British Downhill Series Final - Antur Stiniog, 19th & 20th September 2015

Here we go, the BDS finals with the gruesome twosome, the two Toms.... 

Nelly, off you go:  Me and the family got the venue quite late and darkness had already fallen so the track walk was left until the morning thankfully I remembered most of the course from the last time I was here and the morning's walk confirmed that it hadn't changed by much.  I will be the first to admit that my practising was quite sketchy at times, with that said my bike's supple suspension was perfectly dialled in which was being used to my advantages.

Newrick... Nelly was already up the course when we arrived at 9am, I had some extra kip on the journey over as it was a long haul!  Frank shipped over a larger FTW triangle for me as I've had a sudden growth spurt, it now fits like a dream however that morning I didn't have my head screwed on and needed a lot of encouragement to get my finger out.  Once I was up there with my mates it was awesome, the track ran sweet after my first run nerves were out of the way.

Overnight the weather changed.......

Nelly: Race day was a cold and wet one, I was doing my best grunge impression with a lumberjack shirt to stay warm, I guess Kurt Cobain would have approved!  My seeding was OK I guess, I had a fair few sketchy moments on the wet rocks and there was a tonne of room for improvement.

Newrick: I got one practise run in down the now super slick track on Sunday morning, my seeding run was a nightmare, it was so slow with less than five metres of visibility at the top of the hill through the thick fog followed by pouring rain further down.  My race run was more of the same, hit one of the rock sections fairly full-on and just scared myself, zero grip, from there on I took it easy and crossed the line with an OK time, just nothing to write home about.  Overall it was a good weekend hanging with my mates, I can't fault the bike, it was running sweet all weekend, just Mother Nature not being on my side.  Winter's coming and I'll see you all on the Hamsterley trails, looking forwards to 2016.

Nelly:  I went back up for my race run and as Tom was saying the weather became progressively worse as the day went on.  Likewise I took a steady run just aiming to pin the lines I had practised and cross the line.  Came home with a 14th place which isn't too shabby considering.  Now we're looking ahead to 2016.

British Downhill Series, Round 5 - Moelfre, 11th & 12th July 2015

The Nelly posse rocked into the sun filled valley of Moelfre for the fifth round of the British National Series on the Friday evening.  After we set up the camp I headed off to walk the track and see how sick it was gonna be.

On Saturday morning the sun was out, we were all stoked up and ready to go, the track was riding sick and so was my Frank The Welder steed.  After smashing seven pinned runs I headed back with no injuries or breakages.

By Sunday morning the dust had thankfully dampened down making the track even faster.  I had a disappointing seeding run where I crashed half way down, I was gutted and knew I had to pull out all the stops in my race run.

Sadly the race run went to pot after I lost a lot of time stalling in a turn and this put me down into 15th, although that isn't too shabby I was hoping for a podium.  That's racing for you.

I had an admission that I won't be at the National Champs, it's the summer break and I will be heading over to Morzine to get the metal down, see you all when I get back.

Nelly.

British Downhill Series, Round 3 - Llangollen, 30th & 31st May 2015

Controversy....

Tom Newrick: We arrived at the venue early on Friday morning and set up the tents, even at that hour there were some murmurings about the course and the track-walk proved it to be true, it was steep, very, very steep!  

I knew then that it was going to be a struggle on the track. Headed up for my first practice run on Saturday morning and came off twice, each further run I was still coming off my bike and my body was starting to hurt.

Come Sunday morning I headed back up for my first practice run and landed really hard after being catapulted over the bars.  Being completely battered and bruised I could not justify racing on the course and sadly pulled out of the event.

Lee here: I fully understand the position Tom Newrick had been placed in, the course was very controversial, although it's a UCi sanctioned event and needs to challenge riders, this track may have exceeded the limit. I mean it says a lot when the pro riders are in agreement with how punishing the course was. I don't blame Tom for pulling out of the event at all as he could have had a serious injury.

This now leads me to what happened with the team's Tom Nelson.

Nelly made the ultimate mistake of not signing on in the morning before his practise runs, that is his own mistake and he knows it was wrong (and hopefully he's learned from it and won't do it again!).  I fully understand and appreciate his mother's anger after the event, and indeed must admit to being pretty angry with the carry on myself.

