The cyclocross season refuses to die with the Southern Sting CX Sportive.

The official cyclo-cross race season may be over but that doesn’t mean that the ‘cross bike has to go into the loft for the next six months. For starters there’s the Morvelo CityCross this weekend and a week later on Sunday March 10th there’s the Southern Sting CX Sportive.

CX Sportives have been gaining in popularity over the past couple of years, introducing ‘cross, road and mountainbike riders to a different kind of event that mixes tarmac and dirt in a fast and varied course. The result has been a clear favourite, with a great all-inclusive atmosphere and the events winning rider awards in cycling magazines. The Southern Sting is third in the series of Cycle Events CX Sportives, following the Salisbury Saxon CX in November last year and this January’s Wildwood CX Sportive in the Chiltern Hills where over 500 riders took part.

Despite the name you don’t have to do a CX sportive on a CX bike, a mountainbike will do just as well, but you’ll be slower on the road sections, you can do it on a road bike but will have to tread gently on the off-road sections, or you can ride it on a hybrid, or even a shopper, if you want.

While the CX event format is pretty new, the team behind it have 20 years experience in delivering Trail Break MTB and Southern Sportive road events, so you get practiced organization and support throughout the event with full route marking, rider timing and energy drink support from Torq Fitness. The Southern Sting CX offers course distances of 40, 60 or 80km, using back lanes, farm tracks and bridleways, with stretches of singletrack and sections of the iconic South Downs Way included too. Road.cc rode the event last year and concluded that it was a really jolly good day out.

What better way to earn that slap-up lunch you’re going to take your Mum to, you did remember that it’s Mother’s Day didn’t you? Find out more and enter online at cxsportive.com.