Central round 4 at Hillingdon for me courtesy of Archer RC.
Will it be four dry races in a row?

Not me 😆 How is the Pearson?

Hi
The Pearsons turning out to be a little gem, it really has ridden well and performed without fault. It is exactly the same as a Zepnat.
I still can't supply that muddy pic yet, dusty yes!

NECCL round 4 for me, Killingworth Newcastle, just cleaned me bike (in the rain), and will tinker with it in a bit. its gonna be muddy 😕

i'd like to go watch or even compete on my mtb at the wessex reading event or the central hillingdon but not sure my will power will be enough on sunday morning..

Yup. Mugdock for me in round 3 of the Scottish CX series.

More details here – http://www.scottishcyclocross.org.uk/

Nw league round 7 at Otterspool park,last race on the singlespeed ;0(.The urge to not get lapped and be in the top ten has over ridden my dislike of gears (and the quite extortionate price).Will be first wet/muddy race by the looks of it !!!

Staking course today, takeaway curry tonight, 12 hours of cross tomorrow.

aP will get to ride?

I've now got massive family/work commitments that I'm trying to juggle, so it's now touch or go!

aP will be lap counting and hoping that no one goes home with a transponder.

Western League Rnd 6 – Stroud Leisure Centre.

A notoriously hilly venue. With plenty of off-camber rooty badness thrown in for good measure.

As no one else can see this, erm are you open to bribes?

Scottish CX at Mugdock too – first cx race in 3 years. I have to say it will def not be dusty though, infact I doubt I will ride the crosser and woos out by riding the MTB instead!

hopefully Hillingdon, bringing a spoon to a knife-fight

OrangeChammy – see my other post or scottishcyclocross.org.uk about location of SCX at Mugdock tomorrow. The map link on the Scottish Cycling event calendar is incorrect.

See you on the startline. Prepare for anti-dust! 😉

JoB – how about a spork?
Oldgit – [cough] watcha offering? I don't quite think that I'm going to be able to get you a podium finish.

Anyway course marked out, lets see how much of it is gone tomorrow morning.

will be at hillingden too. The GS Invicta duo. Hope it's a litle less crowded than last week! Thinks…. will there be planks?

Hillingdon also, looking forward to transponders after being missed by the scorers last race 😕

Not me 🙁
NW event was today, I was working. Cross should be on Sundays!

I did race last weekend though 🙂

There will be planks at Hillingdon, probably transponders, hopefully accurate lap scoring (gulp).

Planks? as in hurdles?? Haven't got to book a session with Jedi have I???

Hurdles – regulation height and 4m apart. The joys of having 2 UCI Commissaires in the club.

Thanks ap another fine race,though you could have bashed the divits down with a spade before the start because I'm battered.
Nice to meet LondonLady and JoB at last, and there was a familiar looking Singular going round.
No racingnext weekend 😛 rest time.

not a good day for me, soooo nearly packed, but soooo glad I didn't! A good course though.
Probably going to open a can of worms here, but I thought the prizes were pretty low when you consider the number of riders. £30 for 1st vet at dears leap, £15 today. Just needs a bit of consistency needed really. (This is my view, not the winning vet's btw)

Glad you liked the course, needed about another 500m in it to give us a bit more room for lap scoring as it was mad. Will take on board the prize money however we didn't expect nearly 70 vets. If it turns out to be inequitable then I'll bring folding to Deal. Although I understand talking to my technical consultant that first vet got 2 envelopes.
We are now having some muscle relaxant and I will then spend the next 3 evenings sorting out all the placings and the levy fees.
Nice to put a face to a name oldgit (although I think we walked the start of SITS 07 together). Maybe we could meet up for a road or off road ride in the near future (my email is in the handbook)

how many riders were there in total today aP? I was lucky enough to get gridded and so kept out of trouble. Must have made an impressive sight as everyone flew past the finish area( and a daunting one for the scorers!)

I think there were about 140. Impressive sight? More like a string theory number to try and write down.
Did you like the bowl? I tested my staking out limits yesterday after designing the course last Sunday. Next year will have another swirl I think.

I thought the bowl was a work of art! So much tape! 140, wow! I remember when I was racing cross 10 years ago and a field of 45 was considered good. I wonder if we might have to do what the eastern region are doing and split the main race, seniors+'elite' vets and vets+juniors+women?

140 wow. Still felt lonely at the back though 😥

There was a massive high speed off just as we left the tarmac at the start, everyone ok.

Brilliant 'cross guys, thanks all 🙂
Shame about the transponders, looking forward to the 'cutting edge' lol.
I thought the course was really well done aP 🙂

Thanks guys. We only had 130 tags anyway so we couldn't have run them anyway and we had a massive argument about how to get them all back as the transponders alone were worth over £12000 and it would have bankrupted me.
Couldn't have done it without londonlady, Jayne & Jay lap scoring and Harmeet & Balneet on sign on (+ the rest of Archer).
Muscle relaxant still being applied.

Had a *nightmare* at Stroud.

It rained on-and-off. Sideways.

Crashed'n'burned as I entered the woods on Lap 1… evil, wet, off camber roots LEAPT UP at me. Front wheel washed out and I went one side of a pine tree while the bike went the other. Scraped/cut knee/shin and tore shorts (grrrr). Regained composure and regained a few of the places I lost. Was satisfyingly chasing-down the guy in 4th place on (about) the 4th lap when at the same section of roots which had been my undoing on the first lap, there was a noise from below which can only be described as "an exploding whistle".

My rear tub had burst.

Shouldered the bike and ran through the singletrack, then wheeled it up the bank (still running) and all the way to the pits. So about 1/3 of a lap spent on foot. Grabbed my trusty Uncle John from the pit area and spent the remainder of the race catching 4 or 5 of the 5 or 6 guys who'd overtaken me while I was running.

Sat-up as I neared the line, content that I'd put enough distance into the last guy I'd overtaken.

Big mistake.

He suddenly appeared next to me with about 50m to go. Dug as deep as I could and I *just* pipped him to the line. Had half-a-bike length on him, I reckon.

Then it came to light that my mate (with whom I share the driving: he'll drive one week, me the next) WASN'T kidding when he'd told me on the start-line that he'd locked my car key in the car.

So. We're tired, hungry, thirsty, wet and cold, and our phones, food, clothes, drink and money are locked in the car. Along with my car key.

Brilliant.

Luckily, everyone at these races are top blokes. People leant us phones to call our Missuses and offered us spare clothes to keep warm. Luckily, my mate had finished 3rd so had some prize money. We headed for the sports centre café while we waited for 2 hrs for his Missus to collect the spare car key from MY Missus, and then drive it 45miles up the A46.

Still had a brilliant day, tho 🙂

Roll on next week!

Nice to meet you oldgit – sorry for the heckling – I was just trying to spur you on!
I have posted some photos from the Archer CX race – some have turned out quite nice.
I hope the lady who went to A&E gets better soon – I know that feeling well.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lesleyauch/Archer251009?pli=1&gsessionid=7oVLvecpYg_cwy3T9O8G1Q#

Goods pics. And judging by that pic of me I found your heckling funny.

I must say I reckon I could move up another dozen places if I lost the gut.

I'm already working out how to improve the course for next year – both for ridering and also to help us poor lap scorers.