Scottish Downhill Series - Glencoe 23rd - 24th May 2015

The Scottish Downhill juggernaut rolled into Glencoe, a course I've done well on in the past and I was hungry for it.  Set off from home on Friday afternoon and arrived at dinner time, got everything sorted out and heading up for a track walk.  The course had hardly changed from previous events with the exception of resurfacing at the bottom while up top was boggy in places and I was hoping it would dry out before practice got underway.

Saturday morning and I woke up in an oven with the sun's rays beating down on my tent, sorted my kit, signed on, fitted my number board and with a cooked breakfast in my stomach I headed up to the gondola for the first runs.

The first few were good, got all my lines dialled in and my FTW was on rails feeling perfectly at home on the rough terrain, it caused me no problems all day.  Towards the end of practice I came to the most challenging part of the track and although pushing myself I was keeping the bike at a controlled pace when all of a sudden my front wheel washed out underneath me and I flipped off the bike smashing my knee up off a sharp rock.  Although I was wearing knee pads I couldn’t stand and had to sit trackside for a while.

The pain didn't subside so I cruised down to the car park to get it checked out, my knee had swollen up like a tennis ball and I had minimal movement in my leg. Absolutely gutted that this had happened, not only was I unable to race the next day but having gone to the A&E that evening I was advised that it would need time to heal and therefore I am not allowed to race the World Cup at Fort William, I am feeling absolutely devastated.

Jamie.

Scottish Downhill Series Round 2, Glencoe, 18th & 19th May 2013

Hey guys and gals, Nick's back in the crib and here's the low down from the SDA's Glencoe weekend.

Up to Glencoe to race some bikes this weekend and instead of being ghetto-camping we were rocking a Hobbit hole, oh yeah baby!

I guess you all kinda know I love the super steep technical shizzle courses and Glencoe is no exception to this rule, it's a technical and steep bike breaker from hell!  It's well known that people do one run and then go home, tsk, ya pussies!

There were some course changes at the last minute due to loads of snow up the top and the weather had been damned rough, as a result the SDA boys had to use a different track. 

On the course.... after the very top's pedally section you have some long flat out straights interlinked with drifty gravel filled corners.  These tidied themselves up after a few runs minds.  As practice continued some big holes were developing as a lot of people were braking into the corners, I started taking the inside lines which were pretty fast and much smoother.  Totally on it.

Practice was going well then the weather took a turn for the worse. So the laminated tear offs and the new Powa Products DFender mud guard came out. The DFender went on so easily and was stable as hell unlike a lot of other mud guards I've run before, top marks guys, it definitely did the job.  The track was by now really beaten up, though I'd take a final practise run.... famous last words!

(Photo copyright of Karen Brumwell)

I set off cruising it with the intention of looking at lines and using it as a nice steady cool down, not wasting too much energy pedalling on the top.  Suddenly I'm flying through the air the hit the deck with the worst pain in my leg.  For a split second I'm thinking I've broken my femur and try to stand to see what the damage was.  It's clear I have the ultimate of all dead legs!  I hobble about and see that I clipped a pedal off a boulder at the side of the track (must weigh 30 kilos) and Tommy who was riding behind me said I moved it three or four feet!  .....and THAT was why I was in pain, d'oh!  Now that I knew I wasn't dying thought it best check my steed.  Incredibly the bike was absolutely fine, god knows how and I knew Burgtec pedals were tough but not that tough!  Definitely the best pedals out there, get some!

It was too painful to roll down the courses so I asked a course marshall to help me back to the top of the chairlift for the long trip of shame back to the pits.  Later inspection there was just a tiny mark on my leg, really disappointed considering the pain I was in, I wanted a massive bruise!  Wasn't sure if I could race the next day and nothing painkillers and a good kip couldn't sort.

The next day my leg was giving me some serious gyp yet I decided to hit a practice run and see how it went, although it was painful I was determined to race.  Back up for my first run.... as it had been a while for me since my last run down the track it had become rutted up, in some place big holes appeared.  I was reasonably happy with my first effort, hard going up the top but pretty much on it and confident I could go faster even though my leg wasn't working properly.  I did go quicker but only by half a second though, was just happy to finish after picking up an injury. 

Very impressed with Powa Products DFenders and my new team-issue Sun-Ringle A.D.D. Pro wheels too which were strong as hell and kept true after crashing my tits off!

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British Downhill Series, Glencoe 8th July 2012

Here's Nicklaus with the Glencoe British Downhill Series weekend run down:

I was back up at Glencoe for the BDS, and back from my holiday where I may have overdone the free food and drink *pats tummy*.  Can you believe it, it wasn't raining....unlike the rest of the UK which was being flooded!  The track was looking pretty dry compared to my last visit and was also taped out a little differently which opened up a lot of sections. I was also debuting the new Development team jerseys, and I have to say they do look bloody good, yes, I know, such modesty!

