MUDDY CONDITIONS AT MARGAM

On Friday 28th of May I travelled down to Margam with Jenna and Jill and three tents and had a marathon journey to the race venue. It was bank holiday weekend and traffic was awful. I left Ryan with his nose in his Physics book, as he had his Higher to sit in the afternoon.

We finally arrived at about 7pm and put up all three tents. Jenna and I went round the course and found it nice and dry with nothing too technical. Well, I managed to ride all of it, so it couldn't have been too bad! Jenna was not inspired by the course and said it was quite boring!

Bob arrived about 10.30pm having waited for Ryan, Ross and Grant (a friend from Peebles) to all complete their exams. Tents were up, so after something to eat, it was straight to bed. Woke up in the morning to rain, which stayed with us all day. Trying to cook porridge on the stove was not an easy task! Ryan had a quick pre ride of the course to see what was ahead and Ross warmed up opting not to go round in the rain. Ryan was soaked through on his return and had to do a change before racing started.

Racing started at 10am and all three riders got a good clean start. Youths do 3 laps at an NPS and Juveniles 2 laps. The longer race suits Jenna and the muddy challenging conditions suited her even better, as she took first place! From not rating the course the day before, she thought it was far more interesting in the wet. The Youths race was hard going and they were finishing three laps in over 1.5 hours. The mud and rain slowed everyone up and lots of people were falling off. Ryan finished 2nd and Ross 6th which they were both please with.

It was my intention to stay another night and they could have taking part in a 25km or 50km the next day. But due to everything being wet, soggy and muddy we took a vote and came home on the Saturday night to get dried out. I am glad to say that the return journey was much faster.