NPS XC R1 - Thetford

And in a small clearing in a wood in Thetford Forest it all began….. again!  Hundreds of eager competitors travelled from all corners of the UK and Ireland to contest 21 races ( 22 if you include the Future Stars race) over a day of fast and furious action utlising a crafty 10km course, incorporating all that Thetford is famous for; slick singletrack weaving relentless through hundreds of trees, broken up with a blast of fire road action plus a couple of tricky and strength sapping bomb holes that you swooped into and that some jumped out of with a flourish. Despite being labelled the ‘flat’ one, competitors encountered 233 meters of climbing per lap, which for the Elite riders totalled a respectable 1398 m for the race, not bad when you remember the UCI were asking for a minimum of 230m per lap for any future Olympic course…. We’ve always said that Thetford is world class and I’m sure the hundreds of riders who lined up on Saturday to have a crack at what Thetford does best would agree and despite the lack of any ‘killer’ hills the racing proved to be explosive and seat of the pants stuff throughout the day, with many sprint finishes keeping you on the edge of your seat...

George Budd – Expert

“It was a really close race in the expert some chap riding for Marin went off really fast, so we didn’t see him for ages so he rode the whole race on his own. Then Chris Minter in elite got a puncture and caught us up and when he came past us Tim Dunford and Ben Thomas went with him. As I was breathing out my behind at that time I didn’t. So they got away and Tim got 2nd. I rode the race with Chris Andrews and we were chatting coming up the last fire road about when we would start sprinting then someone shouted that we should stop chatting and start racing so we started sprinting and he beat me. It was quite good fun, I really really enjoyed it. It’s so nice not to have to race in really nasty horrible mud. It was also good to put pressure on the pedals and the bike go forward and not slip sideways”.

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