My question was in regards to how Nelly managed to have four practice runs without being pulled up by the start line commissaire in regards to not signing on.

The commissaire notes the rider numbers down however he can't check those against the start sheet until the Saturday evening as this is when the timing company collate the sign on sheets and produce the seeding list.  Nelly had tried to sign on at the end of the day however by this time the commissaires had left the venue.  One of the arguments was that some other riders had got late entries however those riders signed on before the commissaires had left.  Nelly however was too late and Si Paton was sadly placed in an unfortunate position, he could only say no, the BDS are sanctioned UCi events and his hands are tied to that, so unfortunately Nelly was unable to race.

British Downhill Series - Ae Forest, 4th & 5th April 2015

We’re all going to have a tight squeeze into the Tardis as we travel back in time to the British Downhill Series at Ae Forest.

Lee: I’ve been in the midst of a house move and it’s been crazy, that’s now thankfully all done and dusted so whilst I’m sat here surround by unpacked boxes here are Nick and Tom with their low downs, sadly Nelly didn’t get back to me with his.

Nelly channelling Daft Punk....

Tom: I arrived at Ae after getting a lift up there with my mates in order to get an early track walk in.  The first impressions were that the top and lower sections were looking great, sweeping forest trail with some nice sticky mud to keep things in check.  The middle section after the road crossing looked problematic though, steep off camber root fests….. that was gonna be my challenge!

Nick: I’m getting old guys, I’m now in the Masters!  Spent the best part of winter at Crossfit Jacana in Durham building my strength up although I didn’t get as much riding in I’d have liked.  Anyway, on a totally shallow note, have you seen the team’s new red FTW downhill bikes, exactly how cool?!

From past experiences at Ae there’s little point in running spike tyres despite the mud as there’s a load of rocks and roots to contend with so I stuck with my Michelin Rock R2 tyres, yep, their so-called enduro-specific 27.5 tyres are amazing for downhill, it has to be said.

Tom: We booked in the Travelodge for the weekend, it was way too cold to camp out, respect going out to all of the brave souls who did!  After arriving at the track on Saturday morning and being fuelled by a sausage sandwich from the Ae Café (none of that energy bar crap with me!) I went up top on the first bus.  First run down was good, took it easy to scope the course out especially the off camber sections.  Pretty happy with most of my runs that day and was steadily getting the speed up on my FTW.

Nick: I spent Saturday tagging along with the We Love Mountains Downhill Team, which is run by Lee’s nephew, Stewart.  Me, Tom and Nelly were all on different time-paths which made practicing the course together a faff.  The biggest issue of the morning was dealing with my confidence, where my lack of riding over winter was coming into play, with that said, I was picking up some canny speed as the day progressed and was happy with my runs.  By the afternoon the sun had come out drying the track nicely and I was soon blasting through the rock gardens with aplomb, good times!

Tom: Sunday and another morning fuelled by the Ae Café’s excellent sausage sandwiches!  Queued for the uplift bus which were taking their time, a renown problem at Ae Forest and finally got to the top for my first run down of the day.  The track at the top was pretty much bang on, the FTW was railing it, took a tumble in the middle wood section though, completely over cooked things thankfully there was no damage to either me or the bike!  Got my speed back up and came off again further down, from here on I just cruised back down the course to the pits.

My seeding went OK, had a chilled run, clipped my pedals on a few rocks but crossed the line with a reasonable time.

Nick: As with Tom and Nelly the time spent waiting in the queues for the uplifts were a pain in the arse and I only managed one run down before seeding.  Although it was good in terms of familiarising myself with the changes in the course, I (and the others) could have done with getting a few more runs under my belt as there were a lot of hold ups on the track.

Being in Masters I was keen to see how I was going to fair against my new competitors.  My seeding was good, hitting my lines faster than in practice and totally sailed through the rock gardens.  I suddenly realised that my back wheel was slopping about and it dawned on me that I’d flatted, damn it!  Up until that point my run had been perfect, I cruised down to the finish line and changed my tyres over.

Tom: My race run started really well despite taking a while to clip in out of the start gate.  The top section was totally fluid, the bike was handling like a dream, however come the middle section I came off again in exactly the same place as earlier in the day.  Jumped straight back on the bike and got my speed back up but it just wasn’t to be, I crossed the line taking the 33^rd place in the youths, balls!

