Swaledale Nutcracker Report

Andy Spencer reports from last weekend’s Swaledale Nutcracker:

The Dales Bike Centre in Swaledale, North Yorkshire was the perfect location for the fourth event in the series organised by the Nutcracker Team, who are helping bring cross county racing back ‘Up North‘. With course changes being needed at the 12th hour after the safety team deemed one of the downhill sections too hard to race over, Adey Dent and his team rose to the challenge and pulled out of the bag an exciting and enthralling course which put the ‘mountain’ back into mountain biking.

The three mile loop suited the stronger climbers in the race and out of the start field came the first steep, grassy climb which stretched the riders out very quickly. Next came the open moor land track but the climb back over to Fremmington Edge into a strong head wind burnt heavily into the energy reserves.

No time to look at the view into Swaledale, the single track descent was on and what a cracker it was! After this roller coaster came the technical skinny sheep track back to the start field for the next gruelling lap. The day was programmed to include three different races with the younger riders competing in the morning over two laps, following this was the Senior/Elite race over five laps and the day concluded with the Master and Veterans race, which had the larger number of entries required to race over three laps. A day of cross country racing was enjoyed by families and serious followers alike.

Full results can be viewed on the Nutcracker website.