Southern XC Round 4
Bordon: 30/07/06
By Paul Howard.
The venue of Oxney Moss at Bordon has been a racers favourite for many years. Although the lie of the land is predominantly based on a gently sloping hillside the course makes the most of the natural features, which the promoting West Drayton Club did a great job of. A wide tarmac start has you sprinting to near 30mph from the go before diving off into miles of singletrack. Short steep climbs are followed by bumpy switchback descents, then some draggy climbs to do your overtaking and get the lactic acid burning the legs, followed by more swooping tracks and bombholes. There were some notable highlights such as a lovely jump – which certainly had me grinning every lap – followed by a fast berm and some more whoops which finished with a combination of 90 degree lefts and rights in a deep gully so you could crank the bike right over to carry the speed through. Many of the corners got ever softer as they turned dusty with heavy braking, I heard that quite a few riders washed out and went offline with some even going over the bars.
Calum started off the days racing in the 2-lap Youth race having a great battle with Max Sykes beating him by three seconds into third. With just metres to go before the finish Calum caught up a young lady, he shouted to overtake on her left just as she went left! Some very heavy braking avoided t-boning her and apologies were accepted all round.
Before I rode my recce lap I stopped to watch the Masters blast up the tarmac start into the singletrack. A cloud of dust signalled their arrival three abreast into a fast left hander with loose sand (I noted this for later!), fortunately there were no spills. Dean was mid-pack and settled into a good rhythm dropping some speed on the second lap but pulling back a surge on the third lap for 14th place. Afterwards he gave us the low-down on the course especially one section which could be troublesome; a short twisty descent in deep sand was followed by a sharp right turn up another sandy bank. Apparently many riders were now running this as traction was becoming difficult and so it proved later on.
In the Supermasters/Expert race Paul Hopkins was soon into a lead group of three with series leader Mark Hutt sharing the work on the front. Paul attacked on the third lap and soon got out of sight to extend his winning margin to 1m 22s. He later got the opportunity to spray the champagne in fine style from the top step of the podium. I had lined up directly behind Paul on the start and got a good tow off him up the long straight (a cunning plan eh?) hitting the singletrack well up the field. I had some good tussles with a few riders and reeled in a couple more on the last lap to finish a happy 9th. Still 7 minutes behind Hoppy though, where on earth can I find the extra pace to close that down?
Warren is really finding his form with another 4th place in Sport finishing fast just three seconds abreast of 5th place and now in with a chance of a top 5 ranking.
A quick thanks to Lorraine Parsons for doing bottle duty so reliably, sorry for beating Andy!
The final round promoted by Gorrick MBC is held on the 3rd September at Yateley Heath Wood. With the rankings taking the best four results Mountain Trax should be in with a chance of a couple of overall podium finishes. Best of luck to everyone.
Pos Laps Time Time+ Name Lap 1 Lap 2 Lap 3 Lap 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOUTH 3 2 00:49:25 04:23 CALUM CHAMBERLAIN 24:36 24:49 MASTER 14 3 01:17:11 06:33 DEAN MORGAN 25:10 26:36 25:25 EXPERT/SUPERMASTERS 1 4 01:29:06 PAUL HOPKINS 21:57 22:13 22:00 22:56 9 4 01:36:15 07:09 PAUL HOWARD 23:25 23:55 24:18 24:37 SPORT 4 3 01:13:11 04:09 WARREN BATES 24:52 24:03 24:16