Eastern CX League, Snetterton - Sun Dec 28th 2014

Eastern League cyclocross deep in the wilds of the country at Snetterton.  A tricky course laid out round, and through, a horse stabling centre.   Some technical off camber and running sections, required decisive decision making and commit to the rut type cornering.

Three North Roaders entered the Vets 40-49 race (John McDowall, Bryan Holland and Dave Kiely)  A full thrust start  caused a spectacular crash within fifteen seconds of the starting whistle.  John and Dave zig-zagged through the carnage whilst Bryan came down, fortunately unharmed, but had to ride from the back and execute a bike change in the pits.  Sadly, one rider remained down for all of the race and was taken to hospital, whilst another two required treatment at A&E.  Bryan made the best of his race working his way through the field in a ‘bullish’ manner.  John put in lots of effort for a couple of good laps, but his final result was marred by others where poor decision making saw places slip through his fingers.  Dave felt it was more like a vintage display of the old Kiely Dog working his way back to CX greatness, including the ever pleasing devastating finishing sprint punting him a couple of places higher up the standings.

Bryan came 25th, John 32nd and Dave 55th out of 68 starters.

Matt was the sole North Roader in the hour long Seniors race  The course had changed little from the previous year and Matt was keen to get a comparison on a familiar course and conditions to the previous season.

The start was delayed by 15 minutes waiting for an ambulance to clear the start area from the Vets accident.  Matt decided he'd take the start easy as it bottlenecked around a gate and a sharp tree’d corner, so wouldn't aim for his usual explosive start and quick fade. On hindsight this was a good decision as a rider in-front went down.  Matt managed to avoid the downed rider but was still taken out but escaped the worst a bike crunching pile up. 

The first lap saw Matt carve through the back markers gaining places and was soon up to the usual position on proceedings. Matt was feeling good attacked the exit of each corner and run up, opening gaps on the chasing riders and closing gaps in front.  He continued to attack hard and push on passing riders whom usual finished in front of him. The 24 minute "being lapped" point passed without the leader in sight and he managed to hold on for an extra four minutes until the inevitable occurred.

Matt pushed on with a rider only 15 seconds behind giving him no room to recover, lapping a few riders, and trying not to make any mistakes to finish 20th out of 41 starters for his best finish and race to date - and there wasn't even a lot of running! A time comparison between this year and last had Matt lapping a pleasing 1:30 quicker.