MTB XC Nationals Rnd1 - Newnham

We had three team members racing Round 1 of the 2026 National XC Points series at Newnham. Will and Mark raced on a dry, sunny Saturday and Lisa raced on a damper Sunday.

Will said:

The Nationals finally came back to Newnham and it’s great to be part of that. A tough circuit today, to the point where a lot of my Cat didn’t do the A lines: too risky, too many boulder fields and the chance of an injury, or worse, damaging the bike. Tired legs, race brain-fog and rock gardens aren’t a good combination. I marshalled on the Sunday and saw how few of even the Elites rode the B lines. The whole Elite podium avoided the A lines through the two biggest rock gardens.

I rode most of it smoothly, most of the time, so I’m happy with that, and I passed and dropped a lot of the riders I’ve battled with in previous seasons, so I’m even happier about that. Looking at the data at the end of the race I put out a load of power PB’s in time zones the coach has been working on with me - all those miserable, wet, winter intervals sessions clearly paying off. I’ve also been working on cornering skills lately with teammates Lucy and Lewis, and helping them has really helped me too.  

Way back in the 90’s, the legend John Tomac raced here and today’s course ran a version of ‘The Pipeline’ used for that race. So on the last lap, when sadly nobody was around to see it, I went full ‘Tomac’ into the the fast left-hander at the top, inside leg hanging forward like an MX rider. Just a little nod to the man: standing on the shoulder of giants.

Crossed the finish line with a type 2 fun grin and with perfect, if accidental timing, straight into a free recovery massage from the physio school at Marjon - big thanks to them.

Lisa said:

After a good block of endurance training after finishing the Soggy Bottom winter series I actually felt really prepared and fairly confident.

It wasn’t to be unfortunately. After a really good start where I found myself still in the pack, climbing well and catching the rider in front of me I suddenly came down in one of the rock gardens. I landed heavily and somersaulted across the track getting my bike tangled up on top of me. I tried riding on but couldn’t rotate the pedals because of the swelling in my quad.

A DNF for me I’m afraid.