Selkirk Merida – 5th August 2007

The Selkirk Merida, a lot of people said this would be the best course of this years Merida series.

I had arranged to travel up to Selkirk the day before the race with my Wheelbase team mates Stuart Reid and Lewis Craven.

The weather forecast for the weekend, for the whole country was hot and sunny with rain spreading into the Scottish borders later on Saturday night; it rained all day in the Lake District where I live.

After being excited all day, Stuart, Lewis and Steve Clarke (ex National junior MTB champion) picked me up from my house at 8pm in the nice new Wheelbase van.

Stu had been down to Staffordshire racing in the National Fire & Police road Championships, things hadn’t gone to plan for Stu as after only 5 minutes another rider brought him down damaging his shoulder, splitting his 3k carbon bike and snapping his handle bars. Not a good day!!

We got to Selkirk around 10pm, which was good timing considering we stopped twice for a bite to eat and had to drive around Selkirk for a while trying to find the rugby ground where the race head quarters and campsite were. We found a good spot to put the tents up and the weather was just beginning to turn for the worse.

The rain began to hammer it down and I eventually nodded off at about 1.00am and managed to get about 5 hours kip, I woke at 6am and it was still raining!

The race was going to be an interesting one, a mud fest for sure with all the rain we had over night. I rang my dad to see if he was still coming up to support me, he was on his way as he set off early. It’s always nice to get the support from my family when I am racing; it certainly spurs me on that’s for sure!

We had breakfast early and I then went to sign on and get my race number. The profile of the course looked good; it was 28km with 900 metres of accent. I particularly enjoy the hills, so was looking forward to the chance to push myself over a hard steep course.

Feeling fairly nervous, I got changed and went for a little spin up the road for a couple of miles just to get my legs nice and warm and to get the blood flowing and focus my thoughts.

With about 20 minutes to go I noticed that most of the 1400 riders had started making there way over to the start line, I glanced over to the van were Stu and Lewis were putting a new cassette and chain on Lewis’s bike.

I went and lined up on the front row to save them a place at the start hoping they would get the bike sorted before the off.

With about 10 minutes to go Lewis and Stu finally made there way onto the start line and got on the front row with me, the nerves really started to kick in now, I just wanted to get going.

At 10:00am we were off, I was right at the front row riding next to Nick Craig and Stuart Bowers (Scott UK). We did a 2km road section then did a left turn up a steepish forest track.

I was leading at this point with Nick Craig sat on my wheel following. It felt good to be pushing the pace at the front with the pros, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the pace up for long and soon slowed down letting the pros take over.

I got into my own rhythm and felt really strong; we took a left turn up this very steep climb which was a painful sight to most people as we had been riding for about 5km at the point.

I saw my dad who gave me encouragement and told me not to forget to take drink on. We then turned up again into the mist up another long climb which had some riders having to walk as they slipped out, I managed to ride it all and overtook a couple of riders just before the summit.

Once we got over the top of the climb we came out onto exposed moorland we turned down a singletrack which was about 20 inches wide but in places it was just the width of your front wheel.

It was a mud fest all the way down, I thought there is no way everyone was going to get down it without a crash ,people were starting to have problems with clogged up rear mechs.

My tyres were clogging up and I kept sliding all over the place when I touched my brakes, I saw one guy in front of me go skidding off into the bracken and then he went flying, it made me chuckle.

We hit a forest track which was a relief as it gave me a chance to get rid of the mud from my tyres and get them gripping again!

We climbed up through the forest and I hopped on the back of someone’s wheel and followed them up to the top of the climb. We then came to a rocky and muddy descent, I was feeling pretty sketchy coming down this descent as I sure didn’t want to go down the steep banking on the left, my back tyre was slipping all over the place so I kept the speed fairly slow keeping my hands off my brakes as much as I could and managed to get down to the bottom in one piece.

We were soon back on the forest track for another climb which I really enjoyed it was just a big long drag up to the top of the forest, once again I stayed on someone’s wheel as I realised it worked for me on the previous climb. At the top of this hard forest climb it flattened out and I managed to have a quick energy gel to get some energy back into the system.

I knew that we would have to head back down and soon got onto another muddy descent; to be honest I was looking forward to the challenge! I soon realised that what I thought was a nice decent was getting worse the further down we went. About ¾ of the way down it was turning into a real muddy bog; I would hate to think what it would be like for the 1300 odd riders behind! There was an extremely steep banking further on which I could see riders in front hopping off and walking down as it was that steep, I stupidly decided I would try and ride down it. I did one pedal turn as I went over the edge and soon thought “ Oh s**t ” this is seriously steep, it was approx 7 meters long covered in slippy mud all the way down to the bottom.

Unfortunately I hit a small tree stump which was slap bang in the middle of the descent; I went flying and got catapulted over the handle bars right to the bottom of the banking. Everyone around me was laughing and asked if I was ok. I looked around to see were my bike was and realised it was still at the top of the descent! I certainly didn’t attempt to ride back down again.

We finally got down to another forest track which was a relief and my tyres cleared and I could get some traction. I was feeling strong at this point and was in about 60^th place overall; I knew I could go faster but thought I would pace myself until the latter stages. I hadn’t noticed anyone with a similar number to mine so thought I must be leading the 28km or at least well up.

After cruising along the forest track with a small group for about 1.5 km we came to the feed station were I grabbed a banana without stopping.

A little further on we got to the turn off point were my race separated from other distances. I asked a marshal at the turnoff if anyone else had come through; he said that I was in the lead.

I quickly ate my banana at the start of the climb then started to really push the pace as I was unsure how much of a lead I had. I glanced back down the hill and couldn’t see anyone. I knew my dad would be around the top of this last steady climb as I had seen him first time round. I came around a corner and looked up to see my dad waving to me at the top of the climb which made me feel better. I was beginning to struggle. I grinded away, holding on to my bar ends with my head down, gritting my teeth. I was in agony but I knew once I got to the top it would be downhill all the way to the finish.

I had a brief word with my dad then shot off down the descent; halfway down a photographer from ‘Sleepmonster.com’ took a couple of photos of me descending down the rocky track which was pretty cool. He said I had made very good time, and told me the finish line was very close now.

A final river crossing then down a farm track till I finally hit the road which would take me toward to finish!

I came in 1^st in 1hour 34mins it was a great feeling and I had enjoyed every minute, even though it was hard work!

My dad was really pleased and we went to clean my bike and waited for the 2^nd place rider to come through. He was a good friend of mine Dougie, who lives in Hawick and came in under a time of 1 hour 48 minutes, I had beaten him by 14 minutes.

We were both really chuffed with our results; we congratulated each other and spoke about the course and how our race went.

This was certainly the best course I have ridden to date. I had a great weekend and really enjoyed the race!

As for my team mates

Lewis finished 4^th in the 100km event

Stuart came 2^nd in 75km

Steve came 3^rd in 75km

A good weekend all round.