Midlands XC R1 - Hanchurch

Time waits for no man (or woman in these pc days…) and so it was on Sunday where the clocks springing forward did nothing to deter the competitors keen to get to grips with the first round of the much anticipated Midlands XC series.

After the success of the 2 round series organised by James Hampshire and Nadine Spearing last year, the intrepid duo stepped up to the plate once more, upping the ante and their efforts have already born fruit. Due to the nature of the course and the lack of decent parking a decision was taken to cap entries to 200, which they reached easily well before the actual race day. A clear indication of how healthy the XC scene is at the moment and should bode well for the next round.

National Champion Oli Beckingsale was in attendance and loved the course he had this to say:

“Yeah that was good I wasn’t really planning on coming and just decided at the last minute. I was supposed to racing last weekend at the Girvin but I wasn’t feeling a 100% so I sacked it off, I had to find a race to do this weekend instead so here I am. It’s good to get some intense training in under race conditions. I had a sort of plan to cruise the first couple of laps and then try and get faster as the race went on and that’s exactly what I did.”

My condition is really good at the moment and there s so big races coming up in 3 weeks time, the first world cup so its all training towards that really.

The course was really nice a few draggy bits some nice singletrack it’s a shame that some of it was really muddy buts it’s drying up well and it was riding good. It was quite technical in places, sometimes you nailed a few sections and it felt good and sometimes you went through then and felt like a real amateur. It’s great coming to a race like this it feels like the old days, you go to all these big races, there’s stress and practise but here you can roll up with the family, not bother with a practise lap, whiz round and a laugh have a chat with a few people and go home with a smile on your face, you can’t beat it.”

To read more of this report and how everyone got on click on the BC button above.