Felt Colbornes Team

This is a double report covering my last two races.

The first National Points race at Thetford was a great start to the season for the team, and couldn’t have gone better for me on the sunday. I decided to make the marathon discipline my top priority for this season and started laying the foundations in training several months ago. I’m hoping to qualify for the World Champs this year in Villabassa, Italy. The hard work in training seems to have paid off, as I felt really good at Thetford, rode within myself, and didn’t suffer the usual ‘Thetford backache’. Will (Bergy) and I basically took the 100Km marathon apart from the start, sharing the work and keeping the pace high. The course was riding really well and conditions stayed dry until just after we finished. It was good team work all the way, Will having a minor mechanical glitch on lap 6, and also missing a bottle and having some of my energy drink. I took the win by half a wheel. Next race we might have to try a bit harder as the gossips at my local bike shop claim Nick Craig ‘will win round 2′……keeps me motivated that’s for sure!

Apart from myself and Bergy taking the top 2 in the 100Km, Dan was 4th in the 75Km, Annie won the Junior women’s XC race by miles, Dan was 8th, and Will 10th in the xc. Top weekend!!

Onto the following weekend and Nicky and I travelled to Italy for the Gunn Rita UCI Marathon in Italy, followed by a couple of days drinking coffee, eating cake, and seeing the sights in Venice. We arrived at Montebelluna the start town at midday on saturday where I hooked up with the Italian Felt Team and went for a ride to loosen the legs and check out the crucial start and finish sections. There was no practice lap here as the course was one epic 75Km loop in the foothills of the Dolomites. A couple of the Italians spoke good English luckily, as my Italian needs some serious work. I did become more fluent after the race though when sampling some local red wine…..

Race day: Montebelluna was basically shut down for the race! There were spectators everywhere despite the 8.30am start time. This race was live on Italian TV and we were filmed from motorbikes and a helicopter during the race. The clash with the first cross country World Cup in Belgium did little to reduce the quality of the field. Marathon racing is huge in Italy and the quality and depth of the field was incredible.

The gun fired and I got a decent start, holding my own on the first climb and focusing on folowing the wheel of Thomas Dietsch, who won the Marathon World Cup last month in Turkey. On the second big climb my stomach felt terrible and I almost saw the 6am breakfast again! Lost a few places and settled into a pace I could sustain. I spent a lot of the race with a Colombian guy in the Felt Team who probably weighs 55Kg and was making me suffer on the steeper climbs. I used the granny ring for the first time in 2yrs during this race!! On the power climbs and flatter last 10km though the Felt lad was hanging onto my wheel and I pipped him to the finish line to grab 27th place. There were around 500 riders who started at 8.30 although not all elites. No UCI Points (top 15), but a great race, and I felt as though I gave it 100%. I was only 4mins30 down on Thomas Dietsch, and beat Marco Bui and Dario Aquaroli who have been World Champs at cross country! Former top roadie Mirko Celestino won the race by over 4mins, respect! The weather was scorching too which made the going tough, but rewarded me with some tan lines (burnt).

Italy was a great experience and I really hope I get the chance to race in Italy again for the Marathon World Champs in july. The Felt Team were great aswell, treating me as one of their own, handing up bottles and checking over my bike before the start.

Its been a great april and I’m more motivated than ever to build on my form as the season progresses.

Ciao

Dunc

ps Venice is worth a visit and it was great to squeeze this into a long weekend.

pps Just notced the ‘Fantasy Caffe’ behind me at the start, missed out on that one!

Just had a great weekend riding the Echelon 2day road race in Worcestershire. Conditions were cold and windy, but luckily the snow on saturday night didn’t affect the racing. The Z35 is definitely the best road bike I have ridden, fast and comforttable what a combination! Half the Slipstream quad are on the Z bikes for good reason.

This race was training for Thetford really, but I came away with the best possible result as an individual riding against several strong teams.

