Eastern Series Rd 6 & LVRC Portsdown Hill

Mud Sweat & Gears Rd 6 Hitchingbroke Park 4/8 My third Eastern Series Race of the year on the flatest MTB course I've ever seen. I makes Thetford look hilly!Having sid that the organisers laid out a really good course with a mixture of fire roads and mega twisty singletrack. One fly in the ointment for the competitors was a massive lack of parking. Hopefully they will sort that out for 2014. With Amanda left trying to find a parking space I managed to sign on and do half a lap's warm up. There were people signing on rigt up to the start time, so it was tight for a lot of folks. Got a good start, but lost a few places catching some slower vets into the first singletrack and spent the rest of the race trying and failing to catch Jack Peterson and Rob Jackson. Happy with 3rd as those two were definitely quicker in the singletrack. Something to work on for next year. It is a good series, several of the Beyond MTB guys ride there. Also carries BCF points like the souther XC. I will be back next year to do as many of the 8 rounds as I can. LVRC Road Race Portsdown Hill 17/8 The Vets road race league races are pretty spread out, but there are a few in the south east and cate for 40 year plus riders, in 5 year age bands. They use the Perfs circuit for this race which meant 8 laps up the hill for my age category. Just missed the split with the lead "A" riders, but finished wiht the next group to get 3rd in the B category race. Must do some more of these. The races are much more positive than the 3rd cat Surrey League races I've done. Lots of attacks and splits etc and rather less dangerous riding. I will be a "C" category next year. Apparantly we get a toilet stop every 2nd lap...