PMR@Toachim House at RD4 of the Mud Sweat & Gears Series

On Sunday 16th June Vitus supported rider Neil Lomax headed up to Bury St Edmonds for round 4 of the Mud Sweat and Gears series.

 

This race consisted of 7 laps of a fairly short course, around 2.8 miles. It was fairly simple in technical terms, but extremely bumpy and had a few long hills in there.

The race started well and I was instantly in the top 10 after being gridded quite near the back (a disadvantage of missing some races to do the Southern XC). The start was a bit of a bumpy uphill drag before it swung round and came back down the hill with a couple of awesome sweeping burms around a tree and then headed up hill again, where the field started to spread out and I had a bit of a gap behind me. I could still see the leaders and was feeling good so kept up with them.

As the race progressed, it became difficult to keep up with the leaders as there was a lot of traffic with back markers that were struggling with the hills. I didn't realise at the time (it was difficult to work out who was in my category and who was a back marker!) but I was actually running 4th until the final lap where I was overtaken, but I kept up with him and he was tiring, so I stayed with him and planned to overtake him as the finish approached.
Luck was not on my side though, I managed to knock the chain off by hitting a big root and lost touch with him, and couldn't catch him before the finish.

I managed to end up in 5th out of a field of 48 riders, 9 minutes behind the leader.

The bike performed, as is a recurring trend now, faultlessly and I was really throwing it round the corners and into the bomb holes – the bike took everything like a trooper!

Apart from the chain dropping off, which I feel could be a cable tension adjustment, I am still loving this bike, and at every race I get more and more people making comments like 'that's a nice bike!' and 'that's one of them Vitus', they do some really nice bikes'.

My next race is on the 30th June, where I head to Reading for the 3rd round of the Southern XC. In this series I am currently running 3rd in the overall standings.