Junior Tour of Bristol

Had my first stage race of the year at the weekend and it was the junior tour of Bristol, a two day stage race and the second round of the national junior series. we were racing as a scottish team so we travelled down together on the thursday. the team was me, stu, jack and taylor and the coaches/mechanic and parent. we finnally made it there on the friday morning and managed to get out for a short spin on parts of the route for sundays stage and realised that it was going to be a very hilly day. the first stage was on saturday and was 8 laps round a 13km flat circuit, working as a team we decided that we were going to try and cover all the moves that had more than three people in them and we set about this from the start with each of us trying to cover moves, plus trying to save energy for sundays stage which was gonna be savage. the stage ended up becoming a bunch sprint which was exciting with riders all over the road, we all made it home at the front of the bunch safely with only a couple of people managing to get clear of the bunch in the final lap. Next up was sundays stage stage which was going to be very hilly with five cat 3 climbs, the first climb came only 10miles into the race and the field was already splitting to peices, i managed to get over this one in the front main group and was feeling strong which was agood sign for the day ahead. a group of four managed to slip away over the top though and built up a lead of 1.30 which wasnt good for us as there was no scottish riders in it. As the race the headed towards the 2nd climb of the day which would be four laps up it and finishing on the final time up, it was a hard climb at 14%. gradually lap after lap i managed to stay in the front group and we reeled in the break away and it was anyones game. in the final lap there was a solo attack from the eventual winner and the group turned negative with nobody willing to chase. we had a wee chat to each other as me and taylor were in this group and felt good, stu had fought hard to get in the group each lap, with him having tired legs we sent him up the road to intiate another person to chase, perfect! me and taylor chilled out and waited as we had no intention of chasing our teamate who was out in the lead. then as the final time up the hill came round it was flat out from the bottem with stu getting brought back and the solo break still ahead it was a race to the top. i used the wheels and manged to stay at the front of the race and finished in 5th place which was a much better improvement on my 50th place at the first round of the national series back in wales, this put me in 6th place overall 58seconds behind on the leader. Also got myself some bang tidy tan lines which i aint going to complain about haha.
here is the BC report on the race http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/road/article/roa20110411-Road--Junior-Tour-of-Bristol-0
Cheers Grant

Early season of racing

Hello people, been a while since my last post got a bit lazy during the winter, I guess I’ll start off with my winter training which has gone rather well this year other than a couple of illnesses; I managed to get plenty off miles in. Had the national cyclocross championships in early January which went really well and I managed to finish in 2^nd place which I was really pleased about then finished my cyclocross season off a week later with a win at the Scottish championships. My first race off this season was the first round of the national road series which was being held in Wales, since it was my first race of the year I wasn’t expecting too much, but my lack of race form was prity obvious as I cramped up in the final part of the race and just had to make it home to the finish in about 50^th place. Anyhow next up was the first round of the national MTB bike series which was being held at Sherwood pines in Nottinghamshire. I have raced there many times before so I knew that this course is proper fast and relatively flat therefore it was going to be flat out from the start. I had an average start but through the first lap managed to move in to the top two positions with Matt Sumpton and the race was on. The course being so fast it was hard for either of us to open up a gap and after 4 laps of close racing it was going to be a sprint finish. It was my first sprint finish for a very long time and something I usually try to avoid because it’s not my strongest point, ha-ha. Anyway, I had noticed in the pre ride that if it was going to be a sprint the final section of fire road before the woods was going to be the most important, I used this to my advantage and got in front into the final section and managed to hold Matt of to the finish and claim my first win of the year, by a close 3 seconds. Next up is some more road racing with a super 6 and then the junior tour of Bristol.

That’s all for now

Grant

Cyclo Cross National Trophy-Mallory

Well I haven't been up to too much recently just a bit of training and started to race some cross. The Cross race i chose to do was a round of the National Trophy that was being held in Mallory Park. i didn't have bikes so i borrowed some of my coach and picked them up on the way down to race which was a long journey of 7 hours. We arrived there and i decided to get a couple of laps of the course in and set up the bikes. The course was mainly grass and rather slidy so there was going to be plenty off side ways action in the race, the hurdles were also small which meant you could bunny hop them. Then got a good nights sleep ready for the race :) The race started well and i moved up to 10 place on the first lap then kept moving through the field and got to second which i held on to the finish, behind Alistair Slater. was rather pleased! Then i handed the bikes back and went back home and been training since :) next up is the Scottish cross champs.

Cheers for Reading

G

Selection Camp

After i had competed at the hill climb champs i decided to take a bit of time off the bike and do some normal stuff and recover from a long season racing my bike. I took two weeks off and only touched my bike once to do a bit of downhilling which was a good laugh. since then i got back on the bike to travel to Newport, south Wales for Olympic Development Programme selection camp, these camps are never easy and consist of double sessions a day and some meetings to discuss the programme. Was good fun though and i should find out soon whether i get back on the programme for 2011. other than that i haven't been up to that much, bit of planning and organising some cross racing to do. I will try and keep my blog updated as best I can.

Cheers
Grant

First Blog..End of Season

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 :)