Eastern Cyclocross League 9 - Grafham Water Sat 10th Ocotober 2012

Round nine of the Eastern Cross League entailed a visit to Grafham Waters.  A new course to the league last year, the North Road riders had fond memories of the inaugural race on bone shakingly hard ground under bright blue skies.  All would be different this year, with heavy rain overnight leading to a muddy and demanding course under grey and leaden skies.  

 A couple of sections of lake foreshore ensured some rare sand and pebble cross action, lots of tricky off camber work, and a ‘do-I-or-don’t-I’ ditch crossing.   It’s a popular course, so popular that the vets race unusually filled up to its maximum permitted number of riders.  This led to Dave Kiely missing the cut-off and having to race the senior event.

A strong looking vets field left our main man Tim Brown unusually down on the second row of the grid, whilst John McDowall and Steve James where in the more usual surroundings of row three and four.  All got away well, but Steve’s race ended at about a third of a lap as at the previously mentioned ditch crossing as his attempt to ride through the obstacle  ended with a full on face plant into the mud.  With Steve off to see matron and out of the race, Tim and John battled manfully with bike, body and course.   Conditions where such that a spare ‘pit bike’ would have been useful as drivetrains, bottom brackets and brakes where reduced to vegetated mud balls.  The continual seated slog through the mud caused John’s back to crumble like the Greek economy, and that cost him a few valuable places towards the end of the race

Tim Brown was our best placed man in 12th place at +6.31.  John was next home in a slightly disappointing 24th, a lap and 1.04 down.  Steve was a DNF with a bashed and bruised face for his trouble (I am assured that his bike is alright)

Hannah Omersher again raced in the women’s event.  With a decent field of nineteen riders Hannah flung herself into the fray.  Indeed, rather too enthusiastically as she too endured a face plant (or doing ‘a Steve’ as it is now labeled) and had another crash to add to her collection.  Hannah secured 12th place at +8.35 down on the winner.

In the senior event our two regulars (Bryan Holland and Matt Harris) where joined by Dave Kiely.  Conditions had of course got expediently worse with the churning wheels of three earlier races.   Dave and Bryan are fairly evenly matched so a battle royal was expected with the smart money on Bryan.  Certainly the early round went to Bryan, but a slide out on a tricky bend allowed the Kiely Dog through, and despite putting in the work Bryan was unable to close the gap .  Meanwhile Matt was still exploring his new adventure into cyclocross further down the field.  

Dave was first back amongst the North Road riders having won the war of attrition between  bike, bike parts and mud in 51st place - a lap and 8.09 down on the winner.  Bryan was 63rd, at a lap and +9.18.  Matt was 76th, three laps and   +12.58.   Frankly, this was one of those cross races that just finishing without terminal damage to mind, body, soul or bike was a result!

Both Dave’s offspring, Joe and Abi, raced the under 12 twelve's event.  An early mishap on the start line involved Joe tangling with another rider before riding his normal aggressive race .  Joe finished in 13th place overall and was third under ten past the winning line.  Abi, riding her MTB style bike, came home in 43rd place out of 59 starters.