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Results for the race have just gone up (I wasn’t kidding about compulsively reloading the page).

I finished 52nd, which is seven places higher than last weekend. Nice progress! I completed six laps plus a half-lap following the start. Looking at the timing breakdown, I was in 49th at the end of lap two but it must’ve been that lap that I dropped back from the group I was with.

All in all, a pretty good result for race #2. Next race is going to be in Edinburgh for the Hallocross on the 31st October. I think I can only make one (Strathclyde Park) of the remaining five SCX races this season.

Video of the Plean mudlocross.

Hurrah, the race results are up. I finished 59th out of 73 riders, which I count as pretty good for my first race. 🙂

I think I’ve figured out how to read the timings. The race start wasn’t at the same place as the finish line. From the start we did maybe 3/4 of a lap before reaching the line. I think the “Lap 0” time corresponds to crossing the finish line for the first time, ie. after ~10mins of cycling. My HRM said I was cycling for 1h15m so that tallies up with the timing sheet. It also tallies up with my memory of doing the first 2 laps quickly and then the remaining laps rather more slowly.

The fast guys are almost twice as fast as me. Ouch! Even if I’d done all my laps at the pace of my best lap, that’d only move me up the rankings by five places. If I could muster a 10% speed increase (something I’ve achieved before) then I’d perhaps finish ten places higher in 49th. But it’s all lower-order bit twiddling!

Just back from my first cyclocross race at Plean, just outside Stirling. Finished it, which was my target, and was in awe at the speed of the other racers. The layout of the course was good – mix of hardpack, forest floor, one ‘carry up’ steep hill and one other steep hill which I managed to ride up, and a really fun long-and-fast downhill which started out hardpack and turned into a mud chute .. more like snowboarding than cycling.

So that was the layout of the course. However, it had rained heavily beforehand and turned most of the course into a mudbath. There was 2″ deep mud on most of the course, some bits ridable and some not. I was pretty pleased technicaly with how I fared, staying upright despite lots of slips and slides.

I think I was probably battling for last place overall – not sure until the results come out. I think I completed 5 laps, although I wasn’t really counting. On the sighting lap, my heartrate was 174bpm, higher than I’ve ever seen it. During the 1h15m I raced, my *average* heartrate was 162bpm .. and that includes a much slower second half to the race after I overcooked it. The leaders were pretty much twice as fast as I was. Jeez, and I thought I was a pretty good cyclist!

Cyclocross: Muddy, funny, recommended.

Edit: Here’s a better description of the sport of cyclocross.

I finally weighted my “city” bike which I’ve been training on. It’s a shade over 14kg. The road bike I’ve hired in France will probably weight between 8 and 9kg. So that’s a good 5kg lighter than what I’m used to – win!

A brief lull in the rain-that-never-stops allowed me out on the bike this evening. The target was 5 laps of Arthurs Seat in an hour. In the end, I was some way off – 67:16. But, given that it was windy, I was on my city bike and I was cycling through rivers of water part of the time, I think it was a pretty good effort. I averaged 13.5 mins per lap. I know I can do 12min laps on better days, and my best ever single lap was 10.5 minutes. So, 5 laps in an hour seems on.

Arg, I fell going along the flat cycle path near Cramond. There’s a wee bump that I normally ride over; today I lifted the front wheel over but let the rear hit it. This caused the rear to shoot up, pitching me over the front wheel and landing at non-trivial speed on my right shoulder. Bounce, bounce, roll. Ouch. Felt like my right shoulder was probably broken. No phone reception, so got back carefully onto bike and rolled back towards town a bit, then phoned for rescue. Decided to take a proper look and, yes, very obviously broken. Mega thanks to Jon for getting me to hospital and recovering my bike too. Xray showed clavicle broken, near the shoulder and, since the bone is pointing up at a jaunty angle it’s likely I’ve detatched one of these ligaments. Pah, fracture clinic tomorrow and either ‘conservative management’ (ie. do basically nothing) or surgery to pin it.

I’m in good company though!

I have some Good painkillers, but won’t be cycling, motorbiking, climbing, driving, karting, drinking, breadmaking, or typing properly (left hand only, painfully slow!) for weeks. 10UTB is a no-no, as are most if not all SXC events. Still, could’ve been worse .. fortunate it happened close to town. Ironic that it happened on a straight flat path which I ride on several times a week.