Hi everyone.

I was really angry with myself yesterday afternoon. I spent ages writing a blog and I just had a couple more lines to write when I accidentally went back a page. I clicked on the forward button to try and get it back, but it was gone forever! It's not the first time I've done it, so I'm going to have to be more careful. I was going to write another one, but I left it for today and did some revision instead.

Anyway, the second round of the National Points xc series was held in the awesome grounds of Drumlanrig Castle the weekend before last. The normal troop of Hetton riders made the journey there and I had arranged to pre ride the course with the Rowlands and Joe. I got there a lot later than they did, so they waited for me halfway round so we could do the last part as a group.

There was a really vicious climb straight after the start line which was short but steep. This was probably the hardest climb of the course. The rest of the course had a mixture of fire road climbs, singletrack descents and switchback climbs. I thought the singletrack descents were really good fun. They had slow, tight switchbacks, steep dropoffs, rock gardens, tricky corners and most of it was covered in tree roots. When I was riding round on my own, there was a corner which had a big root on the outside. I rode up to it and went to lift my front wheel over it, but I completely mistimed it and went straight over the bars. I was OK, and I thought the bike was until later on when the chain kept falling into the spokes. I thought the rear mech might have been knocked out of place, but the hanger was bent and I didn't have a spare one.

When I caught up with the other three, we rode the rest of the course and came across a steep drop next to the finish, with a tricky corner straight after it. The corner didn't look too bad, but it was quite hard to get right. We spent ages on that little section trying it again and again, making sure we could get it right.

The next day, the course was still bone dry and it was very hot. I was hoping for a good race becuase I thought I had picked up some form after the race at Dalbeattie. Before the race, though, I had to find a dropout from someone. I asked one of the bike shop teams if they had a spare, and luckily they did. It turns out I didn't need a new one because the other one could be bent back into shape. Thanks a lot to the guys from A.W Cycles who fixed it for me.

Ali, James, Joe and Kirsty were racing first. Ali finished in a strong 8th position, James came in 21st, Joe finished 8th and Kirsty Raw rode to 4th position.

Alex and I were in the same race, but he started a couple of minutes behind me as he was in a different category. My race plan was to start steady and progressively pick up the pace after the first lap. I carried out the start steady part perfectly, but as soon as I hit the first climb I could feel I had nothing in my legs. I rocketed straight to the back of the field and stayed there for the rest of the race (except for a lap when I overtook someone who was fixing a puncture, but he overtook me again!).

Alex had a good ride, climbing his way through the field to 17th. He was also pleased that someone had told him he was a "smooth rider" and didn't stop going on about it for the rest of the day. Daves race was up next and he had a pretty good ride finishing in 10th position.

Alex, Dave and I stayed around until late on talking to people and watching the future starts race which was really funny and more eventful than the other races put together.

Next weekend is the 3rd round of the Scottish xc series at Fyrish, north of Inverness. I hope I can have a better ride there than I did at Drumlanrig.

There is a 'cross race on at Hetton tonight, and due to popular demand, I will be riding. I won't be going flat out though because of this weekends race, but you need 3 rounds to count for the series so I thought I'd better ride this one.

I'm off to do a bit off revision for my exam tomorrow and unless something drastic happens to my cross bike when I'm riding over to the race, I'll see you tonight.

Joe.