Into the rugged North... the Alwinton Enduro, May 4th 2014

(Photo copyright of Geoff at Backpacking in Britain)

Whilst Angie's away with the Team Berghaus crew in sunny Spain the Seagull’s here with the Alwinton NDH Enduro run down, let’s do this!

Last weekend saw the second round of the NDH Enduro Series at Alwinton forest, for those of you who didnt race it last year this is probably the meanest most testing Enduro race in the UK, putting it bluntly you go there to hug trees and get bruises!

(Photo copyright of Paul Mears)

Alwinton’s tracks are notoriously steep, fast, rooty and all out naughty, absolutely perfect for my trusty Orange Five! There’s not a lot of pedalling involved which is what makes life great. With its wild nature it’s insanely fun to ride and incredibly hard to race on as the majority found out, myself included!

(Photo copyright of Victoria Dawe)

The tracks were in awesome condition, still fairly wet from the previous week’s rain but that just made for good entertainment. Just about everyone on the hill seemed to be smiling even though the majority of us spent a lot of time on our arses!!

(Whoops….!)

This was probably one of the best races i’ve done in over two years, there were 3 race tracks in total (all dirtily technical) and due to the nature of them it was damn hard to get clean runs, I tip my hat to the few that managed it.

(Photo copyright of Paul Mears)

It certainly felt like I was riding fast yet couldn’t quite keep it together and kept humping trees hahaha! Luckily for me that was the only order of the day as most people took a tumble or two, I finished in second place which I was very chuffed with, flat pedals for medals at Alwinton I tell ya! 

Mega apologies to Orange Mountain Bikes for not wearing a team jersey on the podium, I think the previous bloodied arm photos explain why and me not wanting to look like an extra from ‘The Walking Dead’ up on the step!

(Photo copyright of Paul Mears)

All in all it was a great weekend and a massive thanks goes out to the NDH crew for making these kinda races take place. In my opinion the no-frills approach along with Carl Davison’s track building skills gives way to some of the best racing in the country, well done again bro’!

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Northern Downhill in enduro mode, the ND(H)uro at Kidland, 20th October 2013

One word for this race..... AMAZEBALLS!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god, where do I start here?  Well, I hadn't been to Kidland since 2010 when Steve and I did one of the Northern Downhill races there, I remember it being a total shocker thinking that I just couldn't ride anymore!  So when I heard that Carl Davison was running his first Enduro event at Kidland I must admit to being a wee bit nervous, and that was before I knew he was planning on running them down the downhill tracks.  Oh my!  For those not in the know, Kidland...... is.... STEEP!

Like the previous Borderline Events' Escape to Gisburn it was a one day event so practice was first thing in the morning with the racing kicking off from 1pm.  There were three tracks, two of them were on the Alwinton downhill tracks and the third was the Kidland downhill track with a slight detour around the steepest bit, phew!  And the best bit?  It had rained solidly all night long so the courses were a grease-fest, lovely and muddy, tyre choice was crucial, I managed to get away with running Maxxis High Rollers, I didn't have any mud specific tyres to hand.

We all made the first pedal up, none of us really knew what to expect so took it easy to start with, all the tracks were pretty similar to be fair, steep and rooty with tight corners.  It felt absolutely mint to be sliding around in the mud with the back end slipping out on roots. The last time I rode my bike tripod-style with my tummy on the seat was at the Megavalanche in the snow and oh my god we were having so much fun here. Full on belly laughs the whole way down.  As we got to the bottom we didn't even need to say anything we just looked at each other with huge grins on our faces, our eyes on stalks and knew we were all loving it. 

For me track three was the best, it was more ridden in and just rode so smoothly, I couldn't wait to race it.  Steve's Yeti was sadly still in bits so he was on his Cotic hardtail again and although everyone was taking the piss out of him for riding a hardtail 29er at Kidland he didn't do too bad and came 8th in the Master category.  I took a 3rd with Helen and Sarah taking the top two steps. 

The Weapons; Sarah Newman, Helen Gaskell and Angie Coates

I really cant wait to ride there again, it's given me a huge amount of motivation to ride steeper and more technical tracks, I can't wait to get the FTW downhill beasty built up to hit some more of it!

See you on the next hill punks,

Angie

xx 

Northern Downhill Series - Round 1, Alwinton, 24th April 2011

Nick Turner: The first round of the Northern Downhill Series kicked off at the now infamous Alwinton course, you want steep? You got it! This has to be one of my favourite courses of all time, it’s absolutely RAD. Last year people didn’t do race runs or even practice as the track was seen to be too steep and gnarly!

There had been some changes at the top which made it more rider friendly! However it was still steep and technical and so….. much….. fun……, it suits the FTW FB10 bike perfectly. The forecast was sunny skies all weekend and the organizers planned an uplift day for the Friday as well, unfortunately due to work constraints I couldn’t go. When it came to Saturday practice the course was more or less dry, the wet and slippy bits only hither and thither.

Practice was blisteringly good, a few sketchy moments granted, mind you most people were in the same boat. I only had one crash which was on my last run and it was because I was getting far too carried away, hit a lower corner with way too much speed and just washed out resulting in a big high-side down the hill to some rapturous cheering from the spectators! Excellent!

(Photographer currently unknown)

Rain?! Nooooooo…..!!! Six o’clock that evening and the heaven’s opened, did it rain? Oh yes! Was it heavy? Oh yes….. !! It went on for a good four hours and we all knew the track would be even tougher the next day. The morning thankfully dawned with clear blues skies, phew. Walked up the track, just to scope it out and leaning towards running cut down spiked mud tyres as there were quite a lot of exposed roots coming through. It was gonna be a fun day!

Managed three runs before the racing started, the first was quite wet and muddy but still riding well. Between the second and third runs the course was drying out again and becoming a damn sight quicker. I was really positive for my race run as the bike was amazing on this course. Overall it went pretty well just a few little mistakes that, collectively, probably cost me a few seconds.

I came down in 3rd place, was one second off second and 9 seconds from first. That fired up my determined further to go quicker and ensure a podium place. From the start I hit a root which stalled me into the first corner, I made up this time further down, I was railing it and crossed the line keeping my third place position, excellent!

Overall the weekend was awesome, really happy with the result and this is the kind of course where the FTW bike comes into its own.

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