* sorry, I meant to type ‘this an interesting thread’ and didn’t mean to come across as an obnoxious wazock – damn auto correct

I must make a trip down there, looks great? Hampshire CC seem really good at supporting these type of insentives, I say that assuming they support QECP in a similar way!

This isn’t a really interesting thread!

I guess the comments on here sum up the challenge that the uci, or any event organiser has – there are so many different opinions, each person would like to see something different.

I’m really looking forward to the progress of this, keep us updated as much as you can with the good and the bad.

Whether you can achieve it or not doesn’t matter, your ambition’s great and the fact you prepared to share your goals is brilliant, if a little mad, especially in here 😉

Good luck OP

At TrailX duathlons most people wear fitted jerseys and cycling shorts, I think there are Duathlon specific shorts that have less padding so are a little nicer to run in and a few wear tri suits. Others wear baggies and looser fitting tops but they are the minority, however ways look comfy

Brilliant write up Weeksy. I’ll get it up on the Facebook page with the photo

I see you’re keeping up the forum tradition of batting WAY out of your league, we were chatting to your good lady for a fair while

Haha, cheeky sod!!

See you in a few weeks.

It was good to see you and your lad Weeksy. Awesome racing by him, he seems to really enjoy it – bloody great big smile!

Good luck to all you racing at the Eastern/South Eastern regional champs today. A great chance to get a big haul of Bc points and the course looks awesome!

Great result Jimbob, it sounds like you had a good scrap.

If any of you keep racing blogs or write reports I’d really like to post them on the SouthernXC website and Facebook page so if you fancy sharing them please email them to info@eventrexuk.co.uk

Good luck with your racing!

How did you get on Paddy!

There is no countdown clock Weeksy – true XC races are always a set number of laps, they should say on the start line how many that is, as it can change from what’s advertised, but there will never, ever be a case of “there’s time for one more” in any category.

Partly right but; Due to the time limits that BC are encouraging the organisers to enforce there is a count down clock. So for example Sport is a 4 lap race (there is no point in doing more as your 5th lap and more will not count) and the briefing should tell you this but it also a minimum length of 1.5 hrs so you can’t start a lap after an hour and half, hence the clock. I hope that makes sense?

Ok, thanks for taking the time to steer me. I’ll have a look at all of the above and then post up the ‘outcome’

Having watched a fair few kids go through the ranks it seems that you’ve found yourself in a very normal position Weeksy, it’s striking that balance between encouragement and pushing, the smile on your lads face suggests your pretty much on the money!

See you at Croww Hill for he next round.

Good luck to all of you riding the nationals this weekend at Wasing!

Cool, Windows 10 – so it seems Windows Movie Maker might be a good place to start. Sorry for being a Luddite and not checking but I assume that I can add music through Movie Maker?

Maybe BW??

Awesome result Weeksy and mini weeksy! That photo of you two is exactly what racing should be about, brilliant mate

There are a few mentions from some of you about doing the Nationals, if you fancy a practice at the Wasing round the first round of the SouthernXC will be on the same course. I have been working hard with the organiser of the nationals round to develop the course further so we have added some new parts that ride really well and alter the configuration quite a lot.

The information and pre entry for SouthernXC is is at http://www.eventrexuk.co.uk, just scroll down and click on the SouthernXC logo.

There seems to be loads of great racing around this summer, we really struggled to get dates that didn’t clash with other events when we were planning the SouthernXC schedule at the end of last year. It seems to be a great mix of traditional events like Big Dog, Pivot etc along with the established regional XC series’ and the odd new events coming through or back from the past. Loads of choices…

The courses that we use at Checkendon are very similar the the Rampage Races and the kids course at other rounds, including Wasing are always laid out with as little climbing as possible and we try to make them fairly short with single track so it’s not a case of the bigger kids just riding away. The shorter course for all U12’s is done to encourage them to ride the course as many times as possible so that they get the practise the more technical stuff and realise that mountain bike isn’t just about pedalling.

