2004 could be the year that XC race weekends become, well, weekends again. Ever since cross-country and downhill became effectively two different sports, lots of people have found that there hasn’t really been enough going on to warrant a whole weekend. British Cycling and series sponsor Trek have teamed up with veteran (as in experience, not old…) race promoter Martyn Salt to create the Premier Mountain Bike Series, and it’s looking pretty promising…

Possibly the most significant move is the shifting of the NPS racing itself to the Saturday of each round. Sunday racing has suffered from people not showing up until Sunday morning (as there’s not much going on on Saturday) and clearing off again when they’re done, leaving the last race of the day (often the Elites) charging round otherwise empty hillsides and rendering the whole thing slightly devoid of atmosphere. Running the XC races on Saturday and another race on Sunday should encourage people to make a weekend of it.

So what’s the Sunday race, we hear you ask? It’s the Trek 6,4,2 Enduro, an innovative format offering a choice of distances. Want to do six hours? Start at 10am. Only feel like four? Start at noon. Quick two hours more your style? Wait until 2pm. And then everyone finishes at 4pm, which should be pretty cool.

Also new for the series is the Short Track XC, involving eight riders at a time racing on a very short (about 500m has been mooted) XC course. The top four go through to the next round until a winner is decided, in a “BMXC” sort of a way. And heats will be drawn from all of the entered riders so you might find yourself next to Barrie Clarke on the line… It’ll certainly be fast and, if they get the courses right, should be spectator-friendly too.

As if that lot isn’t enough, British Cycling’s Go-Ride campaign, designed to get more kids on bikes, will be piggybacking on the series with a range of coaching and skills events throughout each weekend. Each event will be promoted in local schools.

A lot of effort is going in to getting the courses and venues right, which looks like it’ll mean a return to some classic XC venues of days gone by – Newnham Park, Eastridge, all that kind of stuff. And we’re told that entry fees should be quite reasonable too… Venues and dates aren’t finalised yet, though – we’ll bring you all the details when we have them. In the meantime, have a shufti at www.go-ride.org.uk and www.britishcycling.org.uk.