Thursday 23 August 2012

WOC Middle

After yesterday's result, I wondered if I could do it again.

Go for it, I thought.

And thats what I did. Until it all went wrong!

Picking up the map at the start I realised my expectations of a course full of route choice was incorrect, and that the course wouldn't contain as much climb as advertised. It was also a bikers course full of fast riding and easy decisions.

For the first 8 controls everything was going really well and I was neck and neck with a group of riders in 3rd-5th place. Surprising considering I'm not a fast rider.

To the 9th control there were many small paths leading into the forest and all were vague crossings. I came to one that seemed to be in the right place and a little bigger than the others, so I took it. Only to find it stopped 100m in. I ended up pushing/biking/hacking and charging my way through the scrubby forest only to keep finding tracks running perpendicular to my direction of travel and kept thinking one of them would be the track I was looking for. Eventually after 2-3 mins I dropped out on my track and made my way to the control. No real biggie I thought, just keep pushing and you can still get a result.

Sadly I didn't respect the terrain. Sticks and stones were flying everywhere as I was biking aggressively. Any one of them could have flicked up and caused some damage. What did the damage was a poor gear change moment in the same place as Pippa and Marika Hara. As the chain sucked it pulled my front mech round and resulted in being unable to ride in my big ring (this was the first time I had needed my small ring in the course). The damage was done, the bike was irrepairable on the course and I kept pushing but with the bike making some horrific noises. With the only accessible front gear and half my back gears not working I could either twiddle my legs or beast my legs, neither an appropriate choice.

Eventually I made it to the finish but having lost 3-4 mins on biking time and a 2-3 minute mistake. Bugger. Still at least it gets me worked up for the relay.