What a difference a week makes! Seven days previous riders were enduring a certainly icy feel and calls to rename the series to snowy bottom, but following a postponement Newnham Park returned to its soggy roots for the staging of round two of the south-west's most popular race series.

With any traces of the cold white stuff well and truly gone eager riders came from near and far to get their XC fix. Well over 200 competitors lined up over the two races keen to earn their hot cuppa and bacon sarnies, while the weather gods pulled out all the stops with crisp blue skies setting a positively spring-like scene.

In lieu of the previous week's conditions the organiser Martyn Salt had kept the course short but oh so hard! In just a compact and bijou 3.2 mile circuit he'd packed in two lung busting climbs, the wicked off camber and the ‘Accelerade Ascent' equally cruel as you push hard on marble sized stones making the going tough. With a heart stopping slide between the fun loving bomb holes the lap concluded with another quick descent down the much loved ‘Cottage Return' and a ribbon of singletrack that tantalisingly edged the fast flowing and icy looking river before heading out and doing it all again...

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If you’d like to enter any of the remaining Soggies visit www.xcracer.com for more info.