Southern XC have always brought quality races to the South of the UK and round 1 at Wasing Estate was up to the usual standard. With a forthcoming date on the British XC National Race calendar, the course at Wasing was extra busy. Personally for me, a first visit to this course was quite exciting. And the mid week video viewing of the Pedalon crew doing a reccy lap was interesting enough. Looks and terrain similar to Pippingford, with a hariy looking drop off and some sweet looking singletrack all stacked up quite nicely.

The weather was dry all week and reports were looking good for a decent days racing. Personally I had missed Round 1 of the nationals and felt slightly off form having had a few bad weeks. Also due to prolonged half baked illness of my race ‘co-pilot’ I had to bring my wife and 3 year old for bottles and moral support (this proved to be hopeful on both accounts, Bex forgot her glasses and could only just pick out the UK Biking Kit for bottle feeds and Charlie demolished all the food!).

Liam Kileen made an appearance on the day which was welcomed by many.

A tarmac start was quite resfreshing actually, which led upwards for a while stringing the riders out a bit. It followed through wood chippings and up into the singetrack which was quite dominant throughout. A couple of river crossings and big boggy bits were thrown in to test all those winter handling skills. In fact, even the warm up lap was pretty physical. Pete and Shep came off the finish line in their races confirming it was. Dead right.

Some have said the singetrack could have flowed better and some of the trails smoothed out a bit - they were probably right, but as always it’s cross country racing !! .. and it’s the same for everyone. At race pace the course ran quite well actually, a case of constantly keeping an eye on your lines. A mixture of Crow, Pippingford and Sherwood - not much climbing but definitely a body beater - triceps were still aching on Tuesday.

Overall a tough field and a tough race in the Masters, I crashed on the last lap finishing a tad slower than expected (16th), but happy with the performance. Pete rode a solid 31st in a large Open field with consistent laps, Mark Fry a very respectable 43rd in the same race (theres a diminishing gap there!). Mike rode a mid pack 29th in the Vets, another very strong field. Darren Shepherd (Veterans 4th) went very well, but didn’t manage to place as high as son Aidan who won the under 10 boys in style.

Same venue in a few weeks for the Nationals..

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