Hilton is a notoriously bumpy course, and features some steep drop-ins, off camber sections and punchy little climbs, so Rich took a slightly different option bike-wise.
"After a suggestion from Matt, I actually chose to ride a hardtail MTB, which seemed to work well. It allowed me to throw the bike into some of the descents a lot harder than I would have done on the CX bike, and ultimately make up some places. I was really pleased just to finish the race after last week's tub nightmare, and pretty pleased with 14th V40, 17th vet overall out of a field of about 130. I've got a lot of work to do to transition my fitness from 12hr MTB racing to 50 minute CX racing, but there's plenty of season left for that"
Matt scored an even better result, taking 5th in the seniors in a highly competitive field.
"The second round was a hard old race. The course was well rutted so I opted to ride a MTB over a cross bike for this round only.
Not sure if the MTB was faster over the course but it would save the back and arms some hammer.
We started fast as cross normally does as this roundd had some great riders turn up. I settled down in 6th taking my time to get use to the circuit I soon notice the MTB was slow on the grassy stuff but great in the rough stuff - On every lap I road the steep bank which helped me hold my place in 6th.
The last lap bell rang and I could see the chap in front so made one last big effort to catch him -passed him and put my head down to finish 5th on the day, much better than last weeks nightmare outing .
I think I will take it steady this week in training as round 3 is going to be fast grassy cross not bashing & hitting ruts all race!"
Next on the calendar CX-wise is Markeaton Park, but it's not all CX action just yet, as there's more Naked Bikes MTB action to be had soon.
Firstly Nick T will be taking on Margam Madness next week. Eight hours of racing on a course with 450m of climbing per lap will certainly test the legs!
After that is Oktoberfest, where Nick T and Andy will be racing singlespeed for their sins, and then Nick T carries the MTB torch into the Thetford Winter Series, whilst simultaneously pushing for the Naked Bikes 'most races in a season' prize!
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