Isaac Starmer travelled to Torquay for the third round of the National Trophy Cyclocross Series. Here is his write-up:
All photos courtesy of Man Down Media
I was gridded 5th for Round 3 of the Series and had hopes of finishing on the podium. The conditions were not great for me; it was relatively dry but there were a few slippy corners and off-cambers to worry about. I had a great start and was leading into the first banked section.
However, worrying too much about who was behind didn’t give me the best line out of one of the corners, and I got overtaken by another rider. Through the first lap, because of the technical start, I looked back and it was all very spread out and I saw some of my rivals a bit further back so decided to give it everything to make sure they didn’t get back on. By the end of the first lap I was in 4th position, working with another rider who was the winner of Round 1. There were two riders out front by around 5 seconds. Fortunately, I did not crash throughout the race but on the other hand, I hadn’t practised the technical sections enough at speed so wasn’t getting the most speed out of them.
For the next couple of laps I was slightly distanced from 3rd place. For the last part of the race I noticed that the leaders started making mistakes but I just couldn’t get back on and the thought of a podium slowly drifted away. On the last lap I was fully focused on holding 4th place as I could see the rider behind me was closing in and fortunately I fended him off enough to take 4th place. Having relatively consistent lap times was something I was happy with as well. Ultimately, I was slightly frustrated to be so close to a podium position but of course I am happy with my first ever National top 5! I keep saying this but I hope that we can have some mud at the next round at Clanfield!
Of course I would love to thank my Dad, Future Bikes Colchester, CRCC, and the Eastern Cyclocross League for helping me to be at these races.