North of England Cross Championships - Hetton Lyons

This weekend I entered the North of England Champs.  I have never entered it before but it fell nicely in my "every other weekend" racing schedule. I have won the South of England champs a few times but not I live in the Lakes I thought I would go along.  I know Stuart Wearmouth would be there and it would probably come down to another head to head battle.

Stuart being from the North East had a large partisan crowd, so me really being a southerner and racing on his door step I was in for a hard time!  Added to this they gave me number 13...

The course was the same as last year's National Trophy were I has narrowly beaten by Shaun Snoddon for the win.  Today was definitely not going to be my day, the first lap my gear were jumping and I had to make a bike change in the "wrong pit".  Then back at the front half way around the second lap I jammed my chain (exactly the same as the first Trophy race but on my second bike).  This time I did not rush to get to the pit as I now only had one bike and bike-changing was mandatory as it was so muddy.  I ran a bit, then walked a bit, then thought about cutting the course to the pits, then decided to go all the way around and do a couple more laps. I changed bikes and now was miles down.  I got going and soon noticed that even though I was not giving it much effort I was lapping in the same time as Stuart Wearmouth (as I kept seeing him in the same place each lap). My pit team found me another bike, which I still managed to lap with at the same time as Stuart.  The last couple of laps I started to pass riders and got a bit more enthusiastic, now I was lapping faster, I moved up to 6th place by the finish.

I'll have to work on a northern accent for next year - maybe not.....

North of England Cross Champs
RESULTS

Click to read report in Daily Telegraph

          To the top of page

                                                Press to return to home page

(written 02/12/02)