Hi everyone.

Sorry I haven’t written anything in a while but I’ve had exams so I’ve been revising quite a bit. I did my last exam for this year this afternoon, so I can relax for a bit now. I’ve got the rest of the week off school so that will give me plenty of time to waste, but I’ve got to go back next week.

The weekend before last was the 3rd round of the SXC series way up north in Fyrish, just north of Inverness. I went there with Andrew and Joe Home and Ali. James was supposed to be coming, but he didn’t want to race after his crash the week before. He still got lots of riding in because the Rowlands went to Dalbeattie for the week.

The journey up to our campsite was quite fun. We were watching a DVD for the first part and then were staring at the scenery for the second part. It took ages to get there because we made quite a few stops and we were travelling for about 7 or 8 hours. When we got to the campsite, we unpacked our stuff into the bunkhouse where we were staying and then drove to the course. It only took a couple of minutes to get there because we were right next to it. The was a really steep drop right next to where we parked the car, so we rode that a couple of times while we were waiting for everyone to get ready.

A couple of minutes later, we set off to ride the course with Alex and Dave. Right from the start there was a big climb with a little bit of flat, bumpy fire road in the middle of it. This led into a short piece of slippy, twisty, uphill singletrack that we rode a couple of times to make sure we got the line right. This led into a section called “killer climb” which was as hard as it sounds. It was really steep and went on for quite a while until the track turned off into a descent. You’d think that because it was downhill you could have a rest, but you had to pedal loads and put a lot of effort in which isn't what you need after a long climb.

After that, there was another climb which lasted for ages and got steeper and steeper. This took us right to the top of the course and it was easy to get distracted by the views of the water at the bottom of the hill on the way up. The descent after this was good fun, but in keeping with the rest of the course so far, it was really hard work. I was going quickly on the bottom half and was impressed with myself because I was gaining on Ali, but it didn’t last too long. There was a steep little ditch that the track went through and I came into it a bit too fast. My front wheel hit the bottom of the other side of the ditch and sent me straight over the bars. My bike landed on my head and I was stuck underneath it with my leg bent in a weird way. Alex found it funny and laughed for a while before helping me up!!

There were no more climbs on the course , but there was still plenty of singletrack left. Back at the cars we talked about the course and we didn’t like it because some of the descending was done on fire roads and the rest of the descents were really hard work.

After having dinner that night, we walked back to the campsite and played golf with tennis balls in the park to see who could hit the ball the furthest. Ali ended up winning, but I’m sure it was just because he had the best club!!!

I had hardly any sleep that night but I’m not sure why, so I was tired when I first got up. That wore off after breakfast, though and we went to the course. It had stayed bone dry so it was really fast. Joe, Ali, Dave and I were all in the first race and because the course was so hilly, I started slowly and took it relatively easy for the first lap. I was quite a long way behind fourth place, but by the middle of the third lap I had him in my sights and caught up to him by the end of the lap. I led him at the start of the lap up the climb to the fed zone. When we got there he attacked through it and zoomed off for about 100 metres. I kept a steady pace, though, because there was a lot of climbing left. It didn’t take long before I caught him back up. He sat on me for a while, but I dropped him and ended up finishing 4th.

After the race, my thoughts about the course had changed and I loved it. It was my favourite one of the season. Ali came second in his race, even after getting a puncture towards the end. Joe finished 2nd as well, so those two were going really well. Dave didn’t get lapped and battled round his last lap to finish his race. Alex was in the race after us and finished 10th.

After the presentation, we loaded the car and set off home. I was gutted at this point because I realised I had lost my phone. Luckily, we had a phone call from the place we were staying at and they found my phone so I don’t have to get another one now.

On the way home, Joe was trying to persuade Andrew to make a bit of a detour and take us to Laggan so we could ride the trails there. We didn’t think he was going to, but he turned off and we were on our way. After a couple of wrong turns and a bump with another car, we got there and did some riding. It was really good and the view from the top was amazing. The next stop from there was Dumfries to drop Ali off because he was staying in Dalbeattie. It was getting on for 11o’clock and we still had hours of driving before we got home. We decided to stay in a Travelodge for the night and we drove to one to find out that it was full and had to drive back the way we came to get into another one. Joe was hyper in the car and was dancing and singing all the way.

The next morning, we had breakfast and set off. We weren’t going home just yet, though, as we stopped off at Glentress and Joe and I rode the black route there. We had a really good ride and rode some of the newly built trails a few times because they were so good. We had dinner in the café at the bottom of the forest and set off for home for the third time! This time we did make it back, but it took ages as we were stuck behind slow cars all the way.

Thanks a lot to Andrew for letting me tag along for the weekend because I had a great time. I’ve done hardly any training recently because of my exams, so I’m looking forward to getting back into it.

This is my longest ever blog so I've saved it to my computer because I'd cry if I lost it like the last one.

See you all on Saturday,
Joe.