Wed, January 6th, 2010
Holiday training and racing
Thomas in muddy conditions. Picture from a previous race
With training races on each side of New Years it would pay off to keep the wheels spinning through Christmas. I tried my best but honestly felt I could’ve done better. The results weren’t too bad though. With a third and first place I feel a bit more relaxed about my training effort but are still alarmingly aware that a lot of work lies ahead in order to keep up the pace in the spring.
The third round of the cx-cup took place on New Years Eve on a fast rock-frozen course. My closest rivals from the second round, Henrik Andersen and Jonas Pedersen both from HMTBK, were at the start line including favorite for next week’s nationals in Århus, Tommy Nielsen. Right from the gun all three pushed hard to get to the front before the only but tricky downhill. Henrik Andersen got caught by some gnarly frozen tire-tracks and bruised his knee pretty bad. That same knee was in for some more punishment three days later (see below). Out on the 2 km long pavement section, Tommy Nielsen showed his favorite status and made a significant gap to everybody but Jonas. However, the youngster had to pay for his effort to stay on Tommy’s wheel and I was able to reel him in a couple of laps later. We kind of had a tag-team race from there on, taking turns to pull at the front, dropping our chains and chasing down Tommy. We got to within a dozen seconds but never caught him. I messed up on the descent on the penultimate lap and simply hadn’t the strength to close the gap on Jonas who took second. Henrik A and his swollen knee finished in fourth. The event finished in style with champagne and marzipan ring cake for everybody. All races should be like that!
Three days later the fourth round of the Slush Cup went down near Elsinore. Unbelievable but true, it was even colder with temperatures down to -4C°. I suddenly recalled the joys of being a competitive cyclo-cross competitor. Anyway, with no cross races on that particular day the starting list included not only the usual suspects but also aforementioned Tommy Nielsen and Henrik Andersen. The course was relatively flat, but ice and frozen wheel-tracks made it a technical and bumpy experience. Actually I had anticipated to see a glimpse of four-time worldchampion (3xMTB, 1XCyclo-cross) Henrik Djernis, who was at the starting gate. An early puncture put him out of the race ahead of time but I’m sure he’ll make it to the super-final for the next round of the Urban Slush. The icy course had its first victim on the start-loop whenRasmus Jessing crashed hard. Luckily he seemed all good afterwards and had even picked up my timing-chip after a close encounter with his bike. Early on I got away with the thin-wheel-specialists Henrik and Tommy. We must have made a pretty odd looking trio. Me on a fully, Henrik on a hard-tail and Tommy on a cross-bike. That Tommy is one crazy son of a b… I had small advantage on him at the most tricky sections be threw that bike around like there was no tomorrow. It was good racing however, and we slowly distanced the others. Two thirds into lap two of three the skinny tires slid away under him and my luck saw Henrik A do just the same a second later. Another blow to his already banged up knee. Was I to ride fair and wait or go full gas? Henrik closed back up to me and that kind of settled things. Full gas! The last lap was pretty gnarly with a lot of overtaking on the icy course. The last 300 meters from the finish was one the more technical sections and I decide to go full out and try to take advantage of my fully. It was a successful move that almost backfired. I could’ve gone out on one more lap with two seconds remaining. Fortunately, Henrik didn’t seem eager to contest another lap either, so we both pulled the brakes and settled for three laps.
Next round of the Slush Cup will be the Urban Slush. Rumor has it that it will yet again be a real urban-mtb-course suiting the technical riders. It’s right in my back yard at the old Burmeister & Wain shipyard. And I will be bringing my crew along. Get ready for the blue armarda!
