27th October 2013 'Urban X' - Mates Team Race, Wharncliffe Woods

All fired up from the buzz of my first race I managed to sneak my way into a team to ride my second one pretty soon after! Trev had organised a really cool little mates race down in Sheffield and had a rule that each team had to have at least one girl to be able to take part. Pretty sweet idea if you ask me as its often really intimidating for us girls to enter races and knowing there were going to be a few of us there made it all seem much more accessible.

I was standing in for an injured rider on team WFO, i did apologise in advance for my lack of skill and experience but the lads assured me just the fact they'd get to race was good enough for them so I decided to go ahead and do it. And am I soooo glad that I did! I went down the day before the race to the team WFO HQ - Daz's new shop in Eckington. Met some of the guys and got some new tyres  to try out plus the lads were ace and changed them for me, which was just as well as they were a bit of a struggle to say the least! After that I made my way over closer to the race location and found a spot to park up in the camper and kip overnight, man it was chilly!!!!

Had been a bit scared off the night before by messages saying the girls had been there practising and were finding it pretty tricky, but was too late to back out now so just had to go and give it a whirl so I headed over to Wharncliffe to meet the lads and we rode along to the bottom of the track and started the lung busting push up. I had time for a quick practise run and yep, I found it all pretty tough... a couple of sections I just didn't have time to get to grips with so just had to leave it to chance and do my best. Luckily the lads were really supportive and made light of it all, I'm sure they secretly wished I was amazing so they could win but they assured me it was all about the taking part so I did feel better about that bless 'em.

Was lovely up at the start with the girls, was actually really funny all of us jostling for who was the slowest and who should go last, makes a change from the lads jostling for pole position lol. Then it was time for my first run down, rolled down the start ramp in and bang, stuck on the first rocks- they were quite tricky and weaved in between slippery roots, a few had already come a cropper here and so i decided they were beyond my capabilities and did a special cyclocross manoeuvre deciding to push my bike through them at a jog hahah. Then i hopped back on to finish the rest of the course- most of which i could actually ride (OK couple of tricky bits I had to get off for but hey)- as you can see in the photo I was literally just back on the bike... well half and  half anyway hahah, but still smiling and laughing :-) Thanks to Dave Clarkson for the fab photo, well timed and captured my spirit for the day I think :-) Shame he didn't get a snap from behind to show where I'd split my shorts falling on a rock- much to Trev's amusement ;-)

Our team did great considering I was in it. The boys put in some amazing times, Chris and Andy were on fire and Mike and Nick too even after some sketchy moments! And when the split times came out i wasn't the slowest so I'd already improved from my last outing. To add to that I think I'd managed to bring a smile to Trev's stressed face and met some amazing new friends and riding buddies. The Sheffield crew are second to none and it was an absolute pleasure, especially meeting the lovely Lorna- my fellow 'Pink Bike Princess' who made that horrible push-up bearable as I had an ace natter buddy and the nicest lads in DH history on the WFO team, ee its making me feel quite teary just writing this now hahahaha.

Can't wait to be back down there and do some more riding with these guys :-)