Stage 1 on saturday was 55miles on a flat circuit with strong winds. The pace was high and some of the riding crazy from the start. I tried to get away several times, but nothing seemed to last due to the wind and high pace of the peloton (27mph average). I decided to avoid crashing and finish in the bunch. A small group of 3 or 4 did manage to grab a few seconds in the finish which could only be described as mayhem.

Stage 2, a time trial, only 2.4miles, but the last thing your legs want to do an hour after the first road stage. Rode hard and posted a reasonable time of 5mins47. Some riders had TT bikes and aero helmets etc etc, maybe I should have asked Andy for a loan of the Felt DA which sits in his office looking awesome. On the other hand, just jumping on a TT bike for the first time on race day could have been embarassing if I posted a slow time on the world’s best TT bike!

 Stage 3 was a longer 79miles on a rolling exposed circuit with fierce winds yet again. After a serious telling off to all riders from the Commissaire at HQ (for dangerous riding on Stage 1), the stage got underway. I was up for a tough ride and keen to move up from 30th overall. After 2miles a break formed and I managed to bridge the gap to them. 10riders in total and 77miles of through and off to the finish, ouch! Grant Bayton (Sports Beans) had the advantage of team orders (his team mate leading the overall wasn’t in the break) and could sit on the back of the break, tearing off the front only for time bonuses.

After grabbing a couple of time bonuses myself, the serious attacking in the break started at 17miles to go. I managed to break clear with just Grant Bayton for company, and the two of us rode ourselves into the ground to hold off the bunch who swallowed up the rest of the break, by around 30seconds. The 8miles of block headwind on the last lap was agonising. After riding hard all day I didn’t have the legs to sprint, but grabbed 2nd place on the stage, and another time bonus.

The effort moved me up to 3rd Place overall, and top second cat! Nice to get some prize money aswell. Top weekend all round. Shame Dan and Will had their entries returned, or we really could have caused chaos.

 All go for Thetford……………..

Cheers

Dunc

The first mountain bike race of the year is normally a stressful experience….. how is the form, new bike, start effort, other people’s form etc etc….

Sunday at Hanchurch Woods had a relaxed atmosphere though, difficult to get too stressed (except Bergy, for good reason), and the course was the best I’ve ridden for ages. We were all expecting a good technical course, put together by Martyn who rode for Felt last year, and he didn’t disappoint. There was plenty of tricky singletrack, logs to jump, bermed corners, tree roots, and after saturday’s rain….strength sapping mud. Altogether a challenging workout before the first National Points race at Thetford in 2 weeks.

The Elite race started at 2pm with a small field, but Oli Beckingsale in attendance and fired up for the start of his Olympic season. I lead out the field, and created a lead group of three with Oli and team mate Dan (Booth) for company. Without doing a full practise lap, Dan was acting like a Rally co-driver behind me, calling out instructions as we hit different sections of the course “steep section coming”, “stay to the left on this drop mate”. Got through the lap without any major slips and onto the second lap. Oli sat in behind me until the start of the third lap, where the real pain started…….

Oli clicked down a couple of gears on the long draggy climb to the top of the course and I tried my best to stick to his wheel. Alas, the spinning skinny legs started to pull away from me and I settled into my own pace to retain 2nd place. The great course kept me smiling, and apart from Oli leaving me behind, it felt like a decent start to the season. If you read this Oli, fair play mate you’re riding really well and should give those Euros some grief at the World Cups later this month!

Dan held on for third place, so 2 Felt riders on the podium which was made out of beer!! Also Will Verney, our XC Junior whippet stormed around the course to win the Junior Cat race on sunday.

Better form is to come (the coach promises) as I ease off the training quantity slightly and use the races to get up to speed. Fingers crossed I’ll be flying by Thetford and the Gunn Rita Marathon the following week in Italy…..

Have to go now…hill reps to do, happy days…………..

Looking forward to collecting a great new RXC Team bike, and riding the Z35 Road Bike in anger at the Echelon 2day Road Race at the weekend.