM 1t 1.57
4 Chris Dick  London Phoenix at 2.29
5 Jules Birch VC Londres at 2.53
6 Jack Finch  PM Racing at 3.47
7 Mark Smith   Crawley Wheelers at 3.48
8  Phil Glowinski VC Londres at 4.03
9 Phil Lenney Active
10 Ben Spurrier Vicious Velo