12 December 2022 • David Notley
Cyclocross latest
YCCâs veteran rider, Mark Fisher, experienced a sinking feeling of déjà vu in his last race of the South West Cyclo-cross League (SWCX) at Newnham Park, near Plymouth, on Sunday.
Having once again made a good start, gaining a good number of positions in the first 250 metres of the race, Fisher had a seemingly innocuous bump from behind by another rider in the melee to clear the first set of hurdles. After cleanly jumping the plank hurdles and remounting his bike, Fisher realised that his chain had been knocked off the front chain-rings in the collision. As he hastily tried to pedal the chain back on it ended up becoming wedged between the inner chain-ring and the frame, forcing him to come to a complete stop. After rectifying this poorly timed mechanical problem, Fisher now found himself dead last, just as he had found himself in the first lap of the earlier Superprestige round at Escot Park in Devon.
Despite this early setback, Fisher managed to keep a calm head and slowly pick off as many riders ahead of him as he could in the hour long race. He was making steady progress, catching and passing slower riders on this challenging technical course. However, the numerous off-chamber corners were becoming more slippery as the frozen ground started to thaw and on his fifth lap Fisher, pushing his cornering skills to the limit, crashed heavily on one such corner. By the time Fisher had regained his composure, refitted his dislodged chain and remounted heâd lost two valuable minutes and some of the hard earned places regained after his earlier misfortune. With no further incidents Fisher finished the race in 17th place, out of the 19 finishers in his Veteran 50+ category and 61st place overall.
In his first season of racing in this challenging discipline, and currently sitting in 14th place in the SWCX League Standings for his category, Fisher will now focus his attention to building upon his newly found technical skills and increasing his fitness in preparation for next season, where his goal is to finish the season in the top ten.