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@yetidamo
Decided to do my first ever MTB race this weekend. In fact I dragged the family along, so my daughter and son also had their first taste of racing in the under 8s and under 10s respectively. The event was a BC Go MTB race organised by Bedgebury Forest CC, at, er, Bedgebury Forest.
It was brilliantly organised and the kids were made to feel very welcome and relaxed despite the obvious experience of some of the other young racers present. My daughter came 4th in the under 8s and first girl, so she won a medal, which she was well chuffed with.
My son didn't fare quite so well in a much more competitive race, coming 7th of 8 after being pushed into a tree by a passing rider. He still really enjoyed it and definitely hit the other trails we rode that day with more confidence as a result of the race. I'd recommend these events to anyone with kids.
I was forced to start behind all the riders with "previous" in a vague seeding of the starting grid. By the time the course dived into the trees I'd managed to get into 3rd position with a good sprint along the 100m or so of fire road. Once in the trees it was all singletrack with no opportunities for overtaking.
I was pretty comfortable on the wheel of the rider in second, the first placed rider was pulling out a small lead, but never got out of sight, and the three of us slowly pulled away from the rest of the field.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only 2/3rds of a lap, the course opened up onto a fire road climb, so I went full gas, quickly passing rider number 2 and kept going past the leader too. I kept the throttle buried for the remainder of the lap and the next time I turned around to see where they were I realised I'd managed to get well clear.
Not expecting to be in this position and not really having a plan for this (or any eventuality really) I definitely went way too hard on lap 2, clipping the bars on tree trunks encroaching on the tight twisty singletrack twice, narrowly avoiding major crashes both times. I quickly realised that I wasn't going to win it taking risks, but I could easily lose the advantage I had if I crashed.
So I then had 3 laps of tempo, with only back markers for company and encouraging shouts from marshals. At the bell for the last lap I figured if there was a chasing pack then now was the time they'd make a last charge, so went back to full throttle.
Ended up with a comfortable margin in the end as first vet and first overall too. Best of all I loved every second. Just annoyed I waited so long for the first attempt.