There is usually a great group of childeren playing around the arena while their Dads race but like you say it’s probably a good idea to have your wife their for the first one so that your lad can make some friends and get to find out who the other parents are who tend to watch over them.

For the Adults the course at Wasing is a little more technical than Checkendon and unsurprisingly more hilly but it still has some good woodland singletrack and all of the technical features have Alternative lines so you have a choice to ride them or not. Also if it interests you it will be almost exactly the same course as used for the 2nd round of the National Points Series round 2

Go on, go for it!!

Got it, thanks and look forward to seeing you at registration

Hi Weeksy, put his details down in the rider information, with your email address (assuming he doesn’t have one) and your details in emergency contact details. The cc bit is handled by PayPal so it doesn’t matter who’s cc you use, you don’t need a PayPal account if you don’t have one – just follow the directions on the site.

I hope that helps

There’s a quick summary of the Open category, hopefully it’ll clear up any queries, if it doesn’t just leave a message below or mail us at events@southernxc.uk.com
The revised Open category for 2017 is a race of up to 4 laps for men and 3 for women, as long as the rider completes 1 full lap they will be awardeded with a result instead of the usual ‘dnf’ where the full race length isn’t complete. There is a point worth noting, riders will be allowed to start a new lap after 1hr 20mins to help us keep the day on schedule.

Results will be based firstly on the amount of laps completed and then by time taken, this category will be gridded as per all other races during the day to ensure safety, it will be run as a point scoring series like all other categories and will have series prizes, again like all other categories.

All SouthernXC dates and venues are confirmed at http://www.southernxc.net, categories and prices will be confirmed very soon. Updates will also be on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SouthernXC/?ref=bookmarks

For those of you who like a bit of trail running with your mountain biking the organising team behind SouthernXC are involved with TrailX which is an off road duathlon series using the same venues and course, updates at http://www.trailx.co.uk and https://www.facebook.com/TrailXUK/?ref=bookmarks

I’m helping the organisers of the New Years Day race in Newbury that Munge-chick mentioned above, it’s going to be great fun with a Cx sprint time trial, an elimination race and a normal but short xc race, points will be awarded based in your finishing position of each race and your final position will be based on you total points.

To add a little more fun I hear that a foam machine has been booked…

More information and online entry is here http://my1.raceresult.com/64947/?lang=en

That sounds about right, I think it’s now the same as a Whyte 909 and they ride amazingly well – though you have plus sized so a little more circumference effectively slackening the head angle further. I reckon you’ve probably turned a decent bike into a great trail bike.

Has it given you any ideas ? I seem to see a LOT less XC stuff in the summer… Whilst it’s fun sometimes in the mud, i’d much rather find myself riding on a nice summer morning than a wet and horrible foggy morning.

Yes it really has. It’s interesting to read all of the comments about the ‘beginner, open, fun’ categories as we have been reviewing this over the closed season and think we may have come up with a decent idea; we are thinking of running A race that wil combine and of these non British Cycling categories, it’ll be an ‘up to’ 3 lap race and as long as you complete 1 lap you will get a result, not a DNF as you would in a regular lap based race, this will hopefully give us 3 races (1 lap, 2 laps and 3 laps) within one, hopefully this will mean that those who only fancy 1 lap will be in a race the same as those who are completing 3, what do you think?

Weeksy, to answer your question about the length of the season, the SouthernXC in 2017 will run 5 rounds from March to July and stop before the summer holidays because it has proven historically that the number die off significantly after this. The resurgence of CX has meant that there is the same problem in September, It seems to go like this; XC racers train in the winter/spring for a good spring and early summer season the quite understandably go on their family holiday for a rest and come back to either take part in and train for their local CX league or enjoy riding away from racing.

At the SouthernXC we are trying hard to put Mountain Bike (not necessarily XC) races on that cater as wide a range of people as possible. We really don’t care what you wear, what you ride or how fast you are/aren’t but what we do care about is that your enjoying it and want to come back for more. You’ll find that all members of the organising team have got time to talk, at the end of your race you’ll always see someone in a high viz (usually me) milling around the arena listening and chatting, come and talk to us, we’ll always listen to your feedback but we also just want to hear how your race went, the bits you loved and the bits you loathed…

Blimey this thread is a tough one for someone in my shoes, one of the organisers at the SouthernXC!!

