First national race of the year and I promised myself that I would race in Veteran class because I am a gubbe and sportklass is usually MTB profs. The start went well and for once I managed to get my shoe in the pedal right away. Of course that became difficult later when I was covered in mud.



The first part was some grass up to a 'springbacke' followed by a slalom bit through some more mud. Lots of sliding here but things were still fun and I was keeping up.




And then we got to the 'fun part' which was a giant water-filled hole almost half a metre deep. Yep, 5C and hitting this...then I was awake. Surprisingly I was fine on the deeper part but got stuck coming back the other way. Still, I was not too far off yet.



Then came a fast downhill part. Check out my fine downhill position...

After that came a longer grusväg part and then a road bit passed my car and down to a really slippery football field. It was slalom time again and then another springbacke but not before it was time for 'dagens vurpa'. Actually, that was on the 3rd or 4th lap I think. I am not really sure what happened but by then I had lost a lot of distance and was getting tired as hell. So soon it was +1 varv for me and I was fairly happy that I didnt have to do the extra lap because I was absolutely dead. This was a tough premiere...



Could this be a winning smile? Well, I was soaked, freezing and completely dead. But I finished (23rd) which means I beat the 6 DNFs. So a smile was appropriate.




Do you think I should wash my bike now? Or maybe I should take another trip through that mud hole first...

Bilder: 1-3, 5-7 from Sven Abrahamsson, 4 from Henrik Öijer