Racing

I had a paper round when I was a kid. I still remember all the houses and all their newspapers. The ones with the letterboxes too small for the weekend supplements, or the ones where the letterbox would snap shut as the paper dropped to the mat, leaving you fractions of a second to pull […]

Day 1: Redgrave I tried to give myself a bit more time for my drive up to Redgrave at the weekend, remembering my last journey to Diss, when I skidded our overheating campervan into the car park with 5 minutes to spare. I made the race – just – but, without the benefit of a […]

Photo credit © Judith Parry   The last time I added to my Racing blog was for Battle on the Beach way back in 2015 and, although I have raced a lot since then, I’m only now getting back into some serious, season-long, eat-sleep-drink type racing. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, or […]

When you’ve got a whole country to drive across, you hope that getting out of your home city will be the easy part. Alright, so we’re not talking North American distances here, but 250 miles is a long trip in a van that tops out at 60 mph with a tail wind, and it’s especially […]

 By the time Christmas and New Year is over – with all the eating, drinking and general excess that the festive season always demands – I am sometimes struggling to keep my eyes on the prize. The National Championships is always cruelly close to Christmas, so the week or so between normal service being resumed […]

Although I really love my chosen sport, there’s often a certain amount of relief when the ‘cross season comes to an end. Racing every weekend for 5 or 6 months is tough, not so much the race itself – that’s just a painful hour – but all the stuff that goes along with it really […]

  Here’s an article I wrote for UK-based web site www.cyclocrossrider.com, which was published on the weekend of the UK round of the Cyclo Cross World Cup.

My Eastern League adventures continue, with some more typical cyclocross conditions adding to the excitement. Last weekend’s race at Mistley in Essex was one of the most technical on the calendar, with a wooded hillside providing the setting for one of the few local races that is probably better tackled on a mountain bike. The […]

The weather seems finally to have turned in our part of the world. File treads and short sleeves are gradually being replaced by mud tyres and arm-warmers, although the real ‘cross weather is yet to come. I’ve had a taste of what’s in store on my local training rides. In the space of a rainy […]

Thanks to Neil Ellison for the photograph I’ve had a lot of fun these past few weeks, getting the ‘cross bikes set up and out on the trails. The pre-season prep included a great 3 day “Cross Camp” spent with my Hackney GT teammates and my brand new Major Jake, riding hard and hanging out […]