Kielder Gravity Enduro

This was the 2nd event in a series of 5, the first event at Ae was now all over and a bit of a blur. I'd managed to scrape a reasonable result of a pretty difficult course. The event at Kielder was looking however like it might be a bit better, the course was going to be less extreme and the weather couldn't get any worse than Ae.

Arriving late friday night we were met by an army of beekeepers?.....oh..... not beekeepers just campers protecting themselvs from the midges - brilliant. After a pretty poor nights sleep we opened the tent door to be greated by more midges and rain, a great start to the weekend. Anyway after gulping down some midge repellant flavoured porrige we headed out to pre ride the race course, and as is always the case everything felt much better.

F1 Pit Garage

The course was really good, fast and technical with many drops, roots and loose corners. I was loooking forward to race day. that evening more prep was done to the bike, I would have preferred an F1 style pit garage full of new and shiny componants ready to fit, but I had to make do with a spray of GT85 lube and a bit more air in the tyres.

Race day dawed all sunny and nice, even the midges had run away, fantastic. stage 1 was over in a flash, I made a couple of mistakes on some crucial corners but nothing major nad nothing that couldn't be made back up on the next 4 stages.

Elbow as an anchor

MIdway through stage 2 and everything was going well, i'd just negotiated a tricky section of switchbacks and was heading for a fast right hander went suddenly I ended up on the ground using my elbow as an anchor......... what happened there......, picking myself up I was happy to find no major injuries just a bit of blood on a few areas of exposed skin, and handlebars that were facing the wrong way. I'd managed to clip a tree stump which had trown me over the bars, that was my race finished.       

I completed the event but with my confidence knocked I didn't manage anything special in the other stages so finished a dissapointally 68/81.   

Inners next month, fingers crossed for no midges or rain.