Southern XC R5 - Chawton Park Woods

They’re a hardy bunch those Southern XC lot, well they must be, with 3 out of their 4 races this year being hit by some pretty unseasonable weather and still they come in their hordes to race. Unfortunately the latest round was no exception. You’d have thought after the number of years I’ve been doing this job I should have known that a XC race in early July would surely mean torrential rain, wouldn’t it?? Optimistically I turned up in a T-shirt but soon changed my mind and my outfit to a thermal top and full waterproofs on arrival. This was going to be a messy one!

Undeterred riders from all over the south turned up to pitch their claim on the Southern area championships as well as bolster their positions in the overall series standings.

Luke Gray – Youth Winner

“It was quite difficult in the wet conditions out there today; you had to be careful picking your lines. It was a very technical course made worse by the weather. My tactics were to get out in front and get a gap and that worked out pretty well for me. I did manage to get away early on but I’m sure the rest of the field wasn’t that far behind me.

I was hoping to get the win today so I’m pretty chuffed with that and now hoping for a good ride at the Nationals in a couple of weeks.”

If you’d like to read more about this race click on the British Cycling link above.

Don’t forget that most of the pics in the galleries are numbered ( well the ones whose number boards we can read) so you can do a search for your race number to make it easier, though because I take so many, you’ll have to add a,b,c etc to find all the additional pics. You may even be able to recognise yourself in the unnumbered  pics but you’ll have to plough through those yourself.