Well my cycling seasons coming to an end so i thought it would be a good idea to create myself a blog and write about my cycling adventures. It has been a long season starting back in the middle of march and there has been a lot of racing. I spent most of the year building up to the Junior World Championships that were going to be held at Mont Saint Anne, Canada. We raced a full world cup series which was great fun, we got to travel throughout Europe and learn a lot about bike racing. Anyway lets start with the World Championships. we flew out about 10 days before the race but we were also competing in the final round of the world cup series which was held in Windham upstate new york. As this race was the week before worlds there wasn't a big entry, about 30. i got a good start and managed to lead the race round the first lap of the course which consisted of one big climb then a long descent back to the bottom. after the first lap there was a group of 5 of us that had got away from the rest of the field. I started to suffer towards the end of lap 2 tho and started going backwards and crashed last lap. ended up finishing in 5th which i was pleased with but was hoping for a stronger result. i put the fact that i felt bad during the race down to a lot of travel before the race, 3 days of travelling and only a couple of days to recover a long with the jet lag no wonder i was suffering more than usual.
 |
| World Championships in Canada |
After this we travelled to Mont Saint Anne in Canada for the Worlds. we were staying in a nice hotel that was about 100metres from the course which meant we could see everything that was going on. our race was going to be on the Friday so we had most of the week to pre ride the course and prepare for the race. the course was rather good, it was quite hilly and had just about everything you could fit in a xc course, it was dry so the Rocky descents were covered in about a foot of dust which was making it very technical and the climbs were steep. Race day was a Friday and we had done all our preparation for the race. I was gridded in 9th so was on the second row. i started well and managed to come round the start loop in 10th place and was feeling good. the race was much harder than any race i had done before and it took me the first couple of laps of the course to get going. i finished in 15th place in the end and 2nd first year junior which i was happy about :) After this we watched the rest of the bike racing and went out and celebrated everything :)
 |
| The final British Round at Plymouth |
i then did a couple more races to finish of my year which consisted of the final round of the British mtb series and the Scottish hill climb championships. I was joint in points in the British series with Steve James so i decided to try and keep my form after worlds and try and win the final round of the British series and win the overall series, i managed to do this which i am really pleased about :). the final race of the year for me was the Scottish hill climb championships which i was looking forward to as i had finished 3rd overall the year before. me and my dad travelled to the course which was the the same as the previous year, it was a long course. i warmed up on the rollers and was third last to set off due to my previous result, i felt good throughout and there was a slight tail wind which was rather help full. i got to the top and was told that i had won and managed a new course record, wooopieee, then when i was at the prize giving i was disqualified due to the fact that i had not raced with a rear brake, it was my own mistake as i had removed it to save weight so as annoyed as i was i learnt a valuable lesson, a full report can be found here: http://www.veloresults.co.uk/2010/10/09/scottish-hill-climb-championships-4/
 |
| The final part of the Scottish hill climb championships |
Thanks for Reading
Grant :)
