Ah now that was good. Thought it lacked the Big Event feel of previous years maybe but loved the riding. Weird, I went from properly crocked 2 days ago (couldn’t even get my leg over the bike) to 7 laps today- nowt if you’re a Raddogair but quite a lot if you’re a Northwind 😆 (oh and if you want to finish with a smile on your face, cross the finish line 1 minute before the end, ace)

Massive curry dispatched, beers being consumed, all is right with the world. Cheers folks!

Yep that was great, everything hurts now.

Managed to get a sub-ride again and got in with 2 mins to go on my last lap. Win Win. 🙂

Good course and especially liked the steep descent from the high point – sorted out the MTBers from the 29er Roadies 😉

Well done northwind, glad you got that last one in, 🙂 I dithered about it and decided I probably wouldn’t make it. Now I’m glad I didn’t as I feel bad enough! Was a great course – first ride this year where my bike was covered in …. DUST 😯 ( well and some mud)

Enjoyed that, thought the course was fab 😀

Also finished with about 4 minutes to spare. Good feeling. Loved having the XC boys overtake you on the climb and then pass them on the floor on the way down!

Good course except for the final descent through the trees. Too many braking bumps – fine if you’re dragging your back wheel on your 140mm travel skill compensator. Crap for everyone else. Still, that’s the ‘rad’ way to ride…

Did it in a trio. Had been sick and off work for a few days so only managed one lap with some puking!

Nice course though, liked the descents.

Good course except for the final descent through the trees. Too many braking bumps – fine if you’re dragging your back wheel on your 140mm travel skill compensator. Crap for everyone else. Still, that’s the ‘rad’ way to ride…

Braking bumps? Don’t remember any of those (HT here, although long-fork big tyred variety), it was rooty though and faster was smoother.

There were breaking bumps by the last lap. They weren’t that bad, unless like me you had ripped your hands to shreds in which case they hurt like hell.

My fault for not putting softer grips on my bike though.

My Horsethief is a bit heavy for this kind of thing.
Might have to do up my Genesis Core as a lightweight bike for these races.

Too many braking bumps – fine if you’re dragging your back wheel on your 140mm travel skill compensator. Crap for everyone else. Still, that’s the ‘rad’ way to ride…

Some very small ones formed towards the end of several hundred lycra clad roadies locking up people braking hard into corners for 7 hours, I’d say if you want to race on a surface that doesn’t do that then tarmac is the best option! 😛

Last descent was definitely of the smoother if you were quicker variety.

What amazed me was just how quickly some people could ride the steep descent after the cake stop – which was great and a feature I encourage all event organisers to adopt. I’m a bit of a mincer on things like that but even so, some people just fly down those things in defiance of reasonable laws of physics.

Just back to base after staying an extra night listening to the rain.
Great course ,liked it better than last year.Most of my body could have done more but my wrists said no after 7 laps,don’t know what that was about,never had any limp wrist issues before 🙂
Well done to all the marshals,full of encouragement and smart remarks 🙂

What a fantastic event – had a great time even though I ache in places I didn’t know I had today.

The course was just about perfect. A nice big climb to start with to get warmed up (and a few steeper bits to make you curse!). The descent from the top was an excellent mix of fast and flowy, and steep and techy – great fun! Pinning it from the mid-point of the descent all the way through the trees and down the field was a great way of finishing. Thankfully Dave A was wrong and we didn’t need the Singletrack mud guards he was dishing out: dusty trails most of the way 😀

Huge thanks to the organisers and marshals who (apart from timing problems) made the day run so smoothly. Also a tip of the hat to the really fast riders who were all good natured and patient with bimblers like me!

great course again, weather stayed just nice all day and riding was fun (at times). Nowadays class myself as ( nearly) a roadie or ‘xc boy’so unsure what this means

Loved having the XC boys overtake you on the climb and then pass them on the floor on the way down!

According to strava ( the official timekeeper 🙂 ) , http://www.strava.com/activities/145137766/segments/3319110212 , i was joint KOM and at least a minute ahead of anyone else with their ‘trailbikes’ from top of the course all the way to the bottom

Not quite good enough this year but to only be beaten by a true xc speed machine i’m happy with that

gutted to have missed it. Hopefully the course was a bit easier than last year.

Raddogair…what happened, I assumed you only needed to turn up to win these type of events!?

Thankfully Dave A was wrong and we didn’t need the Singletrack mud guards he was dishing out: dusty trails most of the way

It’ll rain soon enough and you’ll get the benefit then hey? ;o)

*looks outside at the thunderstorm*… yeah: good point…

i was joint KOM and at least a minute ahead of anyone else with their ‘trailbikes’ from top of the course all the way to the bottom

you guys aren’t human though 🙂

I was definitely cursing being on a 130mm full sus.

The speed of the fast boys is just ridiculous… The wee squidgy one going down from the blue climb was maybe the best example, generally on every lap there’d be someone on a big trailbike crashing, there’d be a couple of people mincing, there’d be me going a bit faster and thinking “Wayhey, I’m showing these guys how it’s done”, and then suddenly there’d be a racing snake on a bike with bald tyres going past me so fast there’s redshift.

I think it’s the 29 inch wheels 😉

Northwind – It’s all the laps they do, they just get more practice at riding the course so of course they’re better. *coughs*

As bigjim says – that comment was directed at the Lycra clad humans, not you!
No idea how you lads kept going that quickly, so impressive.

But you’re not an average XCer Greig – one minute I was behind you on the final descent, and the next you’d passed 3 other riders in the trees. How? 😯

Any results up yet? Also photos? Also if anyone thinks they were braking bumps they might be better doing laps of a snooker table!

Results have been held up according to their FB, but still on the way.

But you’re not an average XCer Greig – one minute I was behind you on the final descent, and the next you’d passed 3 other riders in the trees. How?

carbon 29er obviously 🙂

Loved that, never done a solo before but the descent was well worth the little cry half way up on the fourth lap… cake at the top and I managed a few more 🙂

Brilliantly organised and fun. Will be back.

Mr stu glad you liked the cakes my bakery made them. I’ll be making stuff for the Ews this weekend and then the glentress skinny and then for king of the hill. I love biking and make good cakes so I thought I’d combine the 2….

Do you think more events would like a cake feed station like that?

Were most of the results a total fail, or are they still collating them from some finish line scribblings and a big clock?

monkeyninja – all events like this would benefit from an all you can eat cake stop at the highest point! your cakes and banter kept me going after lap 3.

Wasn’t my banter sorry…I just supplied the cakes and banner. The tweedlove guys setup and manned the station, I was stuck in the bakery on Saturday. Gonna look into more events if this Tweedlove thing is a success..its good advertising for us and it let’s people try our products.

Cracking event, my first time, one of the best XC laps I’ve ever raced on.
Nice varied laps, loved the long final descent, was ace, except when I was being held up by baggy short wearing, full suss riding brigade 🙂

monkeyninja – all events like this would benefit from an all you can eat cake stop at the highest point!

tbh It was in the wrong place, better if it’d been at the top of the freeride park so you could then just grab and eat on the fireroad climb. Probably why there was so much left at the end.

I couldn’t eat the cake but I enjoyed looking at it, really nice touch that. (kind of agree it could have been placed better but at the same time, I rather liked stopping for a moment at the top)

provisional results are up. No lap times though so can’t really tell if they are right or wrong.

An error on our team, we did 6 laps although I am suspecting that the lap that one of us binned it wasn’t counted – may have not passed over the mat on the way to hospital.