BMC Swiss Cup Basel

I have had 2 big mountain bike races in the past month of my season and the first one was the final round of the BMC Swiss cup in Basel on the 26^th August. I wasn’t sure how the race was going to go as I had previously just finished a three month block on the road and I was unsure how I would fair on my mountain bike again. We headed to the venue the day before to get some practice laps of the course in,  it was a wide start loop with plenty of overtaking available followed by some flat transitions and one main climb and decent with a whole lap taking about 12 minutes it was going to be a fast 8 lap race. There were some big names in the race with 2^nd (Nino Schurter) and 3^rd (Marco Fontana) at Olympic Games there as well as multiple ex-world champions which would make for a cool race! I lined up for the race gridded last but I was hopeful in this race that there would be time to overtake in the start loop and put myself in the race.

Custom number board from mechanics haha.

 I started well and managed to move up and put myself as near to the front as possible and found after the first lap that I was sitting second group with Julien Absalon and Fabien Giger with a front group of 5 slipping away. This was a pretty cool place to be as Absalon is a 2x Olympic gold medallist and multiple world champ so I was rather happy to spend a bit of time on his back wheel and see what I could learn, I was also feeling quite good on my bike. I stayed here until half way through the race when there was an attack from Absalon on the main climb and I couldn’t go so I dropped into no man’s land for a bit until I was caught by the next group of 6 people and I managed to get comfortable in this group. The pace was fast but I was feeling good so I kept towards the front of the group and worked hard through the next couple of laps before we reached the final lap and it all kicked off again on the main climb. I still felt okay and was able to follow the moves and then the finish came to a sprint between six of us for 8^th place and I rolled in 12^th spot which also meant I took 1^st place in Under 23 so it was a good day on my bike. Next up was my final race of the year which was the world championships, being held in Austria.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/swiss-cup-2012-5/results

Thanks Grant