Come practice on Saturday I was really stoked to ride in the dry.  My first run didn't go quite to plan, my rear shock blew up through the rock garden and I had to take the walk of shame to the chair lift station and took the trip back down to the pits.  A quick dash back to the car I soon had my old shock fitted to the bike so I hadn't missed too much practice time, phew!  

Photo copyright of Ian Linton

As I progressed through my first main run I began to notice that although the track was much dryer then normal it didn't have a massive amount of grip.  However the bike was riding great and the new Boxxer fork upgrade from the guys at TF Tuned were working awesomely, taking all the huge impacts with a plomb.  It was apparent where the toughest parts of the track were as there were a lot of riders stopped at the side trying to scout the best line. The two steep and rocky shoots where causing the most trouble, lots of crashing, lots of punctures, lots of damaged bikes!  I found my bike was more than capable of doing its job and tracking well through the sections, this is one of Frank Wadelton's legacy's....he knows his shit when it comes to frame designing and building!  Glencoe is very steep, very rough and very fast, I had 100% trust in my Sun-Ringle wheels and Hayes Primes brakes, no dings, no buckling, no fading, no arm-pump, everything was working flawlessly.

Practice went pretty well, stoked with the bike's handling.  Come race day my qualifying run went well, made a couple of mistakes but nothing out of the ordinary and knew where I could improve. 

Photo copyright of Ian Linton

I was really motivated for the race run, feeling good and the bike was riding perfectly. I set out of the start gate spinning it, took a chunk out of the ground with my Burgtecs, get in!  Blitzed along on the top section and hit the the more difficult parts of the track bang on. Came into a right hander half-way down where my front wheel washed out on some loose rocks and I hit the deck, Couldn't lose the time and I knew I was pinning it, jumped straight back on galloping the FTW down the hill like a demon possessed determined to make up the lost time.  When I got to the open section near the bottom before the big ski jump, a spectator was shouting "Rider!" at me so I pulled to the side as I thought with my crash the next rider had caught me.  As the rider got closer he was telling me to keep going, turns out I had passed him further up and he had caught me up after my crash, bloody spectators, god!  I got back on the track and sprinted through the finish line.  I was really hacked off by the incident, by pulling over for no reason lost me some considerable time.  Taking the crash into consideration and the pulling over for no reason I still got 20th place, however it's left me with a big 'What might have been', sure, it's all part and parcel of racing.  I was just so gutted, I loved the course, the bike was handling it so amazingly well and I was gunning for the podium.  Gutted!

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Scottish Downhill Series, Glencoe 20/05/2012

Nicklaus takes over again.....

Here's the scoop.

This was round 2 of the SDA up at Glencoe, close to Fort William where the weather had messed up the racing only a week earlier.  I am thankful to report that the weather outlook was much better for this weekend!

Photo courtesy and copyright of Ian Linton

I really like this track as it's steep, technical and scary, quite often people dont make it to race day! The track starts off fairly tame with a small amount of pedalling, then, like a rollercoaster, starts to get steeper with some fast switchback corners.  The steepness of the track continues to increase and it becomes rougher and rockier, it's important to keep your momentum whilst also controlling your speed.  Too fast and you'll crash, too slow and you'll crash, it's a fine line, lock your wheels up and you'll be having problems, you don't want to slam your body into these rocks that's for sure!  The new Hayes 'Prime' brakes were handling flawlessly, where some other systems would start to fade under the constant pressure the Prime's maintained their performance brilliantly.  

Photo courtesy and copyright of Ian Linton

The track continues down a couple of steep shoots then a very short straight that gives you about two seconds to sort yourself out until you drop into a really steep hairpin corner with a nasty compression at the bottom.  From here the speed really picks up, it's a case of holding on and staying off the brakes as you're merely the passenger.  There's no room for any mistakes, no matter how small, you'll be spat straight over the bars!  If you made it that far unscathed there was a tight hairpin into a massive booter-jump down the hill.  The jump was a bit daunting as it's completly blind and it wasnt until you took off that you could see where you needed to land....onto more rocks!  After this it was the last rocky straight towards the finish line.

Photo courtesy and copyright of Ian Linton

Although the new fork upgrades got a brief the weekend before this course would be the real test, along with running the new X-Fusion shock.  I was really happy with the performance of both particularly so as the track was rough as hell.

Nick's GoPro Footage from practise can be seen here: 

The weather improved across the weekend, when it came to the first race run I was really up for it.  Although having a clean run I knew I had to up the speed through some of the sections, this was confirmed when I saw the times.  My second run was much better and I finished in 9th place.  I was however a bit disappointed as there were a few people above me that I know I can beat.  Being back to full fitness I feel really good, the higher results should start coming in again and I'm moving forwards.

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British Downhill Series, Rnd 3 - Glencoe 29/05/2011 .....oh boy!!

