R3

Despite a weekend full to over flowing with racing opportunities, well over 200 riders made R3 of the Midlands XC their option for offroading fun. Billed as the hilliest course of the series, Cannock more than lived up to it’s reputation, with 200m of vertical climbing per lap crammed into a very compact 5.4km loop, though what goes up must come down and riders were rewarded with 3 massively fun downhills. Couple this with off camber rooty singletrack, plus soft loamy trails that had been soaked to within an inch of it’s life and you had a tough course made tougher. One rider summed the course up perfectly likening it too ‘ An over watered grow bag!’

Despite the tough going riders tackled it with gusto with the spot and vet categories bursting at the seams with riders keen to get stuck in. With heavy rains battering many parts of the country it was a welcome relief to see the dark clouds replaced by blue skies and racing was conducted in uncharacteristic warm and dry conditions, though with conditions under tyre being so sodden competitors were soon emerging from their laps coated in ever increasing layers of mud...

Full report on BC

All photos now online.