The British National Cyclocross Championships

Jan 14

Crawley

This was my first ever British National Cyclo-Cross Race or National Cyclo-Crosss Trophy Series come to think of it.

The V40 competitors were actually quite fortunate as it was raining hard immediately before and during the event. The benefit of this, for anyone wondering if they should do a rain dance before their next CX race is, that it loosens the ground up which helps shed the mud rather than it and grass sticking to the bike which in turn weighs it down and clogs everything up. It also enables your tyres to cut down into the surface under the top layer of mud to find some grip.

I raced the Forwards X Cyclocross bike which was faultless and was running Challenge Baby Limus tyres with liners at 21 psi front and 22 psi rear.

Forwards X

With regards to my race, I started far back in the field due to my national ranking. I rode at an average of 171 bpm for the duration of the race but couldn’t hold the power I would expect with my current form and I way off the pace required at this level. My finishing result wasn’t what I had hoped for but hey, 32nd in the country isn’t bad for my first attempt bearing in mind the depth of competition at a national event.