The sun was shining brightly as Ickworth Park welcomed round 4 of the Mud Sweat Gears Mountain Bike Series brought in partnership with the West Suffolk Wheelers and Triathlon Club who provided the manpower for the course set-up and all the marshals.

In marked contrast to last year’s event, the brand new course featured several interesting technical sections. The first was a deep pit with a scarily steep drop-in.  Further along the course, there was an off camber corner descent complete with a strategically placed tree to catch the unwary.   Towards the end of the lap there was of a steep grassy descent followed by a couple of small rises a bit like mini-moguls. This last feature saw the most incidents as some riders got too much air from the first mound with unfortunate consequences. There were chicken run alternatives available for those who didn’t feel up to the most technically demanding features.

The morning races saw Robin Lines compete in the Youth class and Rhys Holland-Jones in the Juvenile race. Both riders put in solid performance finishing 15^th and 9^th respectively.

Matthew Whitwell competed in the Under 12 Boys race for the second year in a row.  He lost a little time when he had to stop to fix the front wheel quick release which had opened during the course of the race and finished 22^nd in a large field.

In the afternoon races, the club had seven representatives. In the Veterans race, Matthew Denny finished 56th.  Malcolm Borg finished 10^th in the Masters race.  In the Grand Veteran race, there were four WSW&T representatives but only Paul Watson (8th) and Richard Emmerson (20^th) finished with both Paul Barry and Malcolm MacFarlane succumbing to mechanicals. The former suffering a broken saddle rail on the practice session and didn’t make the start line! Malcolm M fared only marginally better going out halfway round the first lap with a detached rear mech.

Despite not being the most glorious of days for those members who competed, the day itself was a big success providing exciting and entertaining racing in superb weather.  Volunteers from the club were praised and thanked by the MSG organisers for their great work and enthusiasm and there were some great comments from other riders: “superb venue and excellent race…” Well done and many thanks to all those involved.