Douglas F Shearer

SCCS 2006 - Round 3 - Plean Country Park

The Plean race organised by Stirling Bike Club was always going to be one of the best of the series. Set on a weekday evening instead of the weekend, it was going to involve lights!

The course was a new one for Plean, and really enjoyable. A few tight spots, but mostly flat out on long stretches around the bings. Lap times were around six minutes, which was pretty fast considering the course was just under two miles in length.

The start was fast, and racing en-mass with so many other racers made it more exciting than usual. The dark, lit up only by our lights, and the high speeds, made it pretty exhilarating!

By the 4th lap is was pretty well up the field, sitting on Iain Nimmo’s (SBC/Wheels) wheel. Going into the 5th lap my contact lens fell out, so that was me finished for the night.

James Fraser-Moodie (Pedal Power RT) won. I’ll link to results when they’re available.

I was a bit disappointed as it was one of the best races I’ve done this year, and I was feeling on particularly good form. Always next time!

Update

Results are now available.

SXC Round 1 - Laggan

Sunday saw the first round of the SXC Series at Laggan. A great course, consisting of a big climb and a stunning rocky descent, and the sun making an appearance, led to happy faces all round.

Iain Nimmo (Stirling Bike Club Wheels of Callander) won the masters (>30yo) race by only 36 seconds, with Greig Walker (Edinburgh Road Club) coming in second. Prasad Prasad (C21 Multisport) suffered a mechanical, and was unable to finish the masters race. Kenny Kently (Team Velo Ecosse) continued his domination of the veteran (>40yo) series from last year, with a convincing lead of several minutes.

For the second season I was competing in the Expert/Elite category (The fast boys). After my not so stunning performance at the BUSAs, I wasn’t really expecting too much from this race. The short course meant that we had been given six laps, meaning a race time of around two hours.

I started well, sitting in the second group for the first lap. I dropped the group on the second lap, with Calum Thomas (Pedal Power RT) joining me on the third lap. By the fourth lap Calum had made the jump to the wheel of Chris Murley (Sandy Wallace Cycles) up ahead. By the time I caught Chris going into the final lap, Calumn had made his moves and was now up ahead on his own. A last lap effort prevented Euan Pope (Rockhard Mountain Bike Club) and his teammate Barry Crumlish from catching me.

I finished in sixth place, something I am pretty happy about. The race was won by Ross Creber (Evans RT), with Any Barlow (The Bike Chain) in second, and James Fraser-Moodie (Pedal Power RT) in third.

Thanks to the organisers and all the supporters at the race, especially Iain and Janet Nimmo who made me laugh going into my last lap. Oh, and not frgetting my mum for the lift.

Full results are available in PDF format". The Next round is at Fort William, so should be another good race.

Pic courtesy SXC website.

Stirling Bike Club

Currently I’m developing a new site for Stirling Bike Club.I’ve set up a blog page specifically for it which you can check out here.