by Nuno Luz
My journey into improving my XC skills and overall stamina and fitness level has brought me to try for the first time a British Cycling National Series MTB XC race. Spoiler alert – I wasn’t ready 😂
I’ve been racing XC from a casual and very amateur approach since 2023, going mainly to local and regional races.
It’s been a learning curve but until late 2024 I was feeling confident, and had a good level of fitness and gear. Unfortunately having my precious bikes stolen affected me more than I thought and I feel like I’ve now regressed to before 2023 or even worse. Believe or not I used to be able to fit into a tight XC race jersey!
Nonetheless I’ve since been back at it, and trying to slowly improve all my metrics and get back on track. First by attending the same local and regional races that I used to, such as SouthernXC, Bedgebury Forest CC XC, MTB East, and Gorrick races, and this time my first ever British Cycling National XC race.
This is a 2 day event, which saw the Fun and Open plus age category races on Saturday and then Youth, Juvenile and Expert & Elites on Sunday.
As soon as I arrived, the grounds were familiar to me from a past race I had there, albeit for my other favourite discipline, Enduro.
Yes, part of the track is used for a gravity event and I was familiar with that bit, which was quite fun and flowy and even had some great jumps and techy bits!
Arriving at the venue, it was busy and hot, but easy to find parking. The number of stalls and bike brands was much better than on the local and regional events, and it was also great to see loads of young riders that day which means a great future for the sport.
I was able to get a practice lap in, just before my race, and soon realised that it was a level of difficulty way above what I have been recently doing. The duration of the race was still 1h:30m, but there was significantly more elevation (478m) and it was a fair bit more technical.
There were some steep and long inclines, as well as some off camber sections and some challenging gaps. It also didn’t help that there was a muddy and loose top coat, since the hot weather was still drying out some of the sections where it had rained during the week.
A couple of A and B lines were also available – but from my initial first view these equated to a couple of large drops which I wasn’t comfortable to do, as when I was getting to them all my energy had already been sucked from the climbs and techy bits.
Fortunately the race went well for me, with some sketchy moments but no crashes, and I at least had really good fun, especially negotiating the first downhill section right after the start line.
My Epic 8 was running well, with no technical issues, which I’m happy about. I only had to use the lockout on the climbs and not forget to unlock it when on the descent, which I usually do when tired!
The route was really well marked and easy to follow, with several marshal checkpoints, and with more spectator attendance than usual, even in more remote locations of the track. A positive note also for the spectators, who were super supportive and nice to riders, giving me a much needed boost! It’s always great to see this.
Time wise it was nothing to write home about (averaging 28.5min per lap), and in the end I got last place but had a really good day on my bike, being able to finish, and hopefully I can improve my performance in future. At least the next day I was feeling comfortable enough to do a 2h easy ride alongside the River Wey.
At the end, I ate probably one of the best burgers I’ve ever had at a bike event, and enjoyed a really nice coffee before making my 1h25m journey back home and collapsing on the sofa for the rest of the day 😀
Next up for me will be completing the Gorrick Evening XC Series!
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