Sometimes it takes more than riding in anger to bridge the gap!
After my first two Pro Xterra races, it's become apparent that most of the time I've lost to the leaders has been during the bike stage of the race. This has not only surprised me but also my coach and training partner Craig, as we both felt that my biking has gone very well on the road this year, and that the form would have been easily transferable to the mountain bike. Xterra bike courses however are far from just gravel roads! A 3 part plan of attack has therefore been set in place:
1. We know that I have the engine in me to mix it up at the level required, so we shall continue with the physical road based bike sessions.First stop is this Sunday at The Southern XC Round 6, on the physically demanding and technically exhilarating Pippingford Estate course situated on the edge of the Ashdown forest.
2. The bike needed some alterations, so longer travel forks to take care of the bumps and a tubeless wheel set up (to stop any more re-runs of my flat tire disaster in Germany) have both been fitted!
3. I need to speed up my bike handling and technical riding after having had some time out of mountain biking, so will be riding pure cross country bike races between Xterra events. These all out 1-2hr events should get me used to hitting the trails at above Xterra race pace, and have me ready to flow.
