Sheffield Urban CX 2018 round 2 - Park Hill flats

Since getting my Croix de Fer last September for a steal, I've been slowly getting more & more into riding off-road. I've started to really enjoy it! It's a great way of developing bike handling skills & exploring new places not accessible by road (I've ended up contributing basically everything there is plotted on Gravelmap around Leeds). A few friends have started too, & we've now got a bit of a splinter group of our usual road cycling, formed for leaving the tarmac & enjoying the rough stuff.

Earlier in the year we tried our hand at The Dirty Reiver (200km of gravel). It was a challenge, but thoroughly enjoyed all round. Our rides before that had a bit of a focus, something to develop our endurance & skills for, & after that we lost focus a little bit. The weather grew better & we enjoyed more road riding & time spent in beer gardens in cycling kit instead.

One of us with trials experience had competed in the Sheffield Urban CX in Park Hill flats last year, & won the entry-level men's category on a singlespeed. The next round was unfortunately cancelled, but this year's season was on & starting at Kelham Island sometime earlier in the year. My girlfriend & I thought we'd head down & support (for some reason I decided to go tracklocross along the Trans Pennine Trail down to Sheffield, was pretty rad but my tyre was very dead by the end of it). The event looked great! We wished we'd entered.

So we did for the next round at Park Hill flats, which was this weekend past. We ramped up the riding again & I was feeling pretty good! The course looked hard & long, taking in every area of the development. Lots of technical bits & hairpins which I'd completely not practised, as well as a long 10% cobbled climb. I was assured by the friend who'd entered last time that this was without doubt the worst bit of the course (he was doing it singlesepeed though). To make matters more interesting, there was also a strong gusty wind & threatening storms all day.

First it was the juniors. Practically all of which had nicer bikes than me. They looked fast, the leader pushing out sub-five minute laps. Races were two heats - a thirty minutes long one followed by a twenty minute one. The winner was the one with the lowest cumulative position (winning in the second heat had more weight). After the youths, it was my round.

I've only ever entered one race ever before (other than alleycats). A category four fun-ride crit at a tour series which came to my university town (Aberystwyth). I rode it on the only bike I had at the time (a fixed gear), wearing skinny jeans, brogues & a thermal cycling jacket - in May. I didn't really have any cycling kit. At very worst, at least I was better prepared than last time.

I started at the back of the pack on the first straight, which led uphill on tarmac to a right hand corner, a little wooden ramp thing wide enough for two riders, & then a left down a cobbled descent which swept up into the long cobbled climb. The guy counted us down & we were off! Generally, I consider myself a climber, & this proved itself in the field, overtaking about a third of the group before the wooden ramp. Then the intense downhill, trying to keep my speed for the long climb in the group was tough. Somehow managed to get up into second place on that climb though, in a group of about thirty riders. Was a bit gutted that I didn't make it to first, so at least I'd have a moment in the sun, but I was happy with that!

Throughout the rest of the race I managed to lose only one place, to a very strong rider with part of a leg missing. He was allowed to ride down the stairs where we had to get off & run down. Rather him than me, those stairs looked steep! I really enjoyed it, but my race was soured by my back hurting more & more as the race progressed. It'd become painfully evident that I needed a bike fit, or some more core workout.

Had a few interesting moments with getting some of the race tape wrapped around my front wheel (thankfully not the rotor side), hitting my cranks on the top of a wooden ramp & almost being thrown off, overcooking way too many corners & DAS'ng round a corner on the last lap & knocking my rear wheel out of its proper place in the dropouts.

Ended up bailing on the second heat, as it was to be more intense, & my back really was hurting (still is now). Am disappointed with that as my legs didn't feel too bad (hard to tell with that distraction though), but am surprised that I was that far up the field.

Celebrated finishing the event with a pizza in the evening sun & a lazy train home. Will definitely be up for it again, & hopefully be able to perform better. In the immediate future, I've been invited to go to a hill climb event next weekend, but I've already got plans for bikepacking in the Forest of Bowland. Hmm.

Photos:

1. Hey look it's me (photo by @Tor ).
   
2. Should have practised this type of thing.
   
3. Rather you than me.
   
4. Steep for a singlespeed.
   
5. Trials experience handy for getting rad.
   
   

5 Attachments

Credit @Tor for 'Hey look it's me' :-P

You forgot to mention that you got and still hold the KOM for the cobbled climb.

Ooh! I did this too! Proof: https://www.instagram.com/p/BlypPEyhY7r/

Did the amateur race. Form not helped by too many beers the night before.

Think I came midfield on the first round (not helped by a MTBer in front of me putting their foot down on the climb, allowing 4 riders past me I couldn't get back to), then about 8th in the second race.

Really good course - much longer than I'm used to.

Spotted a few Brixton CC socks in the race!

Oo, good going! Yeah, the course was really quite long. I really liked that long sweeping corner in your Instagram picture - was a moment's respite :)