UK Gravity Enduro - Hamsterley Forest, 1st & 2nd August 2015

Hurrah, it's my summer holiday and race time all at once! 

Heading up to the North-East is always a pure delight and having raced at Hamsterley earlier in the year I knew what I was letting myself in for. It's a mint place to ride catering for both families and professional riders with its plethora of graded trails, you won't be stuck for ideas with advice from the forest's friendly bikers to guide you on your way.

The event, with its 20km loop taking in five stages plus the extra seeding time added from Saturday, had some people thinking it was too short however I disagreed. The transition times were tight and a shorter loop really levels the playing field for the riders who could only make it there for the weekend.  Having said that though, I was lucky with having a bit more time to spare, a plus side of being a teacher, and got some good practice in on the Friday which meant I could have a couple of warm-ups on the seeding runs. 

Seeding and Stage 5 - Despite its deceptively gentle appearance it's a long trail that demanded hard pedalling to ensure that you put in a decent time. There was a freshly cut section at the bottom of the trail that I hit too hard and came off my Five, thankfully I didn't lose too much time. Speaking of times, fair play going out to Elliott Heap who put down the fastest time of the day whilst still in the junior category, wowzers! 

During Gravity Enduro events riders seem to favour one or two of the trails over the others and for me these were Stages 3 and 4 which were slap bang next to the Descend Hamsterley Bike Park, the full-bore downhill side of the forest!  Here, it normally costs 5 quid to ride and you can book on the uplift system too, it's a really rad day out with friend and I recommend going!

Anyway, back to the racing, both of these stages really challenged my riding where you needed to be really switched on and focussed in order to rail the best lines, keeping up the pace.  Despite all of my stages going smoothly I wasn't up to a full-on race pace due to the onset of fatigue and this was reflected in my times, onwards and upwards to the next event.

Robyn

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Will Olson 1975 - 2015

Edit by Lee: The weekend was over shadowed as news came through that a fellow mountain bike brethren had passed away following a tragic accident during the Enduro World Series at Crested Butte in the 'States. Through respect to the rider and his family the event was cancelled and in honour of his memory his number 139 has been removed.  Lee and all of the team's riders hearts go out to Will Olson's family, a fund has been set up in his memory if you wish to donate: The Will Olson Memorial Fund.

UK Gravity Enduro Season Opener - Triscombe, May 9th-10th 2015

I was delighted when The Daddy, Steve Parr, announced that for 2015 one of the venues for the UKGE was going to be Triscombe, a mere fifty-minute drive from where I live!  This area is an understated biking gem hidden deep in the South-West of England where you can ride as hard as you like, I love it there and if you can’t find it I will happily show you around one day!

Living in the South-West I am blessed with great areas to ride my Orange Five.  Bike Park Wales, Afan or anywhere in Breacon Beacons are all within two hours, however I'm normally found at the Haldon Forest Park where I can ride straight from my work door and be there in 45 minutes, awesome!  If that doesn't tick your boxes the stunning scenery of Dartmoor or Exmoor surely will especially with their great surfer's coastlines thrown in for a good measure!  A lot of the people I ride with rave about how sensational Scotland is however my area is proof that you can always find great trails to ride with like minded people, and this is true wherever you are, the fact the UKGE came to Triscombe is proof of this.

I arrived ready to practice the race course and transitions on the Friday, the weather was fairly bleak with fine rain and low lying cloud. Stage one and two both had freshly cut sections which, although were a riders paradise whilst the racing was underway, were as sticky as hell in practise!  Both of these routes were going to see a lot of traffic with being raced upon across the whole weekend and I liked everything about these stages, tight, twisting turns, jumps and berms!  I rode the transitions over to stages three and four, the stage three transition was the longest at 45 minutes and was a breeze compared to the hour plus transition over at Afan!  The route here took you along a beautiful ridge where you were rewarded with sweeping views over the distant Taunton and despite the hard pedalling these stages were great fun with plenty of airtime to be had off all the jumps.

