Eastern CX League - 2017/18

[StevenDrew]

Eastern League calendar is out...
http://www.easterncross.org.uk/league17-18.htm

Regional Champs at Welwyn.

[Neil]

Regional Champs at Welwyn.

North or South. Do we know. ?

[StevenDrew]

I'd prefer the old one (is that north?) but I quite like them both. However, talking to the Welwyn guys last year, I got a sense they were now set on using the south side of the park.

[Chris Clague]

Given it's supposed to be a cat A race (?) it can only be on the south side - there's zero facilities on the north.

[StevenDrew]

Given it's supposed to be a cat A race (?) it can only be on the south side - there's zero facilities on the north.

Good call. I think infrastructure had a big part to play in their view the south side was better. Remember that underwater Central League race where sign-on was outside under a gazebo. I bet it was fun sitting there all day!

[BruceMackie]

So that's round 1 done and dusted. The course at Springfield continues to develop nicely getting ever more technical which is handy to blunt some of the road riders pace as they come in off the end of the season. Lots of nice off camber, that was tricky even in the relatively dry conditions, lots of sets of steps to run up + 2 sets of 40cm barriers created enough stop start to break up any sense of rhythm. A big thank you to Chris for Comming the round, hopefully getting those events in early to come out and race when the weather properly turns?

[Chris Clague]

It's still summer dammit. Also comm'ing the next 2 weekends while I buy time to rebuild the bike.

Given what I'd heard about the course beforehand I thought it looked pretty good.

This Saturday- Langdon Hills. Hoping they can make the course a little more interesting than the video I've seen which is a bunch of straight lines, some steep stuff and a few roots. And dogs, lots of dogs.

[Steve Hanks]

This Saturday- Langdon Hills. Hoping they can make the course a little more interesting than the video I've seen which is a bunch of straight lines, some steep stuff and a few roots.

This is the same course used on the Sunday - and last year - for the final round of the MSG Eastern league MTB. Don't underestimate it, its a pretty brutal series of short woodsy downs and steep ups. Mind you, you lot get to do it over half the time we do, so you do have it much easier.

[StevenDrew]

Given we're marshalling the London League on Sunday, I've family stuff to attend to on Saturday. With other stuff going on over the coming weeks it looks like I might not get to race until early October. Still, after Sunday's effort, I can hardly walk never mind race a bike so it might be a blessing!

[BruceMackie]

It's a venue that's been used in the Eastern League a few times before and the National MTB series used to use it too. My overriding memory of racing cross there was coming round a slippery corner in the woods to find a woman struggling to extract her bike from a tree stump where the front fork had become lodged like Excalibur.

[StevenDrew]

So um, 15 yr old Ben Tullet won the Senior race on Saturday by FOUR minutes

That feels a like a seriously amazing ride. Chris / Bruce - reports?

[Chris Clague]

Aye - he was quite good. Was my first race as chief comm so it was nice of him to turn out. Also slightly amused to see his brother (world U23 #2) there as his pit monkey. The boy certainly has skills - there were riders down all over the place as the rain came down and he just slithered through it all whilst barely looking like he was breaking into a sweat.

Just for shits and giggles Dave C gridded him on row 2

[BruceMackie]

You might have thought lessons had been learn't re. gridding Tullets, previously in a youth race Eastern put Dan & Callum on the back row and consequently there was avery unfortunate running over of some poor Welwyn lad involving the pair of them, which didn't go down well. Apparently someone thought Dan's National Champion jersey was purchased rather than won.

I think Ben is now a junior so entitled to thrash all the seniors. I also think it may have been Dan who put over 10 mins into Matt Holmes recently in an XC race (Matt was 2nd). Dan was expecting to do much better at the Worlds recently but it didn't go right on the day unfortunately. Anyway, Dan's up to Manchester in a week or 2 hence acting as pit monkey and Ben is intending to do Eastern this season before joining the team he's signed for in Belgium for the road season. Not sure James, Grant & Jonathan are going to be too pleased about having Ben lining up behind them.

The pair of them are part boy part bike so they make it all look deceptively easy, as Chris says, Ben didn't look like he was even trying, though he most certainly was.

[Chris Clague]

Well he's had two warnings now about calling when passing other riders...

There seems to be grumbling from London and Central leagues about losing him to the Eastern as a result of the rearranged grouping of categories in the former leagues as per BC recommendations. I'm sure Kelvin won't take it lying down.

[Steve Hanks]

Well he's had two warnings now about calling when passing other riders...

In your dual Comms roles Chris if you have the ability to pass notes to BC, that needs to be heavily iterated at MTB as well. Lots of juniors - and some seniors as well - STILL don't do this and theres quite a lot of people just "appearing" beside other riders at pace and spooking them.

Theres going to be some accidents soon if this gets too prevelant.