National Mountain Bike Round 1 - Race Report
Top GVC Academy Juvenile rider Zach Smith attended round one of British Cycling’s National Mountain Bike XC Series in Kirroughtree Forest in Scotland.
Kirroughtree Forest is located near Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway southwest Scotland and overlooks the Irish Sea.
Kirroughtree also boasts many awards for some of the best mountain bike trails in the country.
The well laid out course would see the Juvenile and Youth riders completing 3 laps of a slightly shorter course of 4.1km with 135m of climb per lap. The riders would endure a physically demanding ride with steep climbing sections, fast single rooted tracks, rock garden's, downhill sections and other technical obstacles. The course was everything that an XC course should be.
Gridded 3/41, Zach made a lightening start to lead the pack through a steep uphill section and into the rock garden. At the end of lap one Zach was lying in 5th spot, just slightly off the race pace and continued to maintain that position throughout the second lap.
Lap 3 would see Zach inject another level of pace through the downhill sections to close the gap on 3rd/4th places.
Unfortunately, Zach was just pipped on the line for 5th, eventually having to settle for 6th place, just 30 seconds off a podium position. A fantastic performance at National level against the best Juvenile rider’s in the UK.
The other races in the series will see a combination of GVC riders in attendance at Margam Park, Cannock Chase, Woody's Bike Park, Tong in Bradford and the grand finale, the National Championships in Dalby Forest.
The next off island race will see 8 riders attending the 2nd round of the Southern series in Basingstoke, which also incorporates the Southern Regional Championships.