All of this XC chat is just brilliant, your opinion is what helps us improve, and improve we must because the one thing that matters is participation, without critical mass the series can’t run 😕

To increase participation we need to make XC attractive to all of you who haven’t had a go or have and been put off for one of the numerous reasons – while we are never going to tick everyone’s box we must try so please keep this thread going!!

I’ve been running Wide Lightning for a year now and love them, they very reliable, tubeless up well and so far as hard as nails. The do a narrower rimmed version now. Also there always seems to be a deal available somewhere from American Classic!!

I’ve used X01 grip shift and an Xtr M9000 mech for a couple of years and it works perfectly, it seems that all 11 speed mtb stuff is compatible

Strangely I’ve just been through this with a customer and while weed killer seems to do something it’s not that impressive I’ve found that the only way is to remove the roots. Luckily they don’t seem to root that deeply and are fairly easy to get out but the problem you have is your lawn. If you carefully cut the turf where the roots go with a single cut to open it, not remove it you should be able to close it again tidily and with a little growth any marks will disappear.

Good luck…

Just a quick note of thanks to all of you who joined us at the SouthernXC this year. We saw loads of new names which is great and people seemed to really enjoy the new venues, even if they will take a little while to bed in.

The series is all wrapped up now and we’re busy planning for 2017 so as soon as I can I’ll let you all know the dates!

Have a great cross season…

It’s a bloody brilliant event on a great course. The above comments regarding the course are bang on, there’s plenty of grip on the surface so something fast rolling unless it really wet and then other than the roots bits it’s never too tough going.

Have a laugh and enjoy it…

Great to see that there are some plans afoot and you guys are looking forward to the coming season.

Excuse the promotion but southernxc online entries are open and if you enter all 7 rounds before the closing date of the first round you’ll get one free!! Just visit wwww.southernxc.net

I’m tempted to do the southern xc by Winchester as it looks a reat venue.

Now pressure then… Lol. You’re right it’s an awesome venue and the good news is that we will be starting work on the course in a couple of weeks time so by the time you get to it it should be well sorted and flowing well!

I notice a mention of Torq 1212 up there, the final round of the Southernxc is on the same venue a few weeks before so if you want a sneaky peek at a very condensed version of the endurance course come along – I’m sure the Gorrick guys will add some cool extra stuff that we would be able to get too due to course length but it’ll give you a good idea.

If you are coming to join us at the Southernxc and fancy giving your fat bike an outing, check the fat bike box on entry and although you’ll race in your normal category you lap times will be averaged and entered into results for just fat bike riders and then the fat bike series too!

America Classic Wide Lightnings are worth a try, I’ve had them on my Whyte 909 for a few months and they’ve been great – I’d think they’re plenty wide enough to run + size tyres. Nice and light too

Hey Rocketman, if you’re southern based you sound like the perfect candidate for the Fat Bike subcategory in this year SouthernXC…

I’ve heard others make similar comments before, I guess it’s an inertia thing?

They don’t work out of the box but apparently there is a modification that you can make. 11 speed works fine though I use x01 and an xtr mech to great effect.

I’m self employed with relative simple income streams and I believe my liabilities are simple too but I do not make the time or have the inclination to do my own accounts beyond a bit of basic book keeping. If there was a qualified service that offered real value, I don’t mean cheap but used their mixed experiences to support me and my requirements while making my ‘book keeping’ suitable for HMRC, returns etc I use them but the ‘value’ part of this is critical. Sometimes a 2nd pairs of eyes from a different angle (in your case a financial angle) can be really valuable and something a small business/self employed would pay for.

There are plenty of accountants out there, to a layman it can be a struggle to differentiate them!

Watches with interest…

Just to let you know online entry went live yesterday @ http://www.southernxc.net and a fat bike option has been included as described above.

Obviously all other categories are open too…

Lovin’ STW Dog. He’s really brightened my otherwise very normal day.