Sally last reported back in March from a very successful Andalucía Bike Race, where she took her 3rd consecutive win in the female pairs category of the event. Since then, Sally has been incredibly busy winning races and titles all over the world. With so many reports to catch up on from the past few months it’s difficult to bring you the full story from each, so click the links to Sally’s blog to get the full low down from the races.
Cape Epic, South Africa – Sally’s first race that she has DNF’ed in her entire career as a pro Mountain Biker. After a 2nd place in the prologue, Sally’s team mate fell ill and the two had to abandon the race; a disappointment after training so hard for the race.
Southern/Gorrick XC – On returning to the UK, Sally spent a few weeks training in cold conditions and mixed things up a bit from her normal long training rides with some XC racing. The first, a Gorrick XC, Sally entered the expert men’s category and finished a respectable 7th place, shortly behind ex elite National XC champions! Sally then went on to race the first round of the Southern XC series, where she entered the female category, and took the win by a staggering 17 minutes! Not a bad result for a marathon rider!
British XC Series, Cornwall – Sally then headed to Wheal Maid in Cornwall for the 2nd round of the British XC series as part of her training for some upcoming marathon events. Despite a few gearing issues, Sally came away with the win in the elite female category, up against some of the UK’s best XC riders. Sally commented on how it was funny how people often ask her what it’s like to race fast over short distances (being a marathon pro Sally is more accustomed to racing for hours on end) and that the pace isn’t any slower in marathons, they’re just longer!
European Marathon Championships – A key race and a big season goal for Sally; after some good training and power figure to match, Sally looked all set for a good result. A last minute illness didn’t help proceedings but, after a good race, Sally came away with an excellent 2nd place! See the full report from Sally on XCRacer.com here.
Southern XC Championships – After competing in a few more XC races this season and with the venue for the Southern Champs being on Sally doorstep, Sally raced the Southern XC Championships and took the win and Southern XC Champion title by just short of 10 minutes!
Next up for Sally was the Alpen Tour Trophy a 4 day stage race over 4 epic stages, taking place in Schladming, Austria, in some challenging weather conditions!
Stage 1– 69km/2800m
Stage 2-16km/1100m Time Trial
Stage 3– 73km/2800m
Stage 4– 56km/2000m.
After some pretty horrific weather conditions including driving rain, heavy snow and a cancelled stage 4, Sally took the overall win.
National Marathon Champs – After missing the 2012 Champs, Sally returned to the race and claimed her 4th British Mountain Bike Marathon Championship title at Selkirk in Scotland. In hot conditions and on a single lap course, Sally finished a mere 7 minutes behind the mens winner, TORQ Performance MTB Team Rider Neal Crampton. Check out Sally’s report here for some sound fuelling advice and the full story of the race on XCRacer.com here. Look out over the coming weeks for more updates from Sallys racing.
