The second round of the BMBS was held at Dalby Forest, a venue that shall host the first round of the 2010 World Cup. After my top 10 result at the first round, I was hoping to have a similarly good result. Dalby forest is an off place to get to, the last quarter of the journey takes half the time, due to a combination of rural roads and a massively long forest drive to finish.

The course was a good one, steep climbs, with similarly steep descents. Much was made of the steep drop at Worry Gill, with queues of people watching as I rode down it without even looking. Some people even went home on the Saturday, so unsettled by the course were they.

A fast start was required to make sure that there wasn’t many riders holding me up in the singletrack. This didn’t all go to plan, as starting from the right side of the front row, with a long left hander right of the start line, meant I got into the first section in about tenth. Patience was the key at this point, as I slowly worked through the riders over the first few sections. This wasn’t enough though, as several hesitant riders allowed the first few riders to get away while i was stuck behind. This is nicely evidenced on Vimeo starting at 9:54. The top three can also be seen running away in this video as several riders wuss out on the drop in front of me.

Going into the last lap I heard the announcer say I was in 5th, so I put the hammer down for the last lap. About 3/4 of the way round I could see the rider in fourth place ahead of me. I caught and passed him on the last steep climb, he was unable to respond to the pace I was setting. So I finished in fourth place, definitely an improvement on the last round.

Results can be seen over at Timelaps.