NBS - 4X

28 Apr 07 / Posted By Mat

Saturday 28th saw day one of The National Bike Show at the NEC in Birmingham. I went along to take some pics, look at some bikes and watch some riding, but after being there for 5 minutes, I was roped into the 4X gate / sprint.

At first I tried giving Chris Roberts of NPS4X the excuse that I didn't have a helmet, or a bike, but with a hook-up courtesy of Curtis Bikes (thanks to MTB King of Dirt organiser Elliot Eveson) along with a random yet gratefully received lid, I was on the gate and 'getting my snap on' before I could think of another excuse.

The format was simple to say the least and pretty much as far removed as you can take 4X before it becomes WTFX, but it's better to have loved and lost, as they say.

22 riders took timed sprint runs from a pneumatic gate, down a 20 meter course with a wooden jump box in the middle. From that we got the following top 10 seeding:

1 - 3.63 - Scott Beaumont
2 - 3.70 - Martin Ogden
3 - 3.73 - Chris Jackson
4 - 3.75 - Tom Dowie
5 - 3.86 - Glyn Cartwright
6 - 3.87 - Ryan Poolman
7 - 4.04 - Mat Wilson / Dave Garland
9 - 4.15 - Sam Blake
10 - 4.28 - Ricky Crompton / Pat Cambell Jenner

NOTE. All sub-4-seccond times were by riders with clips... whom were also riding their own bikes and wearing their own helmets. Just saying.

EDIT (30.04.07): Correction, Glyn Cartwright was the fastest non-clipper. Thanks Glyn... now I've no excuse... other than it wasn't my bike!

The process of elimination rather predictably saw the serious 4Xers going through with the in-it-for-a-laugh dirt jumpers taking a break (hats off to them all stepping up mind you - it's not easy doing a straight sprint with flat pedals and a fixed gear), and the semi-finals saw Beaumont vs Cartwright and Ogden vs Jackson.

Both were close things, with Jackson missing out by the smallest of margins, but final time was a Beaumont vs Odgen affair, which like the last round of the NPS4X, went the way of Beaumont.