Midlands XC2: The hills of Herefordshire!

Scorching hot sunshine, super dusty trails and big climbs... who would have thought that the 2nd round of this year's Midlands XC series (& the Midlands champs) would deliver all of these!

Returning to an old-skool venue at Mansel Lacy, James & Nadine once again delivered a great course which tested riders on the way up & down - steep descents, off-camber singletrack and a monster fireroad climb half-way through. Oh & what must have been the only mud in the UK on such a hot weekend.

Despite two stops to pump up my slowly deflating rear tyre and a slight lack of power on the climb due to recent heavy training sessions, I was pleased with my 10th place finish... roll on Margam!

Thanks to Roy Bevis for the photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/26069260@N04/

British XC2 - racing down south

It's only 4 days since the 2nd British XC round last weekend but already feels a way away and Round 3 at Margam is approaching fast... especially with Midlands XC2 in between!

Mainly dry weather - albeit frickin' freezing on practice saturday! - combined with a course in great shape and mainly nicely bedded in after the recent Southern XC made for some fun, fast and furious racing. The singletrack varied between fresh bumpy, loamy trails which were punishing for hardtail riders to the sinuous ribbon of brown that wound its way through the acres of bluebells towards the end of the lap.


A great AQR turn out for the weekend meant a good coverage across the categories with Kirsty bringing home 4th in Masters for the team's best result. Despite a monster race-start tangle and crash (which left one poor guy with his bike in 2 bits!) leaving him dead last, Matt Prior pulled out all the stops in the Open race to finish 7th - some impressive overtaking must have gone on there! Iain was the third AQR team member of the day but unfortunately had to pull out of the Sport race due to back pain. As for myself, I finally broke into the top 20, finishing 18th in the Sport race. Maybe the recent training has started to pay off with much more consistent lap times than at Round 1.... roll on Margam.

And finally, a massive well done to Mrs-AQR, Kate Potter for her 2nd in the Elite women's race... good luck for Offenburg World Cup Kate!

Huge thanks to Joolze Dymond for the photos - http://www.joolzedymond.com/ for the full galleries.