South West Sussed!

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BY: Rob Smith

Published: 20th August, 2010

We've all said it, I could do that!

Watching cake decorations on Generation Game, manage the England football team.  And these days, with the ever growing number of TV channels churning out Z Factor, Britain's got mediocrity and Master Chef it's easier than it's ever been, but how many of you have gone home from a XC race and said next year we'll run our own series?

Well, as most of you will be aware, Jay and Maddie Horton took on the challenge earlier this year and set up the FullySussed South West Series.  Sunday saw the final round at Abbeyford Woods Okehampton drawing the inaugural series to a close and last Thursday evening a soggy hour at Haldon forest closed the evening series.

Along the way the Sunday series has visited Idles Wood Truro, Woodbury Common Exmouth, Newnham Park as well as Abbeyford; attracting over 400 riders. The Thursday evenings events were split between Newnham and Haldon.

We've had technical climbs and the natural un-groomed trails of Idles, visited forgotten corners of Newnham Park, taken home the souvenir gorse bush rash from Woodbury and dodged the summer thunder storms and encroaching brambles at Abbeyford Woods.

And if the two evening rounds I managed to attend were anything to go by the Thursday night races are a dam sight harder than the usual Glee club training nights. Maybe it was my choice of fancy dress this week but I got beaten by a fairy, school girl and Mini Mouse! so perhaps the Naked Chef next year.



With the exception of Newnham Park all these venues were new to Mountain bike racing and I know a lot of people were involved in course design and marking out and I'm sure I speak for all the riders in thanking everyone for all their time and hard work so the rest of us could ride our bikes. 

Let's hope this series returns next year and I'm sure that when it does it'll be just as good as the first outing with perhaps more new venues to visit. 

ALSO

Earlier this week we went to meet some friends down at Lands End. Nothing worth writing about perhaps except that these guys started in John O'Groats 10 days ago and have undertaken LEJOG (reverse) on bikes , these guys aren't cyclists, in fact I was surprised that Lyrca stretched that much.  Anyway they wanted to raise money for the British Limbless Servicemens Association and a Cancer Charity. Not sure why anyone would want to ride that far, you can now fly from Newquay to Scotland but they wanted to do something to raise money, prompted by a tour of Afghanistan and Mrs XCwananbe's "predicament".  Well done to them both for completing the challenge, I admit to being unsure as to whether they'd make it after I joined them for a training run back in July. Shows how much I know, anyway well done, congratulation and many thanks to Mike Antell, Smudge Smith and Josh Smith. Off road next time?



Cheers,

Rob Smith