Race Day Saturday, despite being so close to home I was slightly less organised with food for this event than I normally am, I didn’t panic though as I knew the awesome Billy Can Catering team would be on site.  And sure enough a little while later I was patting my tummy after a huge bowl of their creamy porridge laced with some cheeky chocolate buttons, I was now set up for the day, bring it on!

My seeding run was clean and I felt good on the bike taking the steep freshly cut section in my stride, with hindsight though I should have pushed harder on the flat section to make more time. The second run on Saturday went really well too, well until the end when I lost concentration and caught my handlebars on a tree seeing my catapulting skywards and, thankfully, landing softly in a large bush. I've only just got all the blasted ticks off my body!

Race day Sunday, I was pleased with my first two runs which went fairly smoothly, I got some mint air-time off some great little jumps and really enjoyed my riding. No dropped chains this time thanks to the Rideworks enduro chainguide which I am race-testing for them. 

Ooooh, shiny!

I was absolutely flying on stage three when I clipped another tree with my wide bars and lost a load of time trying to re-align my cockpit. Struggling, I cruised down the fourth stage not wanting to push it with wonky steering and feeling absolutely gutted with that carry on.  I finished the weekend taking 13th place in the Elite women category.

Wonky bars aside it was a wonderful event and I for one am grateful to the amount of hard work being put in behind the scenes to stage them.  It is a hard kick in the privates then, as some of you are aware, when learning that so many bikes were stolen by professional bike thieves that evening, it really beggars belief and I hope that they're caught sooner rather than later.  Maybe we could crowd-fund some replacements for the riders, just an idea?

It was lovely to see so many friendly faces from last season and, especially as a PE teacher, it is great to see so many young people coming into the sport, I was really impressed with Tyde D'Souza and Martha Gill.

A big shout out to Steve Parr for hosting such an awesome event and again to sing the praises of the little guys like The Billy Can Catering and the other unsung heroes behind the scenes who help to make the events what they are.  Well done guys, see you all at the next round.

Robyn

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You can follow The Development Racing Team’s shenanigans on their Facebook page here: The Development Racing Team

SDA 2015 Series Opener - Innerleithen, 28th - 29th March

Jamie and Tom headed up to Innerleithen last weekend for the opening round of the Scottish Downhill Series, both riders are on a new team and riding new bikes, did it all play to their favour though?  Here's how they got on....

Jamie:

It was time for the first round of the Scottish Downhill Series at Innerleithen in the Tweed Valley.  Although it was exciting to get back into racing again I was feeling nervous having only received my new Development team-issue Frank The Welder bike a week before and indeed having only ridden it once prior.

Tom:

Saturday, 7:30am and the rain was coming down so heavily that I was reluctant to even get out of bed, a cosy duvet is my best friend!   There’s a race weekend to be had though so I clambered out and got straight into my riding kit, had breakfast, grabbed the bike and then rode along the track to meet up with my mates.  The plan was to get the early uplift and be the first lot down the track. That first run down the course was immense and I was blown away by how well my FTW bike was eating up the rugged terrain, I was progressively gaining more confidence as the day went on and was in love with the track, it was running totally fluidly.

Jamie:

I was raring to go and start practising regardless to the rain.  I took my first run cautiously and cruised down hitting all my lines. The track was challenging and I had to stay 100% focused as it was easy to be caught out.  My second and third runs were much better where it felt like I was riding at a good pace and hitting my lines square on, perfect.  After my last run I was feeling happy and confident with my riding.

Race day

Jamie:

I got up and stuck on my kit for a practise run before the racing got under way, the track had changed a lot with more exposed roots to take into account.  It was just after the first greasy section where I was kicked off my line and hit a tree with the side of my hand, the pain went straight though my palm.  I cruised back down to the pits and got some ice on it to make sure I could try and get a race run in.

