Great Orme Road Race 2015

Last weekend I headed to Llandudno for the race around the great orme, this race is very hilly and has a fast descent back down to the foot of the climb, the youth race would do 3 complete laps of the orme and after signing on at 8 o clock we were all ready on the start line at 9 o clock, we were set off and the first mile of the race was neutralised,  but after that the attacks started coming thick and fast with many riders going out the back on the first part of the climb, a fairly big group still made it to the top of the orme together and all descended hitting speeds of up to 43MPH in some places on the climb , after the descent it was a short piece of road through the streets of Llandudno before we hit the foot of the climb again, this time not so many attacks came and we all road through and off up to the final 800m when the attacks started to come on the steeper slopes, I did have a go myself but like all the other attacks the were swiftly brought back in, this time the group had whittled down to around 25 of us again descending of speeds of 40MPH +, we came through the start finish straight and the bell rang loud, and again not many attacks came and everyone was trying to save themselves for the last part of the climb to make an attack, and everyone had the same plan, as we came round the to see the summit it ramps up and many attacks came one after another with myself having ago too, the grouped whittled down again to around 20 and we all raced down the back of the orme as quick as we could go on our restricted gears, when we hit the flat it turned into a track sprint that would very slowly increase and we came closer to the line , we came round the final corner at around 15MPH and I decided to go early passed the grand hotel on the slight slopes of the orme, I held them off but we hit the last corner and they were on my wheel and I ended up getting swarmed by the sprinting group with 50m to go, I came across the line 11th which was a good result but I could have been higher if I had waited for the sprint finish. this is a really great event and look forward to it next year as a junior.
Thanks to Marsh Tracks for all the support this year and a massive thanks to my parents who have given up their time travelling me round the country this MTB and road season as it would not be possible to do what I do with out them. 

Inter Regionals 2015

last weekend I was representing wales in the inter regional MTB event 2015.
I woke up early morning on Friday to be picked up by our coach to take us down to Essex, Hadleigh farm where the event was.
on the Friday we had a skills competition which involved doing many different skills including bunny hops, wheelies and side hops under pressure and against the clock, I finished 5th overall and only picking up 1 time penalty for hitting a post.

on Saturday we had the handicap race in the morning which was done on the number of time penalties you had accumulated from yesterday and each one being 10seconds, this meant I started 10seconds behind the 3 people that managed to clear the course,
I had a good start and  was working well in a group but I had been ill for a few days before and it was affecting me abit, people were coming past me and I just wasn't able to attack ad stay with them, in the end I came through 10th

in the afternoon we had dirt crits which involved a series of heats of races that lasted around 2minutes in duration, my first heat went well and I managed to qualify coming through 2nd, my next heat didn't go as well and just missed out on qualifying after missing my pedal at the start and coming in 8th while only the top 7 go through to the next round, this meant I went through to the B final, I had a good start and went through into the bottle neck in 5th, I struggled to get past on the descent and had to try and move up on the flat, after  a sprint finish I managed to claim 3rd in my final heat

the Sunday was our final day and it kicked off with a team relay in the morning which team wales won last year and we would hope to do the same again this year, I had the first leg of the relay and I had a good start coming through 2nd on the short 5minute course handing over to Megan James to take on the second leg of the race, Megan came through 3rd and first girl before then handing over to Katie hesdon who would take the third leg of the tea relay for us she came through 4th and then handed over to Solomon kerfoot robson for the 4th and final leg of the race, sol managed to make up some ground after some teams had decided to use their 2 boys first, he and harry yates came through together and after a hard battle harry sprinted past sol and he couldn't react, we held on to 2nd and we all did a great team effort

in the afternoon it was the main event which was the XCO race, after a good warm up and feeling abit better I was ready for the final event, I had a good start sitting within the top 5 and already 8 of us had managed to get away from the rest o the filed on lap 1 which was very unusual to have a big group like this all still together after one lap, we all stayed together for the next lap tackling all the Olympic descents and climb and I was feeling comfortable and strong, however, on lap 3 disaster struck on the oak tree drop with my chain dropping, I quickly stopped and tried to get it back on as quickly as possible, but the leading group had gone and 2 others had past me, over the next lap I managed to work my way back to the duo that had past me while I had dropped my chain and try to chase back on the lead group, but again on the 4th my chain dropped again on Deane's drop and I had to stop and put it back on again, while I was doing this another big group past me and I couldn't get back onto them for the next 2 remaining laps, I started to blow up after having to constantly chase for the majority of the race due to my own silly mistakes, after dropping my chain twice and bonking I came across the line 18th which was not the result I had hoped for in my final MTB race as an U16 but it was still an amazing weekend and a big thanks to welsh cycling for allowing me the chance to represent my country. I now look forward to next years MTB season and cant wait to get racing again on the MTB