Ritchey Bike Fest – Ashton Court, Bristol

Well, that was an interesting race. I thought that we were going to be in for a hot dry day, as Saturday was hot. How wrong I was! I woke early Sunday morning as I hadn’t prepared any of my cycling gear the evening before and the first thing I noticed was how dark it was, 6am this time of year is normally light. Then I noticed the rain, lots of rain. I guess we can always have dry race days, this was mountain biking and races start at advertised start times regardless of what the weather is doing.
I arrived at Ashton Court with about 40 minutes to spare, so I was a bit rushed, but made it. The rain was still coming down and didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon, it was cold too. I decided to start with a long sleeve top to keep some of the cold out, I could easily ditch the top later if I got too hot. The start was a Le Mans style start (I hate running) Pete shot off and grabbed his bike and rode into the distance. Brad, Matt and I picked up our bikes and started up the hill at a steady pace. Brad wasn’t happy though as Pete had taken the wrong bike, he’d taken Brads, silly boy… He did notice and stopped at the top of the first hill so they could swap back. This only ruined Pete’s start and gave us a chance to catch up, which wouldn’t actually had taken long even if he’d taken the right bike from the start. Matt and I took the first lap at a steady (chatting) pace, then all of a sudden Matt had lost my wheel and I was leading our team. Not really sure how that happened as I didn’t think I had increased pace. I went through the start finish line in about 35 minutes (+5mins for the Le Mans start) with rain still hammering down. From this point on each lap seemed to pass by quick quickly, it was slippery in places but the trails held up really well. The spots of Ashton Court that used to get really bogged down in the wet were holding up to a lot of abuse meaning that there were some riders putting in some absolute blinding lap times. I did start to get a bit hot coming through to start my 3rd lap so I ditched my top and continued through lap 3 & 4 in my race top to finish 30th overall and 1st in the team. The other enjoyed the race, Brad did actually complete 4 laps, but the rules are finish within the 3hrs or the lap you are on won’t count, he was 58 seconds short of claiming 4 laps. Harsh, bur rules are rules… Pete completed 3 laps too but stopped after his 3rd not attempting to get the 4th in. Matt stopped after 2 laps, think he had mud in his gears and was having shifting trouble.
Our times were
Jason Cole – 02:41:29 – 30th – 4 laps – (1) 00:40:38, (2) 00:39:08, (3) 00:40:28, (4) 00:41:13
Brad Cole – 02:19:06 – 43rd – 3 laps – (1) 00:51:40, (2) 00:41:01, (3) 00:46:24
Pete Beale – 02:27:59 – 47th – 3 laps – (1) 00:42:39, (2) 00:46:01, (3) 00:59:18
Matt Ancrum – 01:25:58 – 51st – 2 laps – (1) 00:42:11, (2) 00:43:46