Welsh XC series for 2016?

Concur with everything that Gelert has said,
Went up yesterday and the off piste is pretty hideous at the moment.
Should be interesting next week if nothing else!

Good reporting Gelert! Sounds like the rons will be coming back off and the Beavers back on, especially as I’m in the 1.30 race so it will be churned up nicely! I’m aiming to get up there for three on the sat to get a practise lap or two in. Should be good fun!

Looks like mud-x territory to me

Is it really that bad?! That sounds pretty awful. I thought that they weren’t using that firemen’s loop. It’s lovely in the Forest of Dean at the moment too. Tempted to just stay here and ride my bike instead of dragging it around the outskirts of Wrexham!

I’m sure it’ll be all ok on the day.

Matt

Well Delamere forest is a muddy hole at the moment and it’s not a million miles away from Llandegla.

I’ll keep quiet then. It’s lovely down here in the FoD!

M

To be fair it’s all pretty dry round Swansea too. Whatever the conditions, I’m looking forward to racing, and actually if it’s grotty enough to negate the benefits of being technically proficient that would be fine by me 😆

If it’s like it was yesterday, the fast guys will still be fast. Cos they’re fast.
Mid pack dudes will be a bit slower than normal.
Tailgunners will be wading through bog/launching their bikes into the undergrowth…

It’ll be interesting, spent the weekend with some Welsh guys who said the normal Llandegla course is awful dull and boring! I fancied having a return to MTB racing after 20 years the winter of CX has inspired me!

The xc race won’t be on the normal trails and if they think the trails are dull they’re not riding them fast enough

The ‘normal trails’ are the trail centre ones then? I’m going to keep my Ralphs on and ‘launch it through the undergrowth’!

Any feedback later in the week would be much appreciated!

Matt

Are there showers at llandegla?

Snow too I think 🙂

Haha for the avoidance of doubt I was talking about washing facilities

Steve someone already said the old Llandegla XC course was dull up a fire road then down, although someone has mentioned they have changed the course for next weekend’s XC race.

Steve’s absolutely right if someone says Llandegla is boring they’re definitely not riding it quickly enough or seeing any of the optional trail side features as obstacles for fun or skills practice.

Llandegla is one of the better laid out TCs in that the 3 mile climb is pretty much all of the fire road you’ll encounter and it’s fast flowy singletrack after the berms all the way back to the cafe but you do need to be fit to get the punchy single track climbs that are dotted between DH sections out of the way quickly.

It certainly kicks your arse however fit you think you are if you try to lap any of the normal routes without stopping. It’s also great for interval training if you split the lap up into sections and aim to go flat out from X to Y and that’s especially good fun on a group ride on a Wednesday evening.

The XC won’t be on the normal routes and it’s definitely not boring. I race Enduro and dabble in beginner DH too and I’m even saying an XC at Llandegla isn’t boring… c’mon. It is what you make of it.

Just had the competitor information email about the Llandegla XC event this weekend (as posted on the FB page last night) which is all fine. I’m going to turn up for 9am and go do a quiet practice lap.

However, I’ve not a clue what I’m actually racing. I’ve never done a Welsh XC before or any kind of proper XC event. I’ve merely done the charity XC events that have been held at Llandegla and I race Enduro normally and I’ve done one DH race so I understand how those events work.

I’ve seen posts on the FB page where other people have asked how many laps and I don’t understand the replies and I feel stupid asking the same question again. I’ve seen answers ranging from 2 to 5 laps.

So how does it work?

Is an XC a time limited race whereby the winner does the most amount of laps they can do in that time and when they cross the finish after the race time limit (I’m guessing something like 1h30?) everyone else is automatically on their final lap? How does the time keeper know how many laps I did though?

So if I’m in the Fun category and go off at the same time as the Elite Females they’ll be doing 5 laps and I might only get 3 done in the same time. How will the winner of the Fun category be decided?

When I raced the Fireman XC at Llandegla we knew at the start that we had a maximum of 3 laps to do and if the winner had done 3 everyone else was then on their last lap – fair enough. The two times I’ve done it I managed to do the 3 laps and finish about 25 minutes behind the overall winner both times but I was only 3 minutes behind a podium spot. I’m recovering from injury this time so I’m just happy to line up and get the racing season started this time.

They’ll let you know at sign on how many laps it is.
As a general rule Fun 3, Sport/Vets 4 Expert 5 Elite 6, with 1 less of each for the women.

