This weekend I've been lucky enough to race my first national champs, it was held in llangollen and used the super steep "09" national track. We arrived on the friday and after setting up camp and having some dinner we went for a track walk, when we got to the woods it was almost dark but we kept on going up to the top. When we walked down, or should I say fell down the nerves were really starting to set in because this track was the steepest track id ever rode. On saturday morning we got ready and had the first run it was one of the most desperate runs of my life the only thing in my head were "just get down the hill" we got to the bottom and I had a huge grin on my face it was going to be a good weekend. Half way through practise I slid out on a turn and snapped my shifter when i when to SRAM to see if they had any shifters they only had XO when I heard this I thought "ok race over because I hadn't bothered to bring that much money then the man said that it would be £30 and they'd fit it I couldn't believe it 30 pounds for a XO shifter I swiftly handed over the money and off I was back to practise, THANK YOU SRAM. On race day my nerves were high as it was such a high risk track but I managed to do a practise run and then waited for for seeding, in seeding I had a pretty big over the bars and qualified 3rd almost 21 seconds back, not good for confidence In my race run I got going and slid out off a berm in the woods and hit my forks really hard but I got back up and kept going there was something wrong with my forks almost as if  they weren't compressing properly but I managed to get to the bottom and in the finish area I looked down and my forks were twisted. In the end I finished 4th so not a very good result but hey ho it will do. Big thanks to Will Longden who un twisted my forks and to Mats Lund who took me to the race. Also well done to Frazer McCubbing, Laurie Greenland and Rowan Carpenter who finished 1st 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Nial Oxley