Lost on the High Road........ the photo journal

Angie: The Lake District is the perfect training ground for the forthcoming Orange Bikes Tour de Ben, having got a group of great friends together we came up with the plan of riding along the High Street.  Well that was the theory anyway as despite our maps we still managed to get lost.  On returning some seven hours later our bodies were utterly spent however, let's face it, the epic Cumbrian scenery speaks for itself.

We started from Staveley in the South Lakes with the aim to ride the High Street to Pooley Bridge in the North, through Haweswater, past the Mosedale cottage bothy and then back to Staveley.  Well that was the plan anyway.  Somewhere along the trail we ended up in Patterdale over the eastern side and were forced to take a longer route back.  It was epic.......

Here's a roll call to my fellow biking heroes of the day:

Helen Gaskell
Sarah Newman
Lucy Bell
Gordon Foster and
Matt Robinson

You guys rule!

Bring on the next epic ride out!

Bala, Bala, Bala, Oi, Oi, Oi! Taking in the National Championships at Bala in deep Wales...21st July 2013

Hot weather, can you believe it, I had totally forgotten what riding in these conditions was like.

Oi you lot, it's Nick here, stepping back in time a bit..... got to the venue on the Friday evening to do a track walk and so that I could get riding straight away on Saturday morning.   The course was amazing, totally impressed with it, easily up there with the best of them and so excited to ride it.  As you'll see from my practise video in a few moments the track has a bit of everything, the top was fast with a load of jumps.  Through the trees it was nice and technical with tight corners, roots and stumps to manoeuvre.  Back out into the open and floating over some small drops across the fast sections, slamming straight into some mega dusty corners, back briefly into the woods before jumping down into the finish field, awesome!

(Photo copyright of Chris West)

Saturday was sooooooooooo indescribably hot, after each run I had to chug back a 500ml bottle of water and then some!  Although it was great not to get soaked in the usual mud on the way down everyone's bikes were coming off the uplifts caked in thick dust, I hate to think what my bearings were gonna be like after a jet wash.  Oh yeah, I have to add that the uplifts were amazing, they were using Landrovers and trailers, some of those guys must have been paid by the run as they were absolutely flying!   This was not to be a blessing in disguise however, with the course being so physically demanding especially so in the intense heat I over cooked things, literally and did one too many runs, come the end of Saturday I was totally knackered, but the course was just so cool to ride!

Nick Turner in practise at the UK Bala National Champs 2013 from The Development Racing Team on Vimeo.

By Sunday I knew the track pretty well so I put in one practice run to scope any changes out.  My FTW bike was running damned sweet, but let's face it, Frank's frames totally rock on these types of all-out courses.  I also had my Boxxers souped up by the lovely folks at TF Tuned beforehand as well as well, everything was dialled in and running as sweet as a nut.  Speaking of TF, they were doing a brisk run all weekend, quite a lot of people going to visit the wizard that is Tim Flooks to repair their forks, by my reckoning the main faults were the kicked up dust knackering the seals and people coming up short on the jumps.  There was some sketchy riding to be witnessed up there.

My seeding run was going great and I was in a really good flow, misjudged the dust in a fast left hander at the bottom of the course which blew out on me.  It looked like a nice rut to plant my rear wheel into and I stayed on the gas, looks can be misleading and unfortunately exploded in a cloud of dust once I hit it sending me down the hill.  As a result my seeding was absolutely cack!  Balls!

I chilled out and got hydrated for my race run knowing where I needed to hold back a bit.  Out of the gate I was going good, hit the first tree section and made some little mistakes, hit the dust bowls further down the course with way too much speed and just lot it again, complete carbon copy of the seeding accident, bollocks!  So unfortunately I wasn't going to be National Champ this year, sorry guys! :( 

British Downhill Series Round 5, Bringewood, 25th-26th August

Nick: 

I was really looking forward to this race event as I had been here a few times as a youngster and really enjoyed the course, it seems to have been off the main map for a while.  It was quite a sodden track due to the previous week's heavy rainfall, it was pretty messed up at the top.  The lower sections weren't too bad though due to the tree cover keeping the rain off, a schizo course!

Due to the state of the track I decided to put full mud spike tyres on.  From the start you hit a few table tops, where I kept it nice n' low, these were followed by some relatively smooth corners the last of which spat you out into two tricky root-strewn off cambers.  These improved over the weekend as a rut developed in them which made it easy to rail through.  The track continued across a fire road and into an open section with a few bus stops, drops and jumps, this bit was the worst part in terms of mud and throughout the weekend it got thicker and thicker.  The track then went back into the woods through pine needle covered tight, twisty and root-strewn sections between the trees. 

