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Subject: Welsh 2 Day & WEC RND 5
Hi everyone
On the 23rd and 24th of June the Welsh two day was held in a town called Llandrindod Wells.
Now I didn't always know that Wales had its own language, but its a strange one. When you see road signs with Welsh on it its hard to even form a pronounciation in your mind.
When I asked a Welsh friend to speak some it sounds like nothing else I've heard before. Sounds kind of cool. Makes you think a bit about how languages evolve and change. It seems it has absolutely nothing shared with English!
Anyway onto the race.
The race consisted of one big lap per day, two tests per day, one at the start and the other after the eight odd hours of riding.
This is a more relaxed race with some slack times and a lot of road sections. Although there were two tight checks.
It is a social race but everyone is still deadly serious when it comes to the tests.
Day one started good with a good time just behind Eddy. On the second test I got slightly held up by another rider and my time suffered, ending the day in 3rd. The day had been really dusty which I've been told is unusual for Wales.
But that was about to change.
Day two dawned with a heavy rain crashing onto the roof of the sprinter. The rock hard ground in the tests had been turned into something like an ice skating ring.
On the first test I had a really tidy time with Ed Jones coming out with the fastest time, showing his skills in the slippery conditions.
Leading up to the days tight section I was told they had added an extra 5-8 km. So as the rain had made the course more muddy and rutty I thought I better get on it. I arrived 8 minutes early with only a couple of scary moments, saved mostly by the WER damper.
The last test of the day was incredibly slippery. I managed to stay rubber side down and came up with another good time, although Eddy and Ed Jones had slightly better ones.
So I was 3rd for the event. Happy with that.
Cool race but remember to get entries in early, 500 starters, 500 were turned away!
WEC Round 5.
Just got back from Czeh Republic, another long drive but probably the closest race of the WEC calendar for me.
We arrived on Tuesday morning after catching the Monday morning ferry from Dover to Calais.
We immediately found the extreme test. Took all of ten minutes to walk and nothing really exciting or difficult. Just a bit of landfill with the test going over dirt mounds and over the odd log, with a couple of muddy water crossings.
Finding the other tests was more difficult. There had been a race at this venue the week before so I decided to mountain bike the old course hoping to come across the other tests.
There was only two sections, one 40 km and one 30 km so I figured I would eventually find a test. The 40 km section had the Enduro test and after about 30 minutes of biking I found a test, not taped just pegged out.
It looked good weaving in and out of some trees and some grass straights.
Really short though, only 30 minutes to walk. I biked back to the start then headed out on the other 30 km section in search of the cross test.
One hour later I found it in a flat paddock with some nice big sandy hills, cool.
So Tuesday through to Friday was spent walking and getting the bike ready.
Late in the week it poured down. The tests needed it as they would have been dusty, except the extreme test being landfill just became a gluggy, sloppy mess. What was once an easy test became tricky overnight.
With short tests and only a total of seven tests on day one times were very close.
I finished 8th, happy with that although there is still plenty of room for improvement.
On Sunday the organizers decided to increase the number of times we pass through each test and cut the lap short. This made for a very boring lap almost completely flat with only one challenging hill.
My result on Sunday was not the best, 14th.
Small mistakes cost dearly in short tests and I paid the price. As the tests became rougher it became harder to make up any time.
Til next time, Paul and Katherine
