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Thanks to Matthew Hornby for the following report and well done for completing the event. Picture above was taken the previous Saturday on one of the rocky sections.

Monday 4th May started bright and early for Derek and myself – well actually it was very early and really quite damp, a little dispiriting considering the glorious weather earlier in the weekend. No matter, at 7.30 we were on the road to Bacup and the Brownbacks race number 2 in the Hope series. Because the Bank Holiday traffic was fairly light we were there in plenty of time to sign on, have a brew and even a little warm up/practice before the off.

Slightly annoyingly that was delayed by about 10 minutes, just time enough to get really cold standing in the biting wind in race kit, although the first climb up the access road and onto the course proper soon put paid to any worry that we might remain chilly for the whole race. Derek shot out of the traps, and seeing him skipping up the track on the carbon fibre Giant brought to mind the image of a young Himalayan Mountain Goat enjoying the first days of spring. Unfortunately Goat boy was taken out of the race towards the end of the first lap, damaging his front brake lever in an over-the-handlebars accident. Considering the amount of rocks around where he fell, a couple of hundred yards after the yellow spotted rocks, he was lucky it wasn’t much worse.

So that left it down to me to suffer on my own, (except at the end of each lap where Derek’s exit meant I had one spectator shouting for me at least) and suffering was the order of the day. I’d spoken to Gareth the night before, and read Saturday’s Blog but even so the technical nature of the course, particularly the rocky section where Derek had his ‘off’ were more taxing than expected. I was pretty confident for the first couple of laps, making a good pace and looking forward to making up places as others started to flag, but in the end that just didn’t happen. From lap three the rocky areas were becoming more slippy as mud was transferred to them, and just riding over them was difficult, never mind maintaining a racing pace. I’ve always been pretty poor in rock gardens. Lap 4 was a real struggle, and to really put a hat on it, on lap 5, I also had a minor fall, (by this point I wasn’t really going fast enough to have a proper crash) and managed to hurt my wrist. After that it was really just a case of completing to get a place and carry the WVCC colours over the line as I couldn’t use the rear brake properly. The last lap took about 2.5 mins longer than previous efforts. In the end I was in 26th place in the Weekend Warrior class, (out of 49, not 27 before you ask) my 6 laps being one less than the leaders.

Having said all that, and in hindsight, I really quite enjoyed the race and the course. The berm-y and jump-y bits were, as suggested, great fun to ride, and the competition was friendly and supportive, those just behind me stopping to check I was OK when I fell. I think I’ll have another punt later in the year, and make sure I’m a little better prepared next time. Derek definitely has another appointment with Beswick’s Boulder too! Full results are available at http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk/race_series/1/results.html and there should be links to race photo’s there too soon.