Fixx Supercross Cup Tymon Park

Round 3 of the Fixx Supercross Cup took place in Tymon Park last Sunday on a cold morning with plenty of showers thrown in, perfect cyclo cross weather if you are a bike handling god not so perfect if you struggle a bit with the technical stuff. Having watched the you tube clip of last years race I was confident enough I would be able to handle the course ok as it did not look as technical as the previous round in Swords. I managed to ride 3 laps of the course before the race and was happy enough as there was a few long straights that would suit a roady like me. The spiral section I was less impressed with basically this was were you turned left for 3 circles that got tighter with each turn and then right for 3 more circles in the opposite direction. There was a also a drop off on the course and a bit of an off camber section up and down a banking but overall a good course that was drenched due to all the rain.

I learned my first lesson of the day (there would be a few) upon completing my warm up laps. I had done my laps with about 45 psi in the tyres and and spent the laps slip sliding my way around I was chatting to a lad in the car park and I asked him how much pressure he had in his tubs and he said 25psi I had clinchers so I asked him how much he would recommend and he said 28!! so I took his advice and went with 35 to play it safe as I did not want to risk a puncture. It made a big difference to the grip levels but I still had the fear of a pinch puncture. My second and third lessons of the day were learnt before the start of the race, the first was to wash my bike after the warm up laps I had complete three laps and it was covered in mud which would make a difference as the race dragged on, the second lesson was to get to the start line as early as possible as I am not ranked in the top 20 its a battle to get the 21st position on the grid, the start is super important and starting in 35th does not help your day. Must camp out on the start line early for the next race.

The race started at the usual 100 miles an hour the first lap settled down to the usual lungs on the handle bars experience as I tried to get around the rider in front while trying to prevent any riders over taking me, one or two riders slid out on corners on the first lap but I managed to avoid the worst of the carnage. Laps two and three went ok I was managing to hold my own but was loosing about 5 bike lengths to everyone on the spiral section, must practice riding around in circles more!!! On lap 4 I learnt my fourth and most important lesson of the day: that despite the race being only 1 hour long you can still get the knock and blow up! I started going backwards on this lap and during the following laps I was loosing the will to live and hoping the race would end soon. I had started the race with the goal of not getting lapped by Robin Seymore as you don't get lapped by Robin there is a chance you will be knocking around the top ten. But I was very happy to see Robin lapping me after 6 laps as this meant my race would be over a lap earlier than planned. On my last lap I blew completely and was about 3 minutes slower than my first lap, on the run ups I was not running any more I was walking on the drop off I was not concerned about hitting the three at the bottom of it I was dreaming of cans of coke and the fastest way possible to get calories into my system. I was very happy to see the finish line, I was also very disappointed with my performance but you have to have the bad days in this sport to appreciate the good ones and at little bit of me was already looking forward to the next cross race