Cool….just rereading thread, think i was near you asking ADSH how the race went afterwards.Was you in London Phoenix top?

Kryton – nice to meet you. Sorry if I was not exactly gushing – eyes burning from sweat and plain knackered.

Was a good get back into it for me – was a bit crap, lacked fitness and hugely unskilled. Rolled my rear off the rim on lap 2 and got a bit wild thereafter but last lap was good and I survived a crazy off the line manoeuvre by a rider that could have been nasty.

Bianchiboy – rigid specialized?

I did Beastway last week and hopefully next week. It was my first race in a few years but I wasn’t quite last. Chain snapped in the bottom corner so ended up running almost half a lap. I think it was fun.

Despite a low turnout albeit with the better riders, I managed a 9th today with manflu on a semi dry course at Beastway. It was arm warmers cool but the rain stayed away.

Big day on Saturday for the Beastway season finale, with entertainment, BBQ and beer tent surrounding a full Reg A XCO race. Followed my Reg A XCO at MSG for me Sunday!

Nice one – and good to meet you.

Apart from user error where I pressed the wrong thing to go up that grassy slope at the start (sram vs lifelong shimano user) and went down two gears instead of up, it was excellent. I was nervous as three years ago my Ti hard tail beat me up around there and I hoped I hadn’t made a mistaken purchase, but whilst it obviously wasn’t full suss, it was comfy, very spritely up hills / out of corners and as I’d hoped the “new school” 29er geometry is makes the bike so much more manouverable than the Anthem, it really was a pretty awesome experience borne out by my result despite manflu – I’ll be keeping it!

I think compared to the Anthem – also repeated in Internet FS vs HT for racing reviews – the FS does “suck” some watts out of you on acceleration, and it’s HA doesn’t inspire you to carry race speed around sharp turns. I will be keeping it though for longer – and therefore slower – events and social.

I’m feeling pretty fresh this morning also considering the illness!

Ok, there was a sharp right turn over a log roll and – as discussed with NJEE lately – as we all seem to have coordination issues turning slowly and sharply either left or right depending on whether we are left or right handed, I couldn’t ride over it and turn at the same time without the feeling of impending doom as I looked at the nettlebed on the side of the trail.

100% inadequacy on my part losing me 10 secs per lap. Oh and I had one too many clicks on my Reba compression which I fixed mid race by turning the dial, and had no where to blow my streaming nose ‘cept all over the trail.

Any good?

🙂

I can’t remember whether it was Dirtyrider or MrBlobby who said “a carbon hard tail will be faster than your Anthem for XCO”

They were right. I know you can’t buy speed but I’ve sadly calculated my Beastway results against other riders and on average across the series and last night I was 4 minutes faster on average vs my peers across the whole race – with Manflu. Only the bike and the Manflu were different to my normal prep process.

the rest as they say is up to me (and my new coach who will no doubt be beasting me in prep for next season later in the year :lol:)

Unlucky…was one of those days,at least you missed the drenching?

It was so slippery,lost the front end numerous times but finished and definitely earned the pint at the finish.

See debating about MSG tomorrow…maybe bump into you there.

A Vitus Rapide Carbon 29 1×11 with a BC discount brining it to £1377 from CRC, now upgraded with my AC wheels & KCNC/Mr Zoom bits leaving it approx 22lb. Its rapid but also very comfortable even more than I expected.

Mud Sweat and gears today – got stuck on the start but a massive crash in front of me which I navigated around (I hope everyone is ok, met one bloke who had stitches on site after being sliced by a rotor) but due to the cold I’ve had al week gradually ran out of steam. Finished 28th of 38 which is not great on a track I like (Carver Barracks).

A good day out for the kids as well though with jnr (7yo) come 16 of 32 in the U9 after two hours of coaching. His second race this weekend also and he’s really enjoyed it.

