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Southern XC Round 1 Bordon Event
Review April 2009 Race: Southern XC Series Round 1, Bordon Position finished: Kris 35th / Mark 24th View from the pack: Round 1 of the southern XC was held at Bordon this year. The race course is a maze of twisting single track punctured with short sharp fire road sections and is located in woodlands around the Army base. The course is extremely fast flowing and there is little chance of rest spite making it hard to recover from the climbs as you are plunged straight it to more twisty single track, with one of the highlights, the berms in the army trenches. The weather was perfect sunshine but not overly warm. I was feeling good fitness wise but being the first round of a series I had no idea how strong the riders around me were which left me a little uneasy. After signing in, I attached my number board and gave the bike a quick once over and headed out for a practice loop. The biggest difference this year was the direction of the start, apart from that the course itself was very much the same with a revised end section owing to a longer lap. The start of the race was fast - it’s a long sprint to the first corner which was a right hand followed by another straight with a small right hand kink and then a left hand turn into single track. I was staring on the third row next to Mark and we both got good clean starts. As we got to the first turn I moved out to the left as everyone piled into the right which slowed the field right down, Mark got caught out as I went round the outside and made up some good ground. I made it into the single track where I was in the top 20 and stayed in contact until the first climb were my gears began to skip and I began to lose ground as I had to keep changing up gear then down to get into the right cog. I moved up a few places after that and stayed in a small group for the first two laps before shacking them off on the last lap and finished the race in 35th. Overall I had a strong race and I was quick in the twisty single track but as usual lacked the speed in the climbs and more work is needed to keep with the faster riders. Not being able to select the right gear at the start of the climbs didn’t help but it was not the sole reason - I just need more practice at climbing. My lap times were fairly close, about a minute and a half between the first and the last I was hoping for a closer gap but that’s something else to work on. In the end I finished 16mins down on the winner and about 7mins down on Mark who finished 24th overall. Best Regards Kris
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