Central CX League - Milton Keynes, Sat 4th October 2014

The never ending summer finally broke right on cue at the first of this seasons Central Cross League fixtures at Milton Keynes.  A hard, lushly grassed verdant ground received a substantial watering that continued through the race.  With the course containing some steepish drops into tight corners, and some ‘oh-er’ off-camber the results where inevitable.  It was slipy, slippier than an olive oil coated conger eel that had studied slippyness at the University of Slipy

John McDowall and Bryan Holland raced in the combined vets/juniors/women race.  With three races on the circuit at the same time (separated by a minute or so) things got very, very confusing really early.  Suffice to say like the autumn leaves riders where cascading gracefully down at regular intervals .  John fell comically twice with him going one way and bike disappearing another way -  think oversized adult at water slide.  A mechanical also cost several minutes.  Bryan had motored his way early on but he too had problems with his brakes.  Or more precisely, his lack of brakes, as he wore his pads down so they had all the effectiveness of blocks of Aldi  value goats cheese.  Numerous falls (Bryan lost count) then ensued as the only braking technique available was the stunt man throw yourself off variety.

Paul Mcgrath then rocked up for the Seniors race with the course nicely preped for his race!  A face full of mud at the start knocked out one of his contact lenses but a big stack with 15 mins to go on one of the flat and fast sections left our man down and requiring a bit of tender care from the medics at the side of race for five minutes.  He got going again but with three working gears, cheese strength brakes, and carrying some wounds from the crash the last two laps took 25 mins.    He did finish and like a true trooper reported that he is fine and that he ‘loved it’ although that might have been the effects of mixing his after race pain medication talking.

John and Bryan came 19th and 28th respectively in the vets +40 race out of 50 finishers.  In the Seniors race Paul came 35th out of 41.