My enthusiasm towards the cyclocross racing that resulted from the Crickhowell race was well and truly extinguished with the rain at Round 2 of the series at Risca. It was raining really hard in Brecon when we left and it didn’t ease off much all the way down. The course was, predictably, a mud-fest. My choice of gearing (32:17) wouldn’t have been too bad for the course in good conditions, but with the mud and wet it was all wrong. My sense of humour and enjoyment had failed me by lap four, despite encouraging words from Beth at the end of lap three.
By complete contrast, Round 3 followed a period of virtually nil rain. The course was an open flattish route around well kept grass fields on a farm. There was one long climb, but otherwise it was a fast course. Too fast for my gearing anyway. I rode as hard as a could for nearly an hour, got lapped twice and came well down the ranks considering the effort I’d put in.
It’s probably no surprise to the casual reader that a singlespeed isn’t going to cut it in a race with road-race hardened ‘cross riders on fast and generally non-technical courses. Fair enough, I didn’t expect it to. My principle objective was to have fun, and while Crickhowell was a real hoot, the singelspeed strategy (and to an extent my fitness) took the edge of the fun element in the rounds that followed. Still, there’s always next year. Perhaps Singular will have their Kite in production by then 😉
Middle Ring All The Way 