Race Report: UK Southern XC Round 1 - Checkendon

It seems like racing in the UK is a bit like busses, you wait for what feels like forever then two come along at once. Sunday saw the resumption of UK XC racing with the first round of the Southern XC series at Checkendon near Reading.

This was a good test of the feasibility of racing resuming in the UK throughout the summer with 506 riders participating all the way from under 10s up to the 50-59 age group. It has to be said that at no point did the event feel unsafe. The team at Southern XC, supported as always by British Cycling and their Commissaire, did an amazing job of laying out all the necessary precautions to ensure that not only social distancing was followed, but there was also plenty of hand sanitizer made available, with people sticking to mask-wearing in the main arena - it really was clear to see a lot of work and thought had gone into making sure an event of this size was safe.

This classic Southern XC venue is a super-compact course that’s relatively flat, making it great for both beginners having their first crack at mountain bike racing and more experienced competitors. Riders completed varying numbers of laps dependent on their category. The course was a mix of tight twisty woodland trails, with wide grass paths to allow plenty of overtaking for the fast riders and plenty of room for recovery time for everyone else. This course is definitely one for the sprinters with a long straight from the socially distanced start line up to the first corner. The kids racing, both the under 10s and the under 12s, took place on a small woodland course with the riders racing over 15 minutes and 25 minutes respectively.



























A massive thank you to the medics who unfortunately had a busy day with a crash-filled first lap of race 6. A rider first went down during the start and had a suspected broken collarbone and while the medics were dealing with that injury more was to come. In the middle of one of the long straights about halfway through the first wood section of the lap lay a jump. This is where one of the worst crashes I've seen for a while happened. The crash was so bad I didn't even take a photo of it. A rider overshot the jump landing to flat on his front wheel went straight over the bars to the very hard compacted trail floor head first. Fortunately for this rider, 2 extra marshals had just arrived at the section and a full course red flag was issued as the medical team managed to treat and transfer the rider to an ambulance very quickly. I've said already how impressive the planning for covid restrictions was but this incident showed that the team at southern XC really are a very well organised team. Thank you to both them and the medics for keeping the riders safe. I don't have the names of the two riders who went down but I hope they both recover quickly.

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