[Closed] The Racing Post......shall we bring it back?

Oh yes please....I keep getting podiums somehow 😀
Off to Otterspool for rd5 in half an hour.

Oh yes please....I keep getting podiums somehow

Oh cheers.

I don't know how.I spent 4 years on the struggle bus grovelling in the twenty sommits.Now there's 100+ every weekend and I'm on the front row 8O. Mick Style is 50+ and is top 3 and Roy Hunt is 60+ and is top 10 overall (in 40+)!!!!

I'm gridded front row each week (based on last years 6th overall) I think it might be that I didn't race road this year.
Two weeks ago I was gridded front row with Masters World Champion, last week it was the Hargroves lot so the anti has well and truly been upped. Plus Saturday racing seems to bring the ringers after points both days?

Home. Tough crowd today, World Champ (again) Jewson and Hargroves guys, too rich for me.

Yea....2nd place.If I stop messing around at the start and get higher than about 30th after the first lap I might even actually win one 8)

Congrats.
Too much singletrack today and got caught up lapping back markers. It was pot luck.....but hey ho.

Too many years racing bmx/4x means I have very big elbows.

I'm too nice, and usually end up with 20M of marker tape round my gears.

Yea....2nd place.If I stop messing around at the start and get higher than about 30th after the first lap I might even actually win one

Otterspool is fairly untypical for the NW.They are generally wider and less 'singletracky'.I do really enjoy that style of course, being from the mtb side but it's hard work to race on.I had to be a bit more 'forceful' with a couple of passes than I generally like to be because you just can't afford to sit in on the narrower parts and wait too long for it to be convenient (it was definitely more fun in the mid pack-and better banter!!).
Hopefully I did'nt upset too many people.I always try to say thankyou/apologise.

First race back since breaking my collarbone in early August. More than happy with 5th place in the Seniors atNDCXL today but I've still got a lot of work to do.

I don't know how.I spent 4 years on the struggle bus grovelling in the twenty sommits.Now there's 100+ every weekend and I'm on the front row 8O. Mick Style is 50+ and is top 3 and Roy Hunt is 60+ and is top 10 overall (in 40+)!!!!

Roy Hunt still going!! respect! he was old when I was a kid haha

It's funny how locals don't like riders out of region turning up. Its not always point/pot hunting. Its just cos they like CX racing! Anyway I beat that there World Champ in the London League a few weeks ago (just), but he is about 62!!! Amazing fitness though! Pete Smith ain't slow either.
Train a bit harder oldgit!

He has about 3 minutes a lap over me, Pete Smith is a cracking rider. I think they drag us round harder, as I said I'm down the field, but I'm totally spent afterwards.

Is he 62! ish? Christ.

2 minutes

Well at least you are keen! :0)

I am that, but just that sadly.
Raced National Vets Roads a year ago and realised that level was above me, happier now racing for honours. Missed road racing this year, can't wait to get back.

Have we crossed paths.

Possibly. I did one or two CCCLs season before last. Hillingdon was one, always worth the long drive to race there.

Swedish national series round 5 today, a very nice 3rd place for me, backing up my 7th, and 8th from the previous rounds.

Even managed to pick up a pair of Racing Ralph 29er MTB tubulars as part of my prize! What a great excuse to buy new wheels, I mean it would be bad form not to try them...

Riding in 7th, biding my time
[img] [/img]

I should have a write up tomorrow. I'm having a play in the Wessex seniors this season. I was top 80% at Basingstoke before managing the heady heights of top 79% at Reading.
So my target of course is top 78% at Winchester 🙂

Well, I was hoping to spill out 3000 over-excited words about this running battle and that epic slide and how I proudly finished in my best spot of the season!
Instead, 3 letters is all it needs DNF 🙁

Broke my chain on lap two. Shame too as I felt good and the course was very MTB friendly. There were also lots of girly pansies in the mid-field of Seniors today tip-toing around the various slippery off camber banks so I was moving 'up the ladder' for once.

Hey ho, thats racing! On to Crowthorne 🙂

Hey ho, thats racing!

You almost wait for it to happen at least once a season, bummer isn't it.

No racing this weekend, a good job to. Got to get my body ready for Saturday.