Photo copyright of Ian Britton

The track's conditions were steadily improving until the mother of storms hit full on.  The torrential downpours saw quite a few riders going back down in the uplift vehicles but the rest of us who were man-enough went down the track!  It was as slippy as hell in the tree-lined sections, those glistening roots were there to catch everyone out and I must admit to laughing and whooping a fair few times as well!  The rain was actually assisting the course conditions further down, helping to thin out the aforementioned thick mud sections, you could now hit this with aplomb, and splatter the spectators in the process, bonus!

Saturday practice went pretty damn well without any drama.  The bike was working sweet and in particular the Hayes brakes were performing greatly considering the amount of gloop being thrown up which was leaving other riders with problems.  I was also blessed with the awesome damping adjustment on the X-Fusion shock, got the bike really dialled in for the continually changing course conditions.

The track remained sodden all through Sunday so I kept the set-up the same, I took my early run nice and steady and lost a load of time in the open section where the mud had returned to its superglue-like consistency and I didn't want to waste all my energy.  I knew that for seeding this was gonna be a killer sprint.

The only regret I had was not walking the track closer to my race run as the bottom section had dried up a lot and I would have benefited from a cut spike or even a dry tyre.  My race run was flawless, I had nailed the sprinting sections, the bike was hammering it, it was all a perfect run.  Came into the third final corner way too fast, clipped the big root on the entry and ended up getting too friendly with a large tree after my front wheel washed out!  Totally frustrated as the rest of the run was absolutely bang on. The GoPro footage will be on its way soon.

Tweet

Introducing the 2012 team racing jerseys!

Stand forth Brian at The Cycle Jersey and David Keningale for helping with the design and manufacturing!  Nick's tops have now been debuted!  I think you'll agree, they look stunning!

Can all the team's 2012 sponsors please step forward and take a bow, without your help we simply could not do what we do, thank you all so very much indeed:


Frank Wadelton and FTW Industries
Royal Racing (Nick)
Fox Racing (Angela)
TF Tuned
GoPro Cameras
Thomson
Urge Helmets
X-Fusion Shocks
Hayes Brakes
Sun-Ringle Wheels
Oury Grips USA
Burgtec
SDG Saddles
The Cycle Jersey

Tweet

iXS Series, Innerleithen 16th & 17th June 2012

Nick: I was really pumped for this race as when the IXS came to Innerleithen two years ago the event was run so well and the course was one of the best I have ever been on.  However unlike two years ago when the weather was bone dry this weekend was completly wet and muddy.  I knew that the nature of the track combined with the wet conditions were going to make for some difficult going.

Photo copyright of Ian Linton

Friday's practice went really well, as tough as the track was it beginning to bed in nicely.  It was pretty much the same as before with a couple of the big drops in the middle of the track and the addition of some jumps in the finishing field.  I had stupidly forgotten my spiked mud tyres, a lot of sections were impossible to get any grip on and I had a massive stack at the bottom of the course.  I just couldn't get any grip and didn't have any opportunity to hit the jumps with the speed needed.  They were a good size however on the track-walk we realised how soft both the take offs and landings were, spiked tyres were a must in these conditions!

Photo copyright Richard Easton

Up nice and early on Saturday and finally got hold of some spiked tyres.  Really happy with the set up of the FTW bike. It was so wet and muddy I went through an entire roll of my 'rip n rolls' on my goggles and had to change my gloves three times, this was pure GLOOP!  Considering the conditions, the track was running really well and I was having so much fun pinning the corners speedway style!

Photo copyright of Ian Linton

Qualifying was on the Saturday afternoon, I sprinted out the start and after about 100 metres in something didnt quite feel right.  Got to the end of the straight flat-out section and went to hang a left around a nicely developed rut and did a massive 180.  It was then clear I had a rear puncture, gutted!  Instead of destroying a perfectly good rear wheel I made the decision to get a lift down on the uplift vehicle's return.  This meant I couldn't do my timed run and therefore nothing I could use to compare myself to the others with.

Photo copyright of Euan Law

Come Sunday morning I was kinda happy with my lines though, I only put one practice run in and chilled out until racing.  As I was a DNF in qualifying I was off fairly early.  Put a really good run in although in hindsight (always a wonderful thing!) I could have been quicker but subconsciously I didn't want another DNF.  Coming into the bottom of the track I realised I hadn't hit the jump into the field yet or the one immediately after.  It was now or never, I came out of the last berm put some cranks into it and launched the gully jump into the field, cleared it easily but landed in the muddy slop and nearly chinned my bars, jeez!  Crossed the line and sat in the hot-seat (wet-seat in this case!) for a while which was great!

Now I'm off on holiday for a week then when I come back I'm heading up to pin it at Glencoe for the BDS!

Tweet

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.

Tweet