This week’s cyclocross was the regional championships. The wessex league is split between different regions and therefore all finishers receive their average points from their best 3 wessex rounds to go towards the league.

Four New Forest riders made the trip to Keynsham to race on the permanent cyclocross there. The course has a bit of everything with lots of banks, hurdles and of course a spiral of doom. The recent weather supplied plenty of mud for some tough, slippy conditions. As the day went on, and the sun came out, the mud went from sloppy to sticky and caused more and more mechanical issues.

Jay Tarrant was up first in the Vet 40’s.
Gridded on the back row due to National Rankings he had to dig deep and call on all his overtaking skills. His mechanical skills were needed also as the thick, slippery, sticky mud caused his chain to derail several times! Others with second bikes kept their pit crews very busy!!
The aforementioned overtaking skills clearly worked, getting on the podium in 3rd.

Catherine and Emma were up next, the course more churned up and getting sticky. Despite good starts, the mud quickly took its toll on their bikes and regular stops to clear the mud off were required to just keep the wheels turning. The course turned into a real slog for all the riders with only 1 bike, Emma only managed 2 laps due to the many stops (finishing 15th senior) and Catherine unfortunately had to retire.

Joe experienced a similar issue and also had to stop several times to scrape the large amount of mud off his bike. Joe managed to drag himself round 3 laps to finish 41st.

The next wessex league event is on the 17th December when the league returns to Clanfield. There is then a short break over Christmas before the final 3 rounds in January. The final round is our home event on the 28th January. Volunteers to help with set up the day before and marshalling on the day will be greatly appreciated.