Thursday 30 April 2015

Ae up - Scottish Downhill Championships Ahoy, 25th & 26th April 2015


The Development had three of their lads racing but just two reports again; Monsieurs Nelly and Newrick taking over......

Nelly: After a good weekend with the British Downhill Series at Ae we were back up there for the Scottish Downhill Championships.  The track walk left a lot of riders surprised with the course designers' omission of the coffin jump, step-down and elevator sections.  I was concluding that the track would be pretty bad, come Saturday morning the rain had done its work and left us all with a wet and slippy course laced with polished roots and tacky mud.  It was gonna be a fun one!

Newrick: I travelled up with my aunt in the camper van on Friday evening which was awesome, a nice chilled drive up through the Borders, parked up had some food and then turned in early to keep me feeling fresh.

The first run down on Saturday was great up top however I hit the stump gap all squirrelly and binned it hard!  That took the wind out of me, got back up, back on it and back down to the bottom, a quick once over of the bike and then straight back up to the top again. The rest of the day was a steady progression as I got used the track, it was fluid and fast and my bike was handling amazingly well.

Nelly: I was doing a few runs with Luke Birkett from the We Love Mountains Downhill Team and we were both starting to nail our lines, despite a funny tumble earlier on in the day my confidence grew significantly and I was feeling hyped up for Sunday's race runs.

Tom Nelson

Newrick: Sunday morning hit and I managed to get two practise runs under my belt as the uplifts were running great as was the track and indeed my good self on both runs!  Back up and soon out of the gate on my first race run, not too bad but way too slow and I was cursing myself for it.

Nelly: Thankfully the rain had kept clear over night and the course was running sweet, my first race run was a tad too chilled out and I cross the line in tenth place which I knew I could improve on.

Newrick: My second race run was bang on the buck bar taking the previous BDS event's race line instead of the current SDA one, I lost some time with this but crossed the line in 19th place in the youths and with a faster time to my first run.  Overall it was a good weekend.

Tom Newrick

Nelly:  My second run was fuelled by coffee and a flapjack, as I headed to the top on the uplift I was thinking of where I could improve my time and noted that the rain clouds were starting to roll in again.  After a tiny patter of rain drops it was thankfully gone as soon as it arrived and I was on the course.  The top section was totally nailed in and my bike was taking the pummelling with ease, I stayed fluid and crossed the line shaving three seconds off my previous time putting me in eighth place in the youths, I was fairly happy with that.

Jamie had some good runs throughout the weekend but was hindered by a puncture on his second race run, despite that he placed seventh in the Juniors.

Jamie Stewart

Next up is the English Champs with all the lads, see you all there.

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