950tss in the last 7 days, -37tsb and week 1 of 2 week training camp prior to Big Dog has me wimping out of 3hrs tomorrow. I’d barely be able to manage Z2 and Saturdays long ride would suffer in quality. Feels like wiping out….

Crashed twice hard on Wednesday and dressings have only come off today. No FNSS yeaterday or Midlands tomorrow, damn.

Right leg looks a real sticky mess 🙁

Bad luck.

If it’s dry it’s fast and scrabbly, never had any issues with Ralphs there. If it’s wet, it’s like snap based grinding paste and can be pretty slippy.

The natural stone is pretty slick, but the rest is grippy.

Just like the Northwest, there’s bugger all here bar a few mid week races in the summer.

Nutcracker series? It was on a good course at Catterick yesterday (google says 1hr 20min from Halifax). Last one is at Dales MTB Centre in 2 weeks but that is a bit more of a wiggly drive. They’ve done others at Sheffield and Richmond which would be near-ish. We’ve done all of their races as long day-trips from Lancashire without too much pain, made harder with someone always in first and last race of the day….

Midweek Madness was at Lee Quarry a couple of weeks ago – sort of opposite end of Calderdale.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/events/details/151761/Middleton-Park-Bike-Hub-MTB-Event

XC racing in Leeds next week. Which brings me to my post – I’ve just entered. Never done a “regular” XC race before. No idea what course is like. Got a heavy-ish but nice 29er hardtail to rude. Any tips? Basically, ride till I think I’m gonna vomit?

Urgh that was a hard race. Guy crashed in front of me at the first corner so I was pretty much last right from the go. Spent about a lap and a half trying to get near someone to race until I decided to go for an aggressive sit down in the bushes. Not recommended. Came dead last (unless you include DNFs), hey ho that’s racing I suppose.

Was good chatting with Ferrals again.

Annoyingly the worst injury I got all weekend was from walking back from the van to grab gels for schmiken in the race, managed to sprain it pretty badly so I’ve now got a really nice fat ankle.

Evening all,

Just a quick well done to all who raced at Cannock yesterday, was there as part of the BC team and I have to say considering the course was tough, hot and hard to overtake on I thought the behaviour of riders was very good.

having been on duty at Dalby and Cannock I have to say we have some strong talent coming through the ranks, both venues threw up some great racing through each category.

Hopefully I can come back next year and do some more.

Just a quick note of thanks to all of you who joined us at the SouthernXC this year. We saw loads of new names which is great and people seemed to really enjoy the new venues, even if they will take a little while to bed in.

The series is all wrapped up now and we’re busy planning for 2017 so as soon as I can I’ll let you all know the dates!

Have a great cross season…

Adam – great series. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even all the pain stuff that goes with riding xc fast. Looking forwad to 2017, the veterans category and getting Luna racing.

An interesting day today at Mud Sweat & Gears penultimate round. After suffering badly in Torq 6h I didn’t expect to go well, but actually felt better than I expected with such limited riding and an all-inclusive holiday in August.

Start was OK then got barged into the tape (apology was given later) in a racing incident on the 10% grassy climb which started the lap. Naturally then, I started pretty much at the back and had to wait/work my way around a few people. The ground was hard to very slightly soft so I’d made a good choice changing to Rons yesterday. What I thought was a fairly flat course revealed itself at race pace to be quite hard work with 455m of draggy climbing in 90 mins.

Ended up racing the blokes around me in my overall league table position and beat them so thats a positive, but we had a right ding dong once I’d caught them for 1/2 the race – swapping places, finding each others strengths and weakness and swapping again, it was excellent racing summed up by an all round shake of hands as I took one 1/2 way around the 5th lap and the other on the sprint to the finish.

Disappointed I didn’t get the 6th lap in though, I just seemed to have lost a lot of fitness and pace and was lapped by the leader on the last lap, but we are where we are etc, due to not much riding in August I suspect.

Great stuff, and back in the groove with one to go to finish.