The Alistair Lees Memorial XC TT is now in its second year. Last year was a multi-lap affair, whereas this year saw a longer 21km course ran as a single lap. Yet again the weather played ball, and racers were treated to minimal wind and some sunshine. I was riding my new bike (more on that to come) in its first ever race, so was expecting good things.

The start of the route was fairly brutal, up a section of zig-zags followed by a draggy bridleway and some more zig-zags. After this there was a tiny bit of natural descent followed by a long gentle singletrack climb where you could really get some speed up. Next was part of the old red-route, complete with the ‘mouse-trap’ rocky stepups, before joining up with the middle of the push-up track. A short section of forestry road took you to the very steep and loose top section of push up track.

After the final steep section really began; the top section of matador is fairly straightforward, although I lost a small amount of time on it due to having my forks locked out. A small section of twisty natural trail finished this off, before zipping along some forestry road to the next section. Natural trails with small berms, jumps and some interesting forestry ploughing made this section truly great fun.

Back to the red-route climb, through the quarry, then up towards Minch Moor before taking the shortcut to the Crop Circles. Along to the Plora Craig rock gardens taking the red options. At the switchback where red rejoins black, we went off the trail onto a super-steep access track onto the uplift track. Like others who had pre-ridden the course, this was a change I was not aware of, and even though I got down the gears fast enough to make it up, I still had to stop at the top and remove a stick from my rear mech.

A blast up the smooth uplift track took us to the top of the DH tracks again. I caught Chris Herraghty (EUCC) at this point, who decided to put his saddle down, something that saved him 7 seconds on the descent. Down the tunnel, new-luge, old luge, new-luge, then down the Merida trail and onto the bottom section of Caddon Bank.

I was rather pleased to find out I had finished in second, with Gareth Montgomerie (Freeride Spain) being first, and Iain Nimmo (Squadra Porcini) being third.

Thanks to Helen at Inners MTB Racing for the great event and support, and Steve at I-Cycles for the coffee, biscuits and banter.

And now, onto the British XC Champs course route….maybe not, I’ll keep that under the hat for now.