I managed to finish the race this time, and what’s more I managed to place ninth out of twenty in my category without any training and with hardly any riding for the last six weeks. I wasn’t even pushing that hard, I slowed up slightly after a couple of laps because I could feel myself developing a headache for some reason. I inadvertently managed to time my last lap perfectly so I didn’t have to do a sixth circuit, but was the fastest of the five-lap riders, so I got to see all the other racers crossing the line. The course was great fun, a bit quicker and less technical than previously but certainly not to the point of being boring, and I found myself riding more smoothly as the race went on. I’d like to go back to Lee Quarry soon and just zoom around as hard as I can for a day, it’s really good fun riding there.

Rick came racing too but he was a bit unlucky. He was stung by a bee that got itself sucked into a helmet vent on lap one, and had a couple of pedal-related crashes due to his SPDs being a bit sticky, but he made it round to a very respectable five-lap 14th place, only a few minutes behind me.

The picture up there was taken whilst marshalling by my mate Chris who is a brilliant photographer, if you need some photos taking you should hire him.