Cyclocross National Champs, Ardingly.

[Daveyraveygravey]

What a day out that was! Free, the sun shone - on Sunday at least - and the effort the competitors put in was amazing. Someone I follow on Insta said it was the best atmosphere at a UK bike event he had ever witnessed. Just walking around the site was a struggle, cannot imagine what riding it for 40 or 60 minutes was like.



This was the quarry section, the riders had to negotiate the full climb and descent twice, as well as a few shorter drops where the course looped around. The dinos were entertaining...



I took loads of video but most are too large to upload here. Gives you an idea...



I just like the Vicious Velo kit, being of a certain age.



Looking down into the quarry section.



Trying to get out after the finish...

[outnumbered]

I was thinking about going to watch but decided against when Pidcock and Zoe Backstedt pulled out. I watched on GCN+ in the end, it was like a slow motion race most of time. Good battle in the men's race.

It would be great if the UK gets a World Cup cyclocross event again. We went to the one in Milton Keynes a few years ago and that was great.

[SoliD]

I was there riding yesterday afternoon and the noise in the quarry was unbelievable every lap, absolutely fantastic for a CX event, and clear when walking around and speaking to friends that there were a lot of non cycling people there. Shame about top riders not being there, but in the mens race this made it even better as it meant a proper battle race long (watching back)

[Daveyraveygravey]

SoliD said:

I was there riding yesterday afternoon and the noise in the quarry was unbelievable every lap, absolutely fantastic for a CX event, and clear when walking around and speaking to friends that there were a lot of non cycling people there. Shame about top riders not being there, but in the mens race this made it even better as it meant a proper battle race long (watching back)

Chapeau for riding that, it looked seriously tough! The decision to make it free to enter seems to have been a good one.

[SoliD]

Definitely, although I only really remember Shrewsbury charging 2 years ago and it was £2 so hardly bank breaking stuff, just surprised they got so many people out to somewhere relatively remote. not sure what they did to promote it locally but whatever it did worked. Suspect the fact that Pidcock was due to ride helped as well as Backstedt who recently had an article on BBC will always draw in some extra people.