After three weeks off the bike with a(nother) knee injury, I decided to take my return to racing easy. The 50km Whyte Enduro at Drumlanrig was a superb choice; terrain I love, no pressure to do well, and a chilled-out atmosphere.

I decided I was definitely going to take it easy, so took the start easy, spinning away at my gears while others stomped on the pedals up the first fire-road. This payed off pretty quickly, as people started going backwards as soon as the gradient kicked up. After the initial climb it was a short fire-road descent to the middle section of fast rooty descents.

I love these descents, especially when I can use the smooth lines to hold speed. Unfortunately traffic was a bit of a problem, with me nearly crashing twice taking risks to get past people. It never ceases to amaze me how many riders obviously don’t ride technical trails with roots outside of racing. None of these guys were Scottish, so maybe they need to visit the north more often!

On the second lap I didn’t take a bottle. Mistake! I stopped for a few minutes to give a guy a pump, and pulled in to let Nick Craig and Will Bjergfelt past.

Third lap I was starting to feel the heat a bit, did I mention it was 25C plus? Lovely! I caught Vo who was doing the 75km on this lap, and sat just off his wheel for the rest of the lap.

As soon as I started the final lap I could feel the dehydration hitting me. I emptied the bottle I had just taken, but needed more. Luckily Iain and Janet (Nimmo) were having a wander round the track, and gave me some more water, total stars! I had dropped Vo, but later on I had really bad cramps, so he passed me again while I was on the ground stretching the cramp out of my legs. The rest of the lap was a bit of a struggle, and I was pretty shaky at the finish.

16th, not to bad after time off the bike, at least I was happy with it. Hopefully I’ll get more riding in over the next few weeks.

Cheers to Vo for driving.