Good work being able to get out of the car!
long, but then everything feels that way when on a tinybike.
it was (like) riding around in a paddock, two big open areas joined by a narrow corridor and a handful of trees. they ran the course around the outside of these, with some of the ‘natural’ elements and the barriers near the fans…not very technical, long hard slogs across awful soil/grass, an uphill that had you turning corners halfway to the summit. they ran a reversed course for the last race of the day which was alot more suited to XC/road riders (flowy downhill section, straight grind up the hill)
there was misty-rain on/off from the first daylesford intersection all the way til about 10 mins before the racing started. i’m sure it could pose a problem for those that ride without upper body clothing, but for locals it’s normal. 
Yeah Whittlesea CC did a good job for a first CX race.
Sustained course, couple of hard short uphills, slippery offcamber downhill corner. Nice technical twisty bits. A bit more rain will make the course even more fun.
Some room for improvement too: registration was a slow process, the fence gate on the course was problem #1 but was improved during the day, the barriers need some work (but that happens to the best, see ddcx prologue) and the bmx track got a bit sketchy as people were getting tired.
All in all i had a very entertaining day and a very satisfying race result. +1 would race again!
concur. not a bad effort for a first time by Whittesea.
i know i’m going to raise a yelling match if some people are on the forum here… but for the new events on the block. MTB - numbers go on bikes… CX - numbers go on riders. if/when the weather gets crap people may want to use a pit bike.
Also. i think the overall of the Whittleseas course was good (i didn’t get to race it in the end (warmup malfunction) but i think that no matter how good a rider you are you should be forced to get off and run at SOME POINT. isn’t that point of CX???
I really enjoyed the racing Sunday. Didn’t even think of bunny hopping the hay bales, but considering the latest photos and subsequent face plant shown I am glad I dismounted…
I definitely need to practice riding the technical section as it was there I lost time, only catching back up on the less technical sections.
Yep, Sunday was good, needed a bigger field to make it more fun/competitive for those mid/lower pack i.e I was lapped by the 3 man lead pack (twice?) but I in turn lapped someone as well, and at the end I had no-one in sight behind or in front that was on my lap.
I hope they change up the course a little between rounds but was a nice mix of surfaces.
Also I saw a 13yr(?) old kid in a BSS kit bunny hop those hay bales in front of me early one, I was impressed.
Pretty good for a 1st race, hopefully it will only get bigger and better.
IMHO, I think they should have put all men on CX bikes together rather than putting masters in with women, and then combined the open and CX women fields.
In conclusion I will ride again.
Given the terrain around the BMX track they have available, they have room to be able to change it up for each race. Or does CV stipulate the design, restricting changes?
Not sure if it would be good to group the Masters with the Elite. Although it would be nice to have more riders on the course to bump elbows with the whole way and not just the first laps; with the fast speed at the pointy end of the Elites, many of us oldies would get in the way…
I went over for a ride in Ballarat on the road bike and then went over to watch the CX race. Not a lot of people but plenty enthusiastic and hopefully the start of something for CX in Ballarat. Some really nice bikes there which probably aren’t unseen to those in Melbourne. The Speedvagen and the Independent Fabrication were probably the favourites for me. Dfunkt your performance was magnificent. I felt guilty having a coffee watching you power up the hill.
What Spiro said.
spiro gets it.
i have other comments but a public forum isnt the appropriate place to share them, as it doesnt encourage community building or provide them a chance to improve.
as for course design… its up to the promoter/club to create the design. there are guidelines which become rules at NCXS level, but outside of ensuring a safe and fair race its up to them as to what they put together. the closer you are to the ‘guidelines’ the more seriously the front of the pack will take your races.
wrt racing masters with elites vs womens, i think it comes down to whichever provides the closest level of racing. as it stands with no ‘B’ grade there is always going to be a disparity in racer levels within masters and elites. the masters race could have been run with elites, but atmo it was a good decision to run it with the women. that is, if you indeed dont run a separate race.
I liked racing with the women- I got to chat to Mel and Jen as they lapped me and heckled Verita mid race
why has no one posted the pic of jez yet?
Yeah fair enough, I was gonna make a point that most of the masters field would have done fine in ‘elite’ but the results/times/laps are hard to compare between races.
I guess everyone just wants some people to race that are around there own speed to make it fun.
and his sister’s hilarious comment
or the video of it. but sunday was a nice little hit out. i will go back out and race there again.
i’d also like to point out, as i know a few of you know, i’m not in ANY WAY bagging out people putting on races. i want to race - so the more of them on the better.
As Nik said, fields are a hard thing. you put the masters with the elites and you have a bigger problem of lapped riders. I think the biggest issue is organisers working together to ensure events don’t clash at this point in time. there isn’t enough people racing cross yet to have two events on one day and not expect field size to suffer. another 10 or so elites would have been great and i think that’s easily possible, and then the B Grade/Masters/Womens race becomes better… closer speeds and better racing for all.
This is an excellent point.
From the Rat!
The 7-day forecast is predicting a wet weekend next week. Syca-cross could get messy…
Who is racing Syca-Cross this weekend?