The day started with a feeling like nothing I had ever felt before! It was the morning of my first ever World Cup mountain bike race. I was nerves but at the same time I felt a real excitement for what lay ahead of me. It was only last year I was watching World Cup races on TV wondering what it would be like to be racing in one of those races.

Our race was 7 laps of a 4.7km track which was taking me about 18 minutes to complete. With 170 people on the starting list this was by far the biggest race I had ever been in and this is a small number of starters compared to other world cups. For those that haven’t seen how these races start just imagine this: All riders are placed on the start grid according to their UCI rank. A 30 second call is given and all 170 riders move from their start grid to as close to the front as they can. A 15 second call is given then a gun sounds at any time after. Once the gun goes off the pack of up to 20 riders wide leave nothing but a cloud of dust behind them. There was a crash 10 seconds after the start, someone clipped another riders wheel and brought about 15 people hurtling to the ground. I was just able to squeeze through without losing much time. After the start strait the race turned onto a fire trail which wound up a hill which then merged into a single track decent back down the hill.

This was South Africa’s first ever World Cup and they made it a memorable experience for all. Each of the 3 disciplines Cross Country, Downhill and Four Cross had exceptionally well crafted tracks that people will be talking about for years. The cross country track was 2 main loops both starting and finishing at the main event centre. Each loop consisted of a climb for the first half and a decent for the second half.

From practising the track in the days leading up to the race I had worked out the power I needed to ride the first climb thanks to my new PowerTap from the Tasmanian Institute of Sport which is a computer that measures power, cadence, speed, heart rate and much more. The first lap always starts very fast but with the PowerTap I was able to gauge if I was going too hard or not hard enough and just ride my own race. I got a bit carried away with all the excitement so I rode a little harder than I should have which did pay its toll the rest of the lap. As the race went on I found a good steady pace balancing both my heart rate and power output which I settled into for the rest of the race.

In the end I placed about 78^th and being my first World Cup there were many things I had learnt which I will be taking with me and putting into play in 2 weeks time for World Cup #2 at Offenburg in Germany.

Ian Mackinnon on May 09, 2009

Well done Charlton. The first is now out of the way. And as you said you have learnt a lot. I would image the track and race in Germany will be different, bringing with it new challenges and experiences.