CRC/Intense National Championships Race Report

Last weekend was the National Championships for many countries in the Northern Hemisphere. From the team Matt Simmonds and Ruaridh Cunningham competed in the UK champs at Ae forest, Scotland and Julien Camellini headed to Val d'Isere for the French champs. Julien was determined to put in a good run and go for the French title but crashed within 30 seconds from the finish having posted the fastest split time of the race only 1 minute of the track remaining. Ruaridh Cunningham was feeling good for a result in front of the home Scottish crowd after seeding 6th with a conservative run but made a mistake in the wet, muddy conditions in the final and ended up head-butting a tree on his run ending his hopes for a podium position. Matt Simmonds had another solid race showing once again he has stepped his racing game up to the top level. Matt finished 4th and earned a place on the podium only 10ths of a second behind Josh Bryceland in 3rd. Congratulations to Steve Peat on winning another national titles in front of Gee Atherton. Here is Matts race report and pictures from Ian Linton. Many thanks Ian. This year's national champs where held at AE forest, with the track getting a revamp it had a mixture of all sorts varying from fast rocky sections, tight woods, steep switch backs and when all linked together made a hard course. This was now my fifth year racing national champs as an elite and with previous podiums I was more hyped up than ever to get another. Over the weekend a lot of rain had fallen which left most people opting for spike tyres, mud guards and a shed load of tear offs. In seeding race favourite Steve Peat had a big crash which left him coming down early in the finals. Onto myself and I was sitting in third with Josh Bryceland in second and Gee Atherton winning seeding. Come the afternoon and the rain showed no sign of letting up, as I came across the line into second place Steve Peat had put in a storming run, some four seconds up on my time with only two riders left my chance of a podium was still alive. Josh was next and came in on a similar time to mine but a fraction quicker quickly followed by gee who didn't quite have enough to beat the time of Steve but still good enough for second. So that was me in fourth place, I'm now getting ready to fly to France for the fourth round of the world cup series next weekend. Till then, Matt. This week we head to the very steep track in Champery, Switzerland for the 4th round of the UCI world cup were we will be running the yellow number plates for the leading team! Nigel Page Team Manager - ChainReactionCycles/Intense Please keep up to date on the team at www.crcintense.com