Drumlanrig SXC MTB

Young Clarion racers Jamie and Cameron travelled to the beautiful Drumlanrig Estate in Dumfries and Galloway at the weekend to participate in the last race in the Scottish MTB season.

Drumlanrig is renowned for it's testing technical trails and the organisers didn't disappoint with a slight variation over last years course.

The full length course is all natural and very technical with rocks, drops, and masses of roots to navigate across. With a high proportion of singletrack overtaking would be an issue for some as the oppertunities were few whilst winding through the trees.

Jamie was off first at 11.00. He had a good start with the usual blast up fire road then it was straight into the woods with constant obstacles in your path from fallen trees, boulders and streams to long twisted sections with a mass of roots. The course was around 8 kilometres and on paper didn't have a lot of climb but there was a real sting in the tail towards the end of the lap where you had a long technical switchback climb up through pine trees to then bolt through into a beech forest. This was your last decent chance to overtake before a final gruelling section over roots again then into the finish arena but not before you'd thrown yourself over the lip of a 20' drop. Jamie loved the technical challenge and came 7th with very strong competition even allowing some of the top riders being at the school games.

Cameron was racing in the afternoon in the Primary Races. The course here again was altered to last year and more technical. The kids started on a farm road with a gentle climb for around 1km then it was singletrack all the way looping through the trees.

It's a really strong competitive field in the P6/7, as it is in all classes actually. Cameron had a strong couple of first laps and was up in contention for 3rd but couldn't keep the pace up on the climb although he was able to almost make this up on the descent.

He battled on and finished 5th.

As this was the end of season it saw the awarding of trophy's and Cameron landed on the podium in 3rd place overall for the season. A just reward for all his efforts and a great trophy too !

Team Lackey David had a great race too and really enjoyed the wet slimy roots and punishing climbs, honest, but still took 7th in what was a big field for the end of season.

Peebles 2 day stage race next weekend and then into the 'cross season, woo hoo !