Torq12:12... Soda action

The final race of the year for the AQR team saw 12 hours of fast and furious racing down south at the Gorrick-run Torq12:12 event last Sunday.

[As usual, huge thanks to Joolze Dymond for the superb images]

Blue skies and sunshine for all but one lap combined with the usual classic rooty, twisty Gorrick course design to make for a fantastic event from midday to midnight on Sunday.

All in all a smooth race for the team, including hats off to Iain for getting in 3 laps before his injured back & leg - which originally suggested he wouldn't be racing at all - started to tell. Massive thanks to Kate who travelled all the way from Edinburgh for her 4 laps, whilst Rich took the fastest lap of the team award with a 39m30s sprint round early on. Finally, James racked up the most at 6 laps, including an unplanned double, the 2nd lap of which started at 11.48pm! Unfortunately his legs hadn't planned for it and the team dropped to 6th place by just 2 minutes at the end. A respectable end to the year though in a tough category.

The race itself wasn't the only highlight of the weekend though, as Kate had her freshly built new Cotic Soda out to play for the first time. Complete with Hope/Stans wheels, KCNC chainset, Magura Durin forks and Bontrager finishing kit, it truly is a work of art and she was raving about it every lap - more on her thoughts as it eats up the miles!

And finally, congrats once again to Kate for her win back in early August at Scottish XC Round 5, which she took by a convincing 6 minutes!

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.