The goal is to have a 1h30m race, so if the laps are really short/quick they might up the amount, but that should have been sorted before the race start.

Its a set number of laps and you do them all (assuming you want to/dont crash or have a mechanical).

I think fun typically do 2-3 laps. normally if elite do x laps, expert do x-1, sport x-2, open x-3 and fun x-4 but there isnt an open cat.

I’m expecting to do 4-5 laps in sport. They basically aim for the main races to be 1.5hrs and judge laps accordingly. Fun is normally shorter at around an hour.

edit. Adam types faster!

Thanks for the very speedy replies. I get it now.

So at least we’ll know how many laps before the race. I can handle 3. Whew.

Quickest laps at Fireman’s were being done in 25 minutes and I was doing 32 mins.

shorter course though I think – only 5km,

Yeah, I’m sure the Firemans was getting on for 6.5-7k!

Just checked Strava and car park start to car park start on 2nd lap was 8.37km in Fireman’s. It’ll be interesting to see what’s cut out. Given that we had to get all the way up to the finish on the last lap too… that was 10.3km from car park start to finish line… eek. Total distance was 26.2km.

Maybe they’ll drop the zig zagging along the walkers paths on the climb… that’d be good.

I’m up for more laps if it’s shorter 🙂 I love the loamy woods section. Wouldn’t say no to another go at that.

I’m curious to see where it goes too – the Firemans sent us along the end of the blue while it was still open! – that was a disaster waiting to happen.
I hope they’ve got One Planet to close/reroute some bits this time…

I read it as we won’t be racing on any open bits of trail, nor sure where I read that, but I think I did.

They can easily avoid all the open trails by going straight up the finish fire road all the way to the woods and even skip the waterlogged stumps.

It just wouldn’t be very spectator friendly unless everyone moved up to the gates by the reservoir to watch that way we could cut out a fair bit of zig zagging on the climb, the first bit in the car park woods and the open Blue down to the carpark.

On a complete lap exit the rooty woods after the stream crossing and don’t go left onto the Blue carry on up to the gate, turn right onto the fire road back up to the woods – never going on the open trail at all.

I got the impression there would be no trail centre bits. I’m hoping there’ll be a decent wide start straight before the first single track as when I looked yesterday the fields looked a decent size. Will find out tomorrow!

Hello,

any updates for the course up at Llandegla especially after all of this dry weather?

Cheers,

matt

Wet

Really? Thanks for the info.

A couple of riders I know are there now to check out the course. Just waiting to hear back…

Thanks Adam.

I did a practise lap earlier, fun course, mostly dry, there are some very boggy bits but largely dry.

Sounds fab, thanks for reporting back. Do you have a strava for it?

Found some Stravas today

Strava 1

Strava 2

I’m not sure why they compared it to the Fireman race course. There’s very little the same – no stumps, no shared climb, no walkers paths, no blue finish, no loop in the trees/mud at the start. One section is identical and another is just one DH bit of it. The rest is different. Much shorter. About 5km almost spot on. I’d guess 20-25 minutes per lap and around 400ft per lap.

It does look ace though. Can’t wait to ride the lap.

Dodgy satellite imagery and GPS traces might be a bit off but a fair bit of it seems to be on the walking trails which is nice because a couple of those are in beautiful parts of the woods.

Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow.

Just heard back from my friends.
And I quote ” At least 2 x nasty drop offs, loose your wheel mud puddles, climbing only on fire road and little off track” and “Technical soggy undulating roots roots humps”.
That sound about right Ferrals? Or is he overselling it a bit?

It’s good, a bit of the trail centre stuff is used at the end. Basically, as I understand it, the start is up near the end of a bit of trail centre single-track, then there is a long fireroad section until a right turn turn into some pine forest and a fair descent, singletrack bit, then a bit of fire road, then more singletrack, then a double track climb, the down through the woods to the reservoir, along that, and then trail centre surfaced semi-singletrack back to the start.

There are a few bits of deep mud, but most of the pine stuff is dry. There is one very muddy drop with a deep bog at the bottom that will catch people out I’m sure. I think there is only one nasty drop off. There’s one roll in onto double track that’s fine, a rooty one that was in the firemans based on pictures and the tricky one I just mention

Can’t wait now. Sounds brilliant. Superb track by the description and Strava. Love new tracks.

Hope my legs turn up and my injuries don’t stop me. Even one lap will be fun.

Oh and the climbs are quite gentle so I think it will be very fast on the fireroad