Pedal On Southern XC Series

VamP

Round 1 this Sunday. Anyone on here taking part?

njee20

If my forks are back from servicing I may well do, not looking too likely though!

JasonRwmb

I am planning to race, although haven't entered yet. I have never raced at Checkendon before, so looking forward to it

Njee, I can't belive you only have one mtb?

njee20

Indeed I do!

I'm also making excuses because I really didn't enjoy checkendon last year and it's knocking 2 hours from me, and I can't be bothered :-)

proto

After geting my arse well and truly caned at Crowthorne (Gorrick) last Sunday I really should know better, but perversely I'm thinking of giving Checkendon a go. However it rather depends on how I feel after a 4th cat circuit race at Milton Keynes on Saturday.

Anyone know how the Checkendon course compares to Crowthorne?

I'm a complete newbie and I'm desperately short of skills on technical courses, if it's like Crowthorne, I'll give it a miss.

njee20

It's significantly more technical than Crowthorne! lots of tight singletrack, steep little climbs and off camber descents. V slippery in the wet too, with some nice flints to trash tyres! It did used to be a great course, and they've done well with the significantly reduced land they've got now, just wasn't my sort of course!

JasonRwmb

Sounds great!

VamP

That does sound great, especially given that someone else told me the course was not very interesting. Forecast is for wet

njee20

It's a difficult one in the wet, part of it is quite Mayhem-esque and you want a very narrow mud tyre, but that won't last/grip on the flints!

Vindicates my decision to go for a nice local ride instead :-)

VamP

njee20 wrote:

It's a difficult one in the wet, part of it is quite Mayhem-esque and you want a very narrow mud tyre, but that won't last/grip on the flints!

Vindicates my decision to go for a nice local ride instead :-)

Ha, I'm riding it on an 18 year old all steel rockhhopper with CX tyres. Can't wait to see the carnage. Better bring some spare tubes :shock:

VamP

DNF due to snapped bar. Some rethinking needed on racing the 18 year old rigid it seems.

andi1363

It became very dark and started to sleet/hail as I lined up with the veterans. Very ominous but that stopped almost straight away and the course improved every lap. 100% rideable if you had the skills and fitness. Didn't notice the flints but was very rooty.