As part of the teams continued progression this year Norris (Orange Monkey Director
Sportif) will be taking the team to three seperate International events to gain
vital experience as the team look to push their riders ever closer to the professional
ranks. This year it starts in the Netherlands at a tough Rabobank Bikecentre event.
the competition at these events is remarkably intense with the likes of Henk Jaap
Moorlag and Jelmer Jubbeger from the professional Rabobank team and the former World
Cup hero, Bas Peters!
The team travelled the relatively short journey to Holland by car and ferry and
were greeted at the event by weather that they have been used to back in the UK,
rain! The course was extremely flat but unlike the UK courses this had a twist,
going through a beer tent, down some steep steps and off a 3 foot jump! The course
actually rode better in the wet with lots of slipping and sliding through the twisty
singletrack and tight steep banks but come sunday it had dried with the sun beaming
down and the trails getting ever more sticky, sapping every last drop of energy
from the riders.
Alex was the first Monkey to go and made a good start in a huge field of over 40
youth riders, some of which could be mistaken for Elites! After settling into a
fast and steady rythm, Alex made up some places and finished in a creditable 18th
place, in this his first ever experience of International competition. A fantastic
start to the day!
Next to go was Ben in the Junior race with a familiar face in the starting line
up, former Monkey, Nat Jarvis. Ben has been struggling for form of late but showed
that the tweaks to his training regime are starting to pay dividends with a gutsy
display of riding in a steam roller of a race. The competition in these races is
certainly a notch or two up on that in the UK. Ben showed his great strength by
finsihing 26th in a field of over 40.
For Chris and Paul the race saw some familiar competition with the Rabobank rider,
Henk Jaap Moorlag who had been at the Sunshine Cup in Cyprus back in February and
the UK rider Billy Whenman.
As predicted the race set off at blistering pace with both riders gridded in a decent
position and able to get right in amongst the action. It wasn't long before chris
started to move up the field picking off groups one by one and literally tearing
through the singletrack with no place to let up and come off the gas. It was another
brilliant stepping stone as Chris improves race on race and a finish of 40th in
a field of 80 plys was a great achievement at this time of the season. Paul took
a steady start and tried to build on it but started to feel the effects of very
limited training after just recovering from the dental pain that has blighted his
early season preperations. It was a step in the right direction with some good speed
but not quite enough to last the entire race.
This was a terrific experience for the team as a whole and as they now look forward
to two World Cups and the next UK series event in a few weeks time their are many
positives to take out of a visit to the land of the windmills.
For more video footage visit our You Tube channel...