19th September Write-Up

Better late than never right?

September saw the return of 'Little Bringewood', a trail dominated by a tyre testing off-camber section followed by a 'thread the needle' mass of roots, both of which take total commitment to hold the fast line. This was the first time Little Bringe' had been run on a Guild day in the dry, a relief at first for many, at least the off camber and roots were dry! However by the end of practice in the morning, before the timing started, the trail was so blown out and dusty the fastest time of the day wasn't a great deal faster than how the trail rides in the pouring rain!

Josh Richardson kicking up the dust through the last of the trees.

As I said the trail is dominated by the mid section with the off camber and roots, however you can't count out the importance of the loamy corners further up, Ian from Team Boon managed to get some shots of riders appearing nearly axle deep drifting in the loam, have a look at the video linked at the bottom of the post to see how much roost was getting shifted!

The final section of the trail is a rutted, rooty 20 seconds through the trees, again on the day very hard to hold a fast line. Looking through the results sheet you can make out the tell tale differences in riders times, as nearly everyone on the day had the inevitable intimate moment with the undergrowth. I won't mention names, I would be here all day! But you know who you are...

Becky Hilton getting it right through the wooded section.

After you drop out of the woods to the flat bottom of the trail your met with a small double to squash the bike over, followed by a berm and evil flat loamy corner to the line. Not a lot to report from this section, but I was entertained to see riders washing out within 6ft of the line from time to time! Good call on Stinky Harrys' part for the finish line position... So anybody with grievances now knows who to talk to!

That's the trail outlined, now down to the riders. This month saw the closest battle for fastest time the guild has ever seen with a joint fastest time of an impressive time of 53.2 shared by Ben Worrell and Lee Gratton, closely followed by Squadron rider Andy Hughes. This month saw more competition in both the Womens and Veteran categories, which appeared to give the girls and the 40+ crowds more incentive to bring their A Game. Close times at the top of the veterans category and a clear victor in the Womens category. As usual the Youth category is on the up with a turn out of 16.

Hard to tell, but Luke Cryer here of the youths had a hard day of pinning it only to be unlucky, managing to eat dirt more than once and bounced up to carry on like a boxer all day AND hung about in the evening for an after hours shred!

Full results here: http://www.racersguild.co.uk/Cannock/results.html

Team Boons' Video: http://www.pinkbike.com/v/100230/l/

Billys Video: http://www.pinkbike.com/v/100356/l/

Finally, big thanks to Alex Smith for snapping away for the day, all photos used in the write up owe credit to him and if you follow the link below you'll see his album from the day, thanks mate!

http://alex235.pinkbike.com/album/racers-guild-18th/

One last pic to capture the feeling of pinning it through the trees, a great day had by all!

- Rich.