Southern XC Round 1
Matterly Basin is better known as the home of the British MotoX GP. Sunday it played host to a slightly quieter form of two wheeled racing - the first round of the Southern XC series. Set on the slopes of the South Downs close to Winchester, the course clambered over the local hills, twisting in and out of the woodland and across open grassland. It was a blustery day on the exposed hillside but the sun did its best to shine, as the clouds scooted across the sky.
Despite the recent heavy rain the forest sections weren’t too greasy and a racing line formed in the drying mud. The warmer temperatures meant it was also my first outing this year in shorts! Although this does mean I had to expose my hairy legs to the smoothly shaved racer boys.
The club seemed destined just to miss the podium with Ian, Will and Steve all coming home in 4th place! The duck was broken by James Darcy who won the Grand Vets.
Elsewhere Alex was 16th in Open, I was 20th in the Masters and Ollie 10th in the Juniors.
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| The podium boy! |
Ben,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the pics and comments! It felt like the sort of XC course I used to race 25 years ago, back in the day when I could race in "sports". Lots of climbing and not just singletrack.
Good showing from all our riders. Will miss the next round, but I'll be there for the rest.
Noticed in the BCF site that I got 60 points for rd 1 of the SXC. Not sure what use that is, but it's interesting to see a UK rider ranking. The leader has 360 points so he must have done a lot of BCF sanctioned races this year! The Gorrick XC's are not sanctioned so carry no BCF points. I think the Midlands and South West Series are BCF sanctioned, so I might try a few of theirs if anyone is interested in travelling. I will mis the forst Nat round and the next SXC due to work travel.
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