There aren’t many things that can beat riding a mountain bike on hard, dry, fast woodland trails. Even when you’re in the middle of a one hour cross-country race, you’re sucking in air from the next county and you’re trying not to think of the taste of blood in your throat, the suffering is made infinitely more tolerable when your bike goes precisely where you point it and your gears are always working as they should. It’s also a novelty to not have to clean your bike afterwards – most of the time in the UK the bike becomes more and more heavy as mud is applied to the frame, layer by layer. Sometimes the only way to clean off the muck and sods of grass is by poking the whole sorry mass with a stick.

My fantastic Highball CC after the race. No mud!

Not last night though. I LOVED last night’s dry, fast and dusty Midweek Madness race in Leverhulme Park. I have no idea at this point where I finished but it’s up there with the most enjoyable races I’ve ever done. Maybe it was the presence of loads of other riders who all seemed to be in a similar frame of mind as I was. Even the one or two crashes and ‘racing incidents’ were good-natured and resulted in giggling rather than swearing and handbags (I was even involved in one ‘coming together’ with the race leader…sorry Chris!).

I started quite near the back, which is more to do with me missing the line-up after being preoccupied with talking to other riders that I hardly ever see now that I live 200 miles away from Manchester, but it didn’t matter. This one was most definitely for fun rather than pointy elbows.

The course even had a couple of scary/tricky bits and plenty of painful climbs – for an urban park that takes some doing and it’s great to see Leverhulme Park becoming more and more popular and established in the Manchester XC and cyclocross scene. Oh, and it’s a 3 mile ride from my mum and dad’s house, which means that my post-race meal is always on the large side 😉

The next race in the series is on the 30^th May near Wigan. Get your name down!