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.