After my disastrous start to my 2009 SXC campaign, I was hoping for better at round 2. Things were looking up as soon as the course was announced way back in November; Aberfoyle! Compared to the berms, jumps and baby-smooth groomed trails of the likes of Laggan, Kirroughtree and Glentress, Aberfoyle is a mountain-bikers paradise. I shall bore you with descriptions of my pre-rides, the first was in heavy rain a few weeks before, which made the many steep and rooty descents slightly dicey, but altogether very good fun. The second was in dusty dry conditions a few days before, where even a sedate lap came in at under 22 minutes.

In true Aberfoyle style, it rained for the day preceding the race, and continued until at least midday of the race. Guess what? The course was even more fun! Mud made the previously easy bits between the steep bits into something technical themselves, and apart from one traverse which I chose to run most laps, it was all rideable and resulted in massive smiles on the faces of lots of riders. OK, so that’s the course looking good, how about the race?

I got off to a good start, settling into about 8th on the first forestry-road climb. For the next few laps I made pace with Dave Henderson (Pedal Power RT), sharing some embarrassing and at the same time funny moments on the traverse mentioned above. On the last lap I passed him going into the second singletrack climb, and put a bit of a gap in. We’d caught and passed Liam McGreevy (Banbridge CC) on the penultimate lap, but I could see him coming back, so I kept pushing hard up the last climb. Coming into the finish Liam was right behind me, and despite my best efforts (hampered by my choice to run large tyres finally causing my stays to finally fill up with mud), he came round me on the last corner to claim 5th, with me taking 6th (1st expert). Ace!

First year junior Kenta Gallagher (777 Racing) put in an awesome race to win the Expert/Elite category. Future superstar, right there!

Next up is the giant big-ring BMX course that is Laggan. Oh joy.

Results are on the SXC website.