Annoyingly, I took my tool pouch off for a change 'to save weight' 🙁
I knew weight-weenieism was bad news 😀

Last road race of the season - our own TCC Ottershaw Surrey League. Not feeling great after a week of sniffs and general illness. Second lap; hit a big pothole, Third lap; team mate hits the big pothole (on my borrowed race bike 😕 ), Fourth lap rider two in front of me hits the pothole and sails over the bars into a somersault and the bushes. I drop off the back, call for a marshalla, don't get back on, and spend the rest of the race standing in a three inch hole in the road marshalling riders. My race bike finished fifth and is very happy 😀 .

Imperial Winter Series starts on December 6th at Hillingdon. If you want to stay (relatively) clean, [url= http://www.riderhq.com/o/5/imperial-winter-series/enter ]get your entries in now[/url]. 4th cats will fill up fast.

Imperial Winter Series starts on December 6th at Hillingdon.

Sod that 🙂

Oooh I only gone done and won one (bout time) 😀

I'd love to win a race again. Congrats.

After a week plus of illness I got straight into the MK Bowl CX race, it wasn't pretty.

Friday, took a day's holiday to spend it building the course for the weekend's double header:

Saturday, Swedish national champs, 6th place in men's 40 - 50 age group
Sunday, last round of the Swedish cup, 8th place in Super class.

Busted.

Next week is my season's final race, which will be in Belgium, followed by watching the World Cup and Superprestige, as well as getting drunk celebrating my 40th. 8)

But we're only half way through the season!

But we're only half way through the season!

I know however its expected that there will be a thick layer of snow on the ground over here for the rest of the traditional season, hence why nationals was this weekend.

There are C2 events in Denmark once a month, so if the weather holds I might make it to one or two of those

I know it really doesn't matter whether I finished 57th or 58th but it does annoy me how Wessex CX get the top ten and all the photos uploaded really quickly and then the full results several hours later. After all, we all pay the same entry fee. Perhaps it will get better when they upgrade to electronic timing?

Crosshair, compared to LL that's good, and we have electronic timing!

They need to sort the prizewinners out on the day so that's why the first few are known, the rest get done when they get done. You're talking about volunteers who've given up their weekend for you, remember.

Lol! Alright, I know they are volunteers and I'm not denying the great work they do. Thing is though, Gorricks are only a few quid dearer and they will tell you your result as soon as you've finished and get them online before you've had a bath.
Given the responses the other entry fee thread got, I'm probably on dangerous ground here but I'd happily pay £20 entry fee every week to make sure they a) have electronic timing and b) pay someone to do the administration on the day. If wessex CX controlled the entries centrally rather than the clubs then you could make the whole day so less stressful- you could bulk enter for example or even enter next weeks at this weeks event etc. seems really inefficient for each club to handle the entries separately.
Sparsholt entry was fast, efficient and in a nice canteen. Today, we queued in the mud for twenty minutes after the time they had quoted for senior entries. The guy was only just clipping safety pins onto the numbers (why not trust us to take four ourselves and free another pair of hands up for entries?)
Course was epic mind you 🙂

Pre-entry only meets resistance as CX has traditionally been entry on the day, going away from that is a big step. I do pre-race admin for a much bigger league than Wessex and if I were to be paid my hourly rate I can assure you that entry fees would be a [i]lot[/i] higher than £20 🙂

There's no need to stop entry on the day but if 75% of the queue suddenly vanished then your workload and price tag would come down accordingly 😀
Just £2 extra an entry would be £5600 a season roughly for the Wessex league- I'm sure you could get one of the existing volunteers to run a centralised entry/numbering system for that. Hell, if I was retired, I'd happily do it.
I understand that it's supposed to be affordable, un-grandiose, grass roots racing, but that doesn't mean it needs to be stuck in the mud 😀

The queue will still be there, riders still have to present licence, sign on, pick up number and chip etc. You can't get rid of the numbers and manual judging backup.
It's being looked at all over the country but until BC bring in something centralised it'll all be ad-hoc. What you're asking for would be ideal but it's a long way off. It makes everything downstream easier too as with known entries the organiser can plan budgets/prizes/levies in advance as well.

Easiest way to show us how it's meant to be done is organise a race crosshair.

oops, double post

@Leggyblonde As I say, I'm not trying to undermine the efforts of the volunteers but as with most things in life, it takes pretty much the same or very often less effort to do something properly as it does to do it half arsed.

They do the results on a laptop, I would imagine on a spreadsheet. Why not save it on Dropbox and publish a read-only link to the file to make the provisional results instantly accessible?

