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Rider off-island feedback form

We request all riders who attend off-island coaching or race events to tell us about their experiences. This information will help other riders with deciding on what events to travel to, and it helps the coaching team develop our sessions to ensure riders are prepared for events. Please take time to really think about your

experience. Thank you.

Name: Liam Cadoret

Age category Youth Male (un-der 16’s)

Event: HSBC British Cycling National MTB XC Championships

Location: Cannock Chase, Staffordshire

Date: 20/21 July

What was the format of the event?

Saturday, opportunity to walk the course, followed by 2 official practice ses-sions on the bike, each 2 hours long. Sunday, practice followed by race at 9am. Race duration approximately 1 hour on lead rider.

What did you learn? That I can ride any A line and that sometimes technical features aren’t as scary as they look. I also learnt that sometimes a full suspension bike would make the race more enjoyable!

Were you prepared? Apart from not having a full suspension bike, I feel I was prepared for the race. I have got used to finding out the race start time and then working backwards to ensure I have time for all my race preparation e.g. warming up.

What would you do differ-ently?

Nothing.

Could we adopt something from the event?

I think we should have gridded starts and split girls and boys.

Best Bit The rock garden and the drop as I enjoy the technical parts of the course.

Worst Bit The long drive to the race.

Would you recommend it? Yes, if you like some technical parts and some non-technical sections.

Any other comments?

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Race Report: Tell us all about it, in as much detail as you can.

The build up: I travelled to the U.K on the Thursday over night boat and after arriving in Portsmouth very early drove up to Birmingham. We stayed in a Premier Inn about 20 minutes drive from the course. After a very early night I was keen to see the course. The preparation: Saturday morning, I needed to sign on first and hand over my race licence, in return I was given my race number and timing chip. I went to do the first prac-tice lap by myself and see what the course was like. I then returned to the car park and met up with Zac and the adults (James Patterson, James Dilks, Rhys Hidrio and Lisa Mansell) who had also come to race. We then all went out to-gether to do a slow practise lap and look at the different technical features fol-lowed by a hot lap (race pace). Sunday morning was an early start as my race was supposed to start at 9am. Once at the course, we all parked together and helped ensure Zac and I were ready to race. The race was delayed by 30 minutes due to the tape on some parts of the track having been damaged overnight. I completed my warm up on the rollers whilst dad collected all the spares and extra bottles to take to the tech/ feed zone. (The only part of the course where the rider is allowed assis-tance.) Then it was down to the start area where you ride round a small holding area to keep warm before you are called to the gridded start line. The race: I was gridded 50th on the start and felt a bit nervous being at the back of the pack. The start of the race is hectic and a rider in front of me crashed but I managed to get past and make up a few places. The technical parts of the race were good fun, but a lot of the course involved long downhill sections that were very very bumpy and riding a hardtail meant it was very tiring on my body. It was a 3-lap race and I managed to keep going at a good pace through-out the race. Hearing the adults encouraging and cheering me on was really good. The result: I finished my race in 1 hour 8 minutes and had enjoyed it despite being shat-tered and my legs feeling like jelly from acting like suspension for the duration

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of the race. Once the results were out, I had finished 41st out of 53. Having been gridded at the back I had made up a good few places which I was really pleased about. Once I had returned my timing chip it was back to the van and onto the rollers to do a cool down session. We stayed at the event for the rest of the day and it was great to be able to support the adults that raced later in the day. I also got to experience being in the tech support and feed zone for James Dilks during his race, it was good to see how the tech/feed zone works from the support teams side as well as from the riders perspective. Another highlight of the event was getting to watch the top British riders race. A few of the races involved sprint finishes, including the Under 23’s Race, which was won by Tom Pidcock, and these were great to watch. Thank you to HSBC for their continued support of Jersey Youth Cycling.

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