So today the racers entered the stage racing bubble, 6 days of thrills and suffering has begun. Today the Andalucian countryside swallowed up 650 eager racers and threw us out battered after 75 kilometres, the story has begun. Ben Thomas is reporting for MarathonMTB.com from his experience racing with Tim Dunford on the Mountain Trax-Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team.
The 9km neutralised section took riders through the historic sights of Cordoba before heading out of town for the race start proper. There were no rules in the “neutralised” section with riders taking to the pavement and hopping over roundabouts. The sight of one of the moto outriders come tearing towards the bunch before doing a quick u turn in the dual carriageway was a new one for me too!
The moto riders then wound up the pace and unleashed us onto the first climb. The Merida teams were driving the pace, with the British teams of Seb and Hamish Batchelor, and Gareth Montgomerie and Dave Henderson also in the front group as the race began to split. I was climbing well up with the leaders as the split happened but this is a pairs event and I hadn’t seen Tim since the chaotic neutralised section. I heard Tim before I saw him as he spluttered and coughed up the climb still recovering from a cold.
Once together we started our assault on the race but this was cut short at the top of the first climb where Tims shifter failed leaving him with no option but to ride singlespeed. It’s a frustrating situation to be in, you train your butt off, spend money travelling all the way to a foreign country and you’re let down by an unavoidable mechanical. We said yesterday though that we should just try and enjoy ourselves if anything went wrong which we duly did, tearing up the singletrack with Tim’s legs spinning crazily! The never ending waterfall of despair which we had to ride down / ski down in our carbon bicycle shoes and the following climb did test Tim’s sense of humour which began to fail at this point so I did have to remind him of the afore mentioned agreement!
Nevertheless we began making pretty good progress on the flatter section of the track from kilometre 40. We just enjoyed the awesome singletrack on our new full suspension bikes. As the kilometres clicked by the trails continued to claim more victims with broken mech hangers and lots of punctures.
After a rapid descent off the final hillside overtaking stacks of riders we caught sight of the Batchelor brothers but the gap was too big with Tim’s limited gear selection! We finished within the same minute of Gareth and Dave, and Seb and Hamish who’d also had their share of bad luck with multiple punctures.
In the Elite Mens category Multivan Merida took the top 2 places followed by Topeak Ergon. Sally Bigham and Milena Landtwing lead the Elite Womens category for Topeak Ergon. Much to our amusement in 3rd place in the womens category is a team sponsored by a bakery, I wonder if their agreement includes cakey goodness?
Tomorrow the Brits will be back for more.