After juggling a limited amount of hard drive space, the video from round 5 of this year's BMBS is finally complete. Recording onto miniDV tape means a download to PC needs 13GB per hour of raw footage so it soon eats up a lot of space.....
Anyway, I've uploaded the same source file to both Vimeo (as per the rest of the race series) and also to YouTube, as I was keen to see which looked better and which will receive more hits, even though I think I know the answer to both of those questions.
After quite a lot of work, I've finally managed to finish my video summary of this year's Twentyfour12 race from Newnham Park, Plymouth. I can now finally free up some badly needed hard disk space and get on with finishing the footage from round 5 of the BMBS, also from Plymouth, which I hope to complete very soon.
Anyway, here's the link to the Twentyfour12 video:
It was round 5 of the 2009 BMBS this weekend just gone, and for the first time since being kicked in the knee by a clumsy oaf in mid April while playing football, I was able to take video footage of an MTB race without being on crutches. This made the whole event SO much more fun, and quite a lot easier to boot.
It was a UCI C1-ranked event, which brought more world ranking points for the riders, additional prize money, and some interesting overseas riders, including multiple European and World Champion and Gold medallist at the 2004 Olympics, Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjå (pictured). The Norwegian was returning to racing after her 2009 season was interrupted by the birth of her son, Bjørnar.
The sun shone, 'The Pipeline' descent was included in the course for the first time in years, the river crossings were tricky, and all the riders I spoke to and/or interviewed were friendly and happy to chat.
I hope to get the video up soon, but I have to finish another one first....
Another BMBS race, another day spent hobbling around on crutches, which is a shame as I wasn't physically able to get to the most interesting sections of the course to take any footage.
So it turns out that the fairly innocent football tackle a few weeks ago ripped a surprisingly large section of cartilage from the bottom of my thigh bone, at the outside of the knee.
I underwent surgery on it at the same hospital where I had my fractured scaphoid in my wrist operated upon, and am now recovering on crutches, icing and elevating the knee etc. The Chelsea and Westminster hospital really is an excellent advert for the National Health Service.
The good news is that the section ripped off could have been in a worse place, and that hopefully I can cycle again at some point. The bad news is that if new cartilage grows, it will only be 50% as good as the old section, and the risk of arthritis is much higher. I can't do impact sports from now on either, so no more football or tennis, sadly.
Despite the crutches, I made it up to Dalby for round 2 of the British Mountain Bike race series. The new course, built as part of a bid to host a UCI World Cup race in 2010, was a big change from many NPS courses of the past, and reminded me a lot of Fort William with the mini rock gardens and boardwalk sections. It was a proper technical XC course, and caught a few riders out who had not pre-ridden it!
As I feared, I won't be able to race Mountain Mayhem, nor probably SITS, but should still be at both races with my team to take photos and video and sample the atmosphere, which is some consolation.
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:
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....
