BMBS Round 1

The British Mountain Bike Series kick off last weekend at Sherwood Pines Forest and 4 out of the six CNP - Orbea riders were in action.


Sadly for Cameron he attended but his stitched gashes in his knee (obtained at SXC r.d.1) were too deep for him to be able to race. Fingers crossed they are all healed by Dalby in 3 weeks time.

Junior rider Matt Sumpton stole the show using his new found flat power and impeccable bike handling skills to stick with Grant Ferguson and challenge him to a sprint finish after 1hr 12 min of racing. Unfortunately Grant's experience got the better of Matt and in the closing metres and the British Cycling supported rider got the better of him. 


To put Matt's rate of improvement in context on a similar course 12 month's ago he finished Minutes down on Grant. 

In the biggest Elite field of the past 15 years of 68 riders John Whittington rode strongly after a poor start moving steadily upwards each lap. John eager to push after a slow start dug a little too deep and towards the end it caught up with him dropping him down a couple of places back to more than respectable 33rd place. 

Oli's race was over almost quickly as it started breaking his chain 100metres into the race a slightly slow chain replacement meant Oli then raced by himself for the next 1hr 45mins trying not to interfere with the expert and Junior races that he was now in the middle of. The team all hope Oli's run of bad luck will end and he slowly get back to were he use to be. 


In the Masters category Darren fought hard and rode what he described as his best Sherwood Pines performance finishing a decent 24th on a course parcour that doesn't suit Darren strengths. 



More in depth rider views to follow.