Mountain Bike Racing for Banbury Star
We don’t always associate mountain bike racing, riding with the summer months, we could be wrong of course ?
On Friday May 13th four members of Banbury Star : Richard Baker, Steve Goddard, Garry Putt and Junior Rueben Baker (in his first mtb race) joined the field of 110+ riders for Round 2 of the local Friday Night Summer Series (FNSS) mtb competition over at Borough Hill on southeast side of Daventry.
The weather was near perfect with warm sunshine, apart from the wind….which our competitors the teeth of across the top of the hill, in theory it was blowing them back up the steepest section.
The course layout was a credit to the organiser who we understand had spent some serious time carving/strimming a rewarding, twisty path through a wooded section on the side of the hill which included an exhilarating fast descent. There were then some more open areas on the grass and the unusual concrete strips from the days the venue was used for radio and radar development to spread the pack out and allow overtaking. Course was lovely and dry but not so much that it caused the bikses kick up too much dust.
First lap was frantic trying to find your place in pecking order,Richard Baker did have to do a “rapid-dismount” on the first section of off-camber roots…pride hurt but no harm done and recovered quickly. The team members enjoyed lots of fun racing with so many in the field there’s always someone to duel with.
Hats off to Steve for a great result just outside the top 10 in a very large and competitive category. Richard and Garry got 4 laps in as opposed to the 5 of the leaders, with Richard securing a top 20 position.
Looking forward to another eight rounds of this series before the end of July with some great venues.