 

Nick: I got everything race prepped and threw some clean kit on then headed up for my race run.  I felt pretty relaxed and knew what I had to do, by now the track was much drier which was great. The top section went pretty much to plan although I stalled after hitting a greasy root, nailed the section where I flatted on in seeding and took 21^st, the middling ground, not too chuffed with that!  Took away a lot of positives from the event but I am aiming for the top tens from here on in.

 

Nelly crossed the line taking 15^th place in the youths.

All in, a good event but lack lustre results, all of us were blown away with how well the new FTW team bikes are handling though.  We’ll be upping the ante for the next event!

British Downhill Series, Fort William 13/05/2012

I'll pass you all back across to Nick here.....

Here's a bit of a low down from the weekend.

We rolled into Fort William for round two of the British Downhill Series.  Landed up there on Friday night after a long drive and the weather was, for a change, looking pretty damned good...well apart from the snow at the top of the mountain but hey, that means snowball fights, always a good thing!

I absolutely love Fort William, it is such a fun, fast, bone-shaking, scary-as-hell, balls-out awesome track!  Was a little disappointed that I didn't have time to fit my new X-Fusion shock due to being away with the day job and was kinda hoping my new FB10 frame would have landed.  The X-Fusion shock will be on for the next race.  The other addition was the upgraded forks courtesy of TF Tuned, they are amazing guys!  Got the new black stanchions fitted and had the fork converted to coils, it has made such an improvement to them.  Huge thanks going out to the TF tuned lads for their help, much appreciated. 

On the Saturday morning we were told the bad news that there was severe weather moving in so the schedule had been altered to accommodate for this. Therefore seeding was moved to the Saturday in case the event had to be called off on the Sunday. We were informed to make our seeding count. 

In a nutshell it meant a very limited practice time on a huge course which wasn't ideal for me as I was wishing to take practice steady taking into account my recent injury.  That said, I knew I would have to bang a few good runs out in the morning. 

Photo courtesy of Ian Linton

Saturday morning came and the weather was pretty good with just the odd passing shower.  The top of the track was pretty sloppy though, especially if you got caught off line as they had just put a load of gravel down in places.  Further down the course instead of going through the woods it stayed out in the open with a few corners which had a couple of line choices, pretty damned speedy.  Generally much of the course was the same from previous years, apart from the 'motorway' which they had been resurfacing as well as removing a few of the jumps.  Bigger ones have been planned for the bottom 'motorway' section with the coming UCi World Cup event there, however with the old jumps now removed and everything a work-in-progress for the World Cup it was a flat out sprint which was difficult in the now soft ground.  Hitting the 'Tissot jump' at the end with enough speed was really tough going.  In addition to this there was a nasty hole developing due to people braking too hard, in my second run I managed to hit it which put a nice crack in my rim!  Damn it!


Here's some GoPro footage:

A decision was made that the seeding runs were now race runs as the severe adverse weather was starting to come in.  On my way up on the gondola the wind was picking up buffeting the cable car with rain.  Unfortunately I wasn't seeded as had missed the first BDS round, I set off on my run and was beginning to regret not putting tear-offs on my goggles as fairly quickly I couldn't see anything due to heavy rain.  In these conditions it really doesn't help that the top of the course is extremely open, I could feel the wind blowing me all over, there were a few times I got blown off line and on to the loose gravel which was pretty scary in some of the big rock-strewn corners.

Photo courtesy of Ian Linton

Although some of the lines had become quite cut up generally the track was as it was in practice, to which I'm thankful.  Getting down onto the motorway section was a relief as you are in absolute agony from hanging on but you know you are near the end.  The hardest thing is that you know you have to pedal like hell from here on down, there's no way you can let up.  All in I had a good clean run, a little disappointed with losing some time being blown around all over up top, but I can't really complain.  

For the next round, the new X-Fusion shock will be fitted and the new wheels will be built, bring it on!

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BDS 2 – Moelfre Hall, Wales, 10th April 2011

Just some photos of Angie from Laurence Crossman-Emms at the moment pending the write up :)

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