Luke Gray has spent another season riding Cyclo-Cross in Belgium, father Rob writes about his final race of the 2012/13 season…………….
The B Post Internationale Sluitingsprijs at Oostmalle Belgium was the last race of the International cyclo-cross season on Sunday. Last weeks Superprestige race at Middlekerke was a very dry sandy grass affair, but Sundays race course at -2 had a covering of snow which soon wore away on the racing line, but the course remained dry underneath the snow throughout the race.
Riding on dry (grip) tyres at 22 psi Luke had a slow start to the race, but soon caught fellow Brit Hugo Robinson. For 3 laps Luke and Hugo kept changing position, "as soon as I passed him I would make a small mistake like going off the flattened line through the sandy sections, this happened a few times. If you keep your wheels in the flatten tracks of someone else, it is much faster to ride. But once out into the soft deep sand your speed slows very quickly and it’s much harder to keep control as the bikes steering takes on a mind of its own”.
Once Luke finally dropped Hugo he made good progress and caught a small bunch down the tarmac start/finish straight and manage to go pass them just before they entered the woody section. There were a set of planks here too, but Luke said he decided not to bunny hop these as they were very close, so played it safe and jumped off the bike and ran across them. It was another good result here, 26th the same position as last weekend at Middlekerke on the Belgium coast.
Luke returns home on Wednesday after another hard season of cross racing in Belgium over the winter. He will now take a few weeks break before returning to racing once the weather gets better.
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