I've been trying to work out how to start a more grass roots (cat 5 anyone?) crit series, perhaps based around industrial estates or a gravel bike type race similar to SPAM's winter challenge but encompassing the rest of Salisbury Plain so perhaps 2015 could be the year, who knows 🙂

Crosshair, good for you for looking into organsing some racing 😀

Unfortunately, the volunteers often do everything as properly as they can but when the race is hit by a storm, racers have horrendous handwriting and there are 200+ people harrassing the 3 sign on staff, things can go awry...

I organised the London League round 7 which had electronic tags etc and we are still sorting out the results due to the weather etc. A system is only as good as it's weakest link. Most CX races that I enter provide provisional results first.

Anyway, sorry for the derail- I can't relax until I know the results 😀

Turns out it was my best result of the season with 28th out of 48 starters. Who knows, might make the top half by next season 😉 😀

First CX race in Belgium at the weekend, 8th place in Masters B in the Vlaamse Cyclocrosscup in Uitbergen.

Great laugh, thoroughly recommended to anyone wanting a "real" CX experience.

10 euros to enter the area, regardless of whether you raced or not, then 5 euros back on return of your number, and I got 5 euros in prize money, mental!

0 meters elevation gain for the entire race according to Strava.

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Is this thread just for 'cross, or does mountain bike orienteering count as racing too. 😉
Looks like a good turnout in Loughborough tomorrow.
http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/entrant_list.php?event_id=563

I'll take the absence of a No as a Yes then. 😛
[url= http://www.bmbo.org.uk/images/event/72b3d76f4673621a6457839e57751b6c.html ]9th overall, 3rd M50[/url].
http://www.strava.com/activities/224915763

Sooooo, regional champs. How did everyone do?

I managed 4th senior at the South East and East race which I'm pleased with. Fowlmead is a great course; some very technical bits which suit me linked with power sections which make it damn hard all round! I was dearly hoping that one of the lead 3 would have a mechanical as that's the only way I would have ended up with a medal...

20th in the Scottish up at Banchory, on what might be the Surly SS clunker's last race outing.

Pretty consistent with the rest of this season - not terrible but not great either. Cracking day but very very cold.

Good work guys!

18th out of about 70 in the 40-49 veterans Central League Race at Hillingdon this afternoon. First cross race. Not sure which garnered the most attention; striped socks or the SS mtb with cross tyres and odd handlebars. I believe oldgit raced too. Anyone else?

Hillingdon was the first central league round I've missed this year.

Raced as in 'was there' been ill since October. Very poor ride but I was buzzing like a good'un to be riding again. Saw you and the bike, sort of couldn't miss it.

Jase if you want to relive it, half of Hillingdon is in my front garden.

Everyman and his dog went past me today, it was very humbling, but I'll be back.

Ha ha, yes heard it was muddy with lots of people breaking stuff.

Just rinsed the rest of Hillingdon off my bike. And pulled 3m of tape off the back freewheel. I think i was the only singlespeed rider today, and by the attrition, two broken mechs on the warm up lap, this looked a good choice. The three inches of mud clearance meant i was never going to have problems, just had to wait for those in front to have mechanicals. I only cleaned it out of kindness, because it was perfectly ready to go again without fettling. I also rode three warm up laps without cleaning off the mud too. So singlespeed, hydraulic deores and front suspension.

Not really sure what to make of cross to be honest, raced E12/3 circuit also at Hillingdon yesterday, and chose this over the Gorrick because our club were hosts. Yesterday's race saw a rider cross the line upside down mid air but the racing was thrilling. Today was more like a mtb race without any climbs. Or trees.

Might be back. Or stick to road and mtb.

Not a course to judge things on to be fair. Only half the laps usually completed? That course needs to be dry and ridden fast to be at it's best IMO.
Yes a flat course. Also if I were to miss any out of choice it would be Hillingdon.
Today was a non counter for me, just a spin after so long off. I'd never treat any other courses with such disdain.

Welwyn next for me, time to get some fitness back and a corker of a course.

That photo of the Hillingdon finish yesterday is amazing

TiRed that was you today wasn't it, I didn't click until I was almost home. I was looking out for the socks earlier as well.
Sorry I really didn't mean to come across so rude, totally ####ed but not rude.

Yes it was. Felt much better than last time out. Finished 22nd overall, apparently. Wrong gear choice, should have gone for 54 inches instead of 57.