Injured again and video

So after a mere month or two of riding after last year's broken scaphoid, in which I established my fitness was shot to pieces, I'm now injured again, courtesy of football last week. One kick to the inside of my knee, on a leg with all my weight on it, and the knee swelled up like a balloon.

I couldn't walk on it, nor bend it, and even a combined X ray, CT scan and A&E check-up couldn't definitely establish what's wrong, although they suspect I've broken some bone off somewhere which is now floating around. I've now got a brace on it plus crutches, and had an MRI scan last night, but I don't find out the results for 2 weeks yet.

I suspect surgey may be needed, and hence am seriously doubtful I will be able to race Mountain Mayhem, which is a real shame, but I'm trying to be hopeful regarding an 100% recovery, however long it takes.

Anyway, on a more positive note, after various camcorder problems before the event, I made it to round 1 of the British Mountain Bike race series at Sherwood Pines in early April. I need to work on my camera skills, and on my video editing technique, but the initial outcome seems an improvement on last year's digital camera/Windows Movie Maker/YouTube approach. The video's up as below:


2009 British Mountain Bike race series round 1 from Eldrik on Vimeo.

Knee permitting, I'm looking forward to round 2's racing, and hope to produce some better video again from that weekend.

It's round 2 of the UCI MTB World Cup this weekend, but there are very few British riders taking part, which initially seemed a shame. Having looked into it in a bit more detail, however, it seems that the focus on chasing UCI points (to ensure we qualify some places at the 2012 Olympics) will be at 'easier' UCI C1 and C2 ranked events in the UK and Europe, not at World Cups. Sharon Laws, Annie Last and Lily Matthews have been clocking up the miles in recent weeks, and the focus for 2009 seems to be on these 3 riders getting the UCI points needed, at least as far as our Elite Women go. There's still a huge gap to close up to even get 1 place for 2012 for the Elite Women, so let's hope Sharon, Annie, Lily and everyone else race well....