As we dive head first into June with the glorious hot sunshine, the clear skies, the ice creams, shorts and t'shirts, picnics in the park, walks with the dogs along the beaches, the pub gardens, the water pistol fights, everything that summer brings, everything we all look forward to. .....And here we are in Glencoe, let's all start again shall we?!

..."...It's a twister Aunty Em!..."...

Mud, rain, snow, mud, rain, winds, hail, mud, mud, rain, snow, rain, mud, holding-on-for-dear-life-on-the-chairlifts, mud, more strong winds, airborne-easy-ups, more rain, more snow... rain, rain, winds, gale force winds, flying-tables, more rain...... I think you get the drift now.....

Glencoe is a hard enough track, adding everything Mother Nature was throwing at it made it downright impossible! Needless to say the event was cancelled, which no one likes to happen however when you're swinging around on a chairlift in gale force winds whilst being belted by lashing rain and holding on for dear life, matters need to be taken into hand. Angie was totally rocking (literally!) the top and bottom parts of the course, however struggled a tad with the middle bits, it was a tough nut to crack. Really hard hitting with ruts appearing continuously through the day, each run being totally different, although as you can see with the photo below she takes it all in her stride! :)

(Angie deals with the mud and the spray with aplomb! Photo courtesy of Scott MacPherson)

Nick was up there Friday evening and it was as windy as hell, even just walking up the track he was blown over a few times. Come Saturday morning it was just downright miserable weather. Getting the chairlifts in the howling wind with the rain cutting into your face is not a great idea. Further up the hill it changed to snow and hail, this is supposed to be the end of May! Simply put; Mother Nature was seriously pissed off this weekend!

(Did we mention the gloop? Here's Nick taking it all on! Photo courtesy of Jamie Rodda)

Although the top of the track is nice and flowing it gets steeper and steeper like a roller coaster, it's a brutal course in normal conditions. Nick managed 4 practise runs thankfully unscathed, but had to pop up to Fort William for more waterproofs. There was a lot of talk in the pits as to whether the racing would go ahead due to the weather conditions worsening.

(Nick in a very brief sunshine interlude! Photo courtesy of Scott MacPherson)

Sunday morning arrived and we all hoped it would die down, sadly it wasn't the case, it was progressively worse. Nick had never been as frightened as on that chairlift, hail hammering his face and the chair swinging like a banshee in the gale force winds, nearly hitting the pylon supports, absolutely terrifying. Once at the top he stayed in the hut for the winds to calm down and taking his chance headed off. An amazingly fully clean run, he was really happy with it. Once at the bottom though it was pandemonium. Easy-Ups were being blown away, a table flew past only stopping after going through a car's windscreen. With the winds hitting over 80mph it was decided to close the hill and cancel the event. As Angie put it "Complete 'Game Over', now for Fort William, can't wait!"

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IXS MacAvalanche - Glencoe, 30th April 2011

Angela Coates: The IXS Glencoe MacAvalanche was truly epic, we had one hell of a great time up there! Had to take our bikes to the top of the mountain via two chairlifts and then push a futher 250 metres through the snowline leaving them all lined up. After that it was a walk back down the rugged mountainside!

Phew!

The race brief was at 1pm after that we all got a helicopter to the top, it wasn't a Chinook unfortunately but a smaller one fitting 5 passengers in, I managed to bag the front seat and it was ace! The racing kicked off at 3.30 that afternoon and we had to run 100 metres up a steep bit of the hillside to the bikes. Once away the first part of the course was all snow covered, it was old and slushy, real hard to ride through and everyone was crashing all over the place.

Further down I rode over one guy (so sorry!) and crashed just after so decided to run with the bike, this was a bit faster until I got onto the dry ground. All the way down the track was kind of marked out with poles although it was really hard to see. I seemed to be in a massive panic the whole way down as it was pure pandemonium, which probably didn't help as I was trying to get past people and then someone else would crash right in front of you... total carnage all over!!

Towards the middle of the run it was a pure pedal fest, the downhill bike wasn't great for this but I tried my hardest to get through the soft flat ground. A bit of gradient came and then there were huge big bogs to deal with, each of them trying to swallow you up. I was trying to watch where other people were going and to not follow them if they were crashing, hahaha! It was just absolutely crazy, and so much fun!

I crossed the finish line in 2nd place, just behind Orange Bike’s Hannah Barnes, hoorah! Took me just over 17 minutes and it was probably the hardest race I have ever done. It wasn't the technical terrain, just the length of the track and trying to pedal a downhill bike across bog land which was such incredibly hard work.

I think I'd do it again but more than likely on a shorter travel bike. I had a look at the DH track whilst I was at Glencoe as well, some of the new bits look mega. Should be a good race!! Just hope the weather holds out!

I’m absolutely stoked! :)

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