Month: March 2015

After deciding to do the “taster” two lap race at Cathkin Braes SCX opener, I did the race today and won the category by 3 seconds! A minor achievement, given that it’s a small category (9 racers) for people new to MTB racing. But nonetheless, I’m pleased to have raced well. And now I know my laptimes, I can figure out where I might fare in the ‘sport’ category if I do another SXC round this year. The course was familiar from last weekend, except it took us over the black rock dropoff by the wind turbine, rather than red version I’d favoured.

I did a few practise starts, and knew that I could straightline over the first rock section at speed. From the gun, I pegged it hard up the wide start run, over the rocks, and knew I was ahead of all the other riders in the “taster” group (and several vets) by the time it got narrow and processional. I rode all the “A” lines (the shorter but harder option) and my downhill riding was okay but not great – didn’t really get flow, and got offline on Double Dare too many times. I did much better on the uphills. I ride up Arthurs Seat lots, and I know I can push hard uphill and recover fairly quickly, so I was able to overtake a few riders that way. I was impossible to tell who was in my category, because there’s lots of categories all racing at the same time. So I didn’t realise I’d won until about an hour after I finished.

So, a successful (re)introduction to MTB racing.

This weekend is the opening round of the SXC series at Cathkin Braes in Glasgow. I’ve signed up, mostly as a way of keeping up my fitness for 10 Under The Ben in June. I haven’t done an XC MTB race since Kirroughtree in 2010 so I’ve entered into the shorter 2 lap “taster” race rather than the 5 lap “sport” category.

Last weekend, I checked out the course for a few hours. I really like it. It’s a long figure-of-8, much less “up then down” than Glentress. There’s a couple of big rock drop offs, a crazy 4X section, one brutal climb and plenty of flowing stuff, albeit lumpier underfoot than at Glentress. I did four laps, sessioning some of the trickier bits, and had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think to time a “hot lap” to see where I might fare in a race. Extrapolating wildly, I can compare my Kirroughtree 2010 laptime to the 2010 Elite winner’s laptime (I was +57% slower!), and apply that to last years Cathkin Brae’s Elite winners laptime – this suggests I might do a 23 minute lap at Cathkin Braes. Over the two laps, that’d be 46 minutes which would’ve placed me in 5th out of ten riders in last years Taster race. The same pace, over 4 laps, would’ve got me 12th place out of 23 starts in the sport race (+lapped once).

All this hypothetical racing is tiring. The real pedalling variety is more fun!