…all the Southern XC courses this year have been well put together. This Chawton Woods course was no exception..
Most of the Southern XC’s and the nationals are scheduled from April til September, during the sun bathed months of our British summer. Right? Wrong! It rains. A lot. As we literally skated across the field to the car park on Sunday, it was a sure sign things were looking similar to last year at this venue. Messy.
We have agreed that all the Southern XC courses this year have been well put together. This Chawton Woods course was no exception, loaded with twisty singletrack, right off the start with some tidy (and scary looking) bombholes and a decent amount of climbing. There was also some extra interest on the day due to the round also being the Southern Area Championships.
After a very mucky practice lap that felt more like an abdominal workout we definitely had to get off the ralphs and rons and onto something a bit grippier. Who knows exactly how much difference the tyre choices made, but the race was certainly more enjoyable.
Once the starting whistle went off it was head down for all of us on this day. A case of simply keeping the cranks moving, choosing the path of least resistance and staying on. The difficulty of this days racing is easily illustrated by the fact that only four of us finished, two without any significant problems (in fact one of us didn’t even start!). Truly character building stuff.
Story of the day; Matt Hendrie crashing on his practice lap, resulting in a split elbow to match the other one he got at Bordon. In addition to an approaching cold, he stayed the afternoon and managed to get severe sunburn.
Results on the day were;
Garrett Hill (ZeroFour) - 7th Grand Veterans
Simon Lesser (Primera) - 14th Masters
Richard Lang (Primera) - 26th Masters (puncture on 3rd lap)
Michael Radburn (Owens) - 31st Veterans (technical on 2nd lap)
Gary Hall (UK-Biking.net) - 58th Open (DNF - brake failure)
Big thanks go to Sarah, Cherry and Claire for their support as always.
Also check out the video below it’s great -
The start - Rich’s dramatic end to a practice lap!
at 1:15 in - Rich blatantly walking up that hill!!! (aaah)
at 4:23 - just before my dramatic finish with Stefano
