Photos taken by Enigmatic Photography; all photographs of the event can be viewed on flickr.
Sunday dawned wet and miserable and I was seriously questioning why it had seemed like a good idea to register for Round 3 of the Nutcracker Series a week ago. It wasn’t the weather, it was just one of those days when you know you’re going to struggle and you start thinking do I need to do this? YES, YES, YES by 4pm I was hot, sweaty and feeling on top of the world - its amazing what a bit (make that a lot) of adrenaline can do for a girl.
Anyhow to go back to the beginning. Sunday 13th June 2010 was the third race in the Nutcracker Series and it was at Dalby Forest on the World Cup course. Wow, only a few weeks earlier thousands of people had congregated here to watch the best XC mountain bikers in the world battle it out on this course.and now we were here again with our own bikes in tow.
First up was Ben at 10am competing in the Juvenille section. Now you have to bear in mind that Ben gets out once a week on a Wednesday night for a quick blast round the North Yorkshire Moors. But like his mother he’s never been one to let a little thing like lack of preparation stop him having a go. I was glad they had taken out two of the more death defying sections of the course for everyone under 16; namely the big drop off in Worry Gill and a hair raising descent known as Medusa’s Drop. Even so I wasn’t completely sure whether I was exhibiting extremely good or extremely bad parenting skills in encouraging him to get stuck in … whichever it was definitely extreme. Just under an hour later and he was back safe and sound after completing two laps of the course. That's my boy!
In the meantime Adam had signed up for the Sweat Monster’s Academy but he was going to need convincing that he hadn’t been fobbed off with a second rate option for little kids. Judging by his demeanour at the end of the session they did a really good job! It was an added bonus to find out that all his hard work paid off with a well earned third place.
The Sweat Monster's Academy started with a skills session, which was a sort of obstacle course on a bike. There were cones to cycle in and out of, a bottle to pick up and put down while on the go and even a limbo pole to cycle under. After plenty of coaching and practice everyone did a timed lap of the circuit with seconds added on for cones missed, bottles dropped etc. Then after a short break everyone reconvened at the bike park for the race session. Again there was plenty of instruction and advice before the flag was dropped and it was every boy and girl for himself as they battled it out to see who could do the most laps in 15minutes. There was some serious effort being put in as the number of laps mounted and kids refused to back down on the pace they had set for themselves. Then when the dust had settled there were free t-shirts all round for everyone who had taken part. It is not an easy task to provide an enjoyable yet challenging mountain biking session for such a large group of kids with such a wide range of ages and abilities but the Sweat Monster’s Academy did a first rate job. Very impressive.
So by midday the kids were done and dusted and we had a couple of hours to kill before my race was due to start at 2pm. The sensible option would have been to take in the atmosphere, watch the elite riders doing their thing and generally chill. However, being a mother I decided there was just enough time to make a quick trip to Whitby and back so that son number one could attend a school production dress rehearsal between 1 and 5 pm. Of course I forgot to take into account the weekend traffic and so arrive back at Dalby with only a few minutes to go before my race started. The women vets opted for 3 laps of the course and not having had chance to do a practice lap I struggled on the first one. Earlier in the day I’d been chatting to a mate who was also cycling and she had talked of a particular slab of rock she was having trouble getting her head round. It was one of those short, sharp verticals that needed total commitment as you didn’t want to find yourself just short of the top and going backwards out of control. Coming round a corner I realised I was on the approach to said obstacle and promptly bottled it, re-routing up the side before being upended onto the slab itself. This was a tad embarrassing given there were plenty of on lookers - still if I was worried about looking silly I'd never get on my bike!
First lap done I got into the groove, the competition was long gone but I got stuck in and as the say 'the more you put in the more you get out'. Finishing just under two hours later I felt like a winner regardless. The support round the course from onlookers and other competitors alike made it impossible not to keep turning those pedals. This is just one of the best places in the UK to race and there is another chance coming up soon as part of the British Mountain Biking Series the first weekend in July. As for the Nutcracker Series, Swaledale on the 22 August 2010 should be earmarked in your diary.
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