Luke Moir takes important lessons from Spanish cross-country race

South African teenager Luke Moir says he learnt some valuable lessons at the Copa Catalana BTT Internacional cross-country race which took place in Banyoles, Spain, on Sunday.

The 17-year-old Capetonian placed 10th in the junior race, which covered 26km.

“It’s a good result, but not what I was wanting or what I could have achieved on the day.

“However, I did learn some good lessons and I’m going to change a couple of things when I get back home,” said Moir.

Heading into the event he said he had wanted to take the win and start the year on a high note.

“I wanted to have a good and hard race with the world’s best, which I definitely did though.”

He said the start of the race was “extremely fast” with about 200 of the best U19 XCO riders in the world competing.

“I maintained a top-10 position on the start loop, but was struggling in the first lap with the high pace.

“In the second lap I made a break from a chasing group to catch and pass third place and started catching second after that. But cramps in the third lap had me and so I was caught again by the other riders.

“I dropped many places even though I knew I could have carried on and maybe caught second, but the cramps were too much and in the end I fought in a sprint finish for 10th place.”

Moir said it was a very fast and demanding track.

“There wasn’t one point on the track where you could let off the gas. It was 120% the entire race, with attacks happening all the time.

“I struggled a lot with the high speed. It felt more like a road race than an XCO race and wasn’t technical at all. It is the hardest hour of your life.”

The Silverback rider, who will next target the national cross-country champs and the junior world series in the Czech Republic, headed into the season as the world’s top-ranked junior XCO rider.

“I dropped to number two at the start of February, but maybe after this race I’ll be bumped up to number one again.”

View the results here.