Firstly my apologies for being a little quiet on the blog front, however since 19th of Feb I’ve been fortunate to tag along with the guys from Orange Monkey Cycling Team, and jet away to Cyprus for three weeks to train and race three UCI early season mountain bike races (Cyprus Sunshine Cup Series).

After an early morning wake up call Friday morning, a drive to Gatwick, and a 4 hour flight, I found myself in a climate where getting up early to train wouldn’t feel like as much of a chore as it have been at times in most parts of the UK lately. Upon arrival at our luxury villa, most of the Friday evening was spent building our bike’s ready for the following day’s training and after getting a bite to eat it was time to get a good nights sleep. Waking up on the Saturday (day before our first race) to clear blue skies and temperatures more than 20′c higher than than back home, I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear and be extremely eager to get out on the bike and practise tomorrow’s course. It feels quite strange to be racing cross country this early in the year, as I only finished the cyclo cross season two weeks previous to this race.
I normally have 5-8 weeks between the end of the cross to the start mountain bike season, which would mean that I’d be able to put in a bulk of base mileage before the season starts, where as now I’ll be doing a lot of miles as well as racing on the weekends. However, I’m sure that the good weather will make this feel easy. A couple of hours on the course, then back to the villa to dangle my feet in our very own private pool seemed like the perfect way to make sure that I’m well relaxed before the race.
Sunday 21st Feb. Race Day. The first race was just outside Larnaca in a little town called Voroklini, which was also where we were staying, meaning that the start line was at the end of our street….convenient!?!? The course itself was really good with steep challenging climbs, technical rocky descents, loose dusty trails and with 2 start loops and 7 laps to get through, it would make a good hard race to kick off the season. Being placed 28th on the grid would mean that I should have a good chance of putting myself up there and mixing it up against some top World Cup riders including World Marathon Champion Roel Paulisson (BEL). Off the start I managed to get inside the top 10 and in the lead group, where I stayed for the until the end of the first lap.
On one of many technicals rocky descents my front wheel scuffed a rock and I ended coming down hard and resulting in a lot of skin loss and a flat tyre. From there I got myself to the pits where I changed wheels and carried on with the race to try and get back in the points, but I’d lost a fair bit of time and as the race progressed I was getting stiffer and stiffer and ending the race feeling extremely sore in 49th position. Needless to say not the best of starts to the trip!

The Following day I woke up with a really sore back as at one point in yesterdays crash I was face down in the dirt with my feet still clipped in and all the time my bike wanted to leap frog my body and I think this must have wrenched it. I was debating whether it might be worth going to find a chiropractor to have it seen to, but when I was doing a few little movements to try and ease it out all my lower back crunched and I felt instant relief so I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. By mid week my back was good, and I’d put in a few quality long road rides before getting ready to meet my family (Fiance, Daughter, Mam and Dad) who had come out for a week to watch the next race of the trip, which would be a three day mountain bike stage race (Friday-Sunday). Thursday the weather took a turn and it was pelting down with rain, so we decided that maybe it would be best to ride the course the morning of the first stage hoping that the weather would be better.

Friday 26th Feb. Stage One. The first stage was up in the mountains near Kapedes and was a one lap time trial of the cross country course that would be used in stage three’s cross country race. Unfortunately the weather hadn’t change and a mud fest it was going to be. The course itself was a mix of sharp steep climbs, fast fire roads and some ‘bum on the back tyre’ muddy descents. My start time was 3:05pm in the afternoon and with only having a small breakfast early in the morning my plan was to race light and hope that this would benefit me on the climbs. I’d done a few laps of the course in the morning and with the weather being so wet and cold, my warm up would be to sit under the extremely hot heaters in the car until 5 mins before the off, as I thought this was the only way to line up with warm legs. Off the start I think my warm up worked as I got into the effort quick and was covering ground well. 2/3rd’s of the way into my lap I had chain suck causing my chain to come off and in a fluster I somehow managed to knock the release clip loose on my Lake shoes making my foot flap around in my shoe. After putting my chain back on, then tightening up my shoe I carried on the effort to the finish. In the end my finishing time for the time trial was only 30secs shy of 3rd, which was a bit frustrating as I know I lost 30secs easy, giving me a finish position of 10th. However, positive start for the first stage.
Saturday 27th Feb. Stage Two. The second stage was a point to point 50km marathon style race, with the highest point being at altitude before dropping down a 30min decent and ending on 1 lap of stage three’s cross country course (all in dry conditions). The race itself started like a normal cross country race….FLAT OUT! Everyone was shifting positions to try and get on the front of the race. I managed to sit in the top 5 at times but every time I was getting to the front, handful of riders would make their way past leaving me to fight my way back into the same position I was in 2 mins ago. Just before the lowest part of the course before the long climb to the top, not too long after the start I somehow with my current luck, I managed to slice my tyre leaving me to ride on a flat until I could get to the first of two pits. By this time I was very nearly last, but with good legs I managed to catch a lot of riders finishing in 25th.
Sunday 28th Feb. Final Stage. The third stage of the race was just a normal style cross country race, but again the weather had changed and was again pelting down and with a really cold wind. Shocking conditions! My plan today was to stay positive feel good about the whole weather situation and finish the race! Off the start I knew there would be a lot of people going off quick and end up paying for it later in the race, so I just rode my own race. At the end of the first lap I came through in 35th position, but By half way I was still smiling when others clearly wasn’t and I started pulling riders back. I crossed the line in 16th, with my hands and feet completely froze! I have to say though I was well impressed how well my dhb Earnley base layer held out the cold, it was fantastic! I’m not going to say I crossed the line lovely and warm, far from it, but if I didn’t have it on I wouldn’t have been able to finish the race, and for that give it a thumbs up! After three days racing I ended up finishing 16th overall.
After the cold race’s of the weekend, I caught a cold resulting in a few days off training and feeling pretty poor. All I could do now was rest and hope that I would recover in time for the final race on the coming weekend. I did get to spend the days with my family though while I was keeping my distance from the other riders in the villa as I didn’t want to pass on any germs, which I’m sure they were happier with even though they are to nice to admit it! By Thursday I felt like I could manage an easy ride, which my legs really needed as they were starting to stiffen up from just shutting off and not doing anything. I continued my easy rides right up to the day of the race on Sunday where it was a case of ‘kill or cure’.
Sunday 7th March. Race Day. The course was situated on the outskirts of Limassol in the archaeological grounds in Amathous, right on the sea front….quite the picture. The course was very bumpy/rocky single track for 90% of it, with a boardwalk over the sea for good measures. After my warm up, I felt a lot better about the coming race as I didn’t feel like I was in that bad shape, however still a little unsure as you never know until the race starts how good your going to feel in a race even when not coming off a cold. On the fast start loop I managed to make my way into the top 15 and feeling fairly normal and holing my position well. by the end of the second lap I started to feel tired and I continued to go backwards from that point on to the end of the race where I came in a disappointing 32nd. However, not to disappointing considering the week I’ve had, and I’m happy that I got to race and not end up watching from the sidelines.

Overall the trip was superb, cracking bunch of guys an gal (Sue Clarke, Anthony Morris, Paul Beales, Chris Andrews and Ben Roff) to go away racing with. Lots of in house banter made the trip fly by, despite a bit of bad luck at times. I hope they invite me again next year as it was a trip not to be missed and certainly not forgotten! Really looking forward for the season to kick off fully and feel there’s some good races just around the corner!

Race Reports + Gallery’s
www.sunshine.mtbcyprus.com/
Orange Monkey Blog
http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtb20100301–Brits-Revel-At-Sunshine-Cup-0

























