Trek: Dave Collins Starts his Cyclo Cross Season in Style

The Road and MTB season has only just finished and the Science in Sport – Trek team are now into the early stages of the cyclo-cross season. With Ian Wilkinson, Ian Bibby and National Champion Phil Dixon having to delay their start to the cross season due to the need to chase UCI points for the GB MTB team, it was left to Dave Collins to be our only representative at the recent 1^st Round of the National Trophy Series at Abergavenny on the 7^th October 2007.

Dave has spent September preparing for the first round of the Trophy and was showing good form going into the series. During the month of September he gained a 5^th place in a round of the National Criterium Series followed by a bronze medal in the National Marathon MTB championships and he also won two local cross races on consecutive weekends.

Racing on a super fast dry course on his new Trek X02 cross bikes equipped with USE finishing kit, Dave took 2nd place to Paul Oldham – Hope Factory Racing. Unfortunately while riding in the leading group Dave suffered a mechanical and was dropped. Dave fought hard to return to the group, but by this time Paul realising that Dave was his main challenger, took flight which left Dave too much ground to make up and in the end he had to settle for 2^nd place. This weekend sees Dave racing in a double header of local but high profile races before heading out to Belgium for the 1st round of the Cyclo-cross World Cup series in Kalmthout.