Back up and on the start line waiting for the beep.  Off I went on my first run, it was feeling fast and I was nailing my lines.  This was until about half way down when my hand suddenly became very painful, it was hard to hold onto the bars and made me slow down a little.  By the time I was hitting the bottom section of the track I was two-finger braking which was really sketchy however I managed to get a full run in.  Crossed the line with a decent time of 3m 18s, which put me into 8th position in the Juniors.  Due to the pain in my hand I reluctantly pulled out of the second run in case of further injury.

Tom:

Like Jamie I decided to only do one practice run, saving myself for the races later in the day. I stayed fluid on the bike, the track was nice and sticky giving some good grip in the corners and the exposed roots were not as bad as I was expecting them to be.

My first race run went well; straight out of the gate and sprinting to the first right hander as fast as I could. It all went quickly without any mishap and I crossed the line in fourth place only to be knocked back into fifth by the next rider down and it was there that I remained.

My second run started almost as well, I pinned the technical section that everyone was struggling with and carried on down the track however mis-judged a corner and lost a load of time.  Got back on the bike and up to speed, the adrenaline had kicked in and I was trying too hard resulting in a second mishap on the lower steep corners resulting in a much slower time to my first run and I dropped down to the 13th place in the Youths.

Despite the outcome of this weekend it was a great experience of getting the new FTW bike up to race pace, all in it was good weekend and has set me in good stead for the BDS at Ae Forest.

Jamie:

Overall it was a 50/50 weekend for me, I was happy about coming 8th in a strong field of juniors but the ‘what could have been’ nagged somewhat.  There are however many positives to take away from this race and I am determined to get to the next race and push harder.

We would both like to thank Lee Walker at The Development Racing and Stewart Wood at We Love Mountains Ltd, and not forgetting the legend that is Frank The Welder, for all of their help in the off-season with getting our FTW bikes put together.

Onto the next race!

You can follow The Development's shenanigans on their Facebook here; The Development Racing Team

Chasing the mojo, Zak Holmes hits Borderline Events at Caersws with all guns blazing.

(Photo copyright of Chris Griffiths)

Caersws, my first race in Wales, the second race of the season and hopefully less of the technical nightmare that was Innerleithen. Let's get this Borderline Event underway.....

We travelled down on the Friday night, arriving after after three and a half hours on the road, although there'd been some scattered showers the weather seemed to be behaving itself and putting the tent up in the dark mustered all of our Bear Grylls skills!

I really shouldn't have tempted fate by mentioning the weather because by the time I had signed on and got everything ready the heavens had opened... brilliant!   Walked the course in the pouring rain and first impressions of top sections were good, really fast and flowy with the ground still compact and hard, thankfully the rain hadn't affected it.  The top consisted of tight, steep switchbacks which is my kind of riding and made me very excited to get on the bike.  Next up were the bus stops which had unfortunately been affected by the rain and looked very slippy, I was making mental notes as I went.  The course became muddier the further you ventured, although still technical you could see that the riding was going to be absolutely flat out and where riders needed to issue caution across the roots that had became extremely wet and slippy.  Once out of the bottom you were into a grass field to the finish line. Job done!

Practice runs got underway and I was on the first uplift.  My first run felt really good, the bike felt so sweet, the Michelin tyres were gripping well and coped easily with the constantly changing terrain giving me a further confidence boost.  Throughout the day the bike just kept getting better and better, I was loving the track and managed to get seven practice runs in.  No faults, hitting some good lines and absolutely railing my FTW Industries bike!

(Photo copyright of Chris Griffiths)

Race day arrived and it had rained heavily over night, everything was absolutely soaked! This amount of rain would have changed the track so I went straight up to get in some more practice runs in.  As expected the course was muddier and and a lot slippier, I was taking it full on speedway style through some of the corners!  Had to change some of my line choices, especially in the lower sections which had changed a fair bit and was catching lots of people out.  I struggled with grip in the muddier sections, especially across the roots so I decided to change my front tyre from a Michelin Wild Grip R to a Michelin Dig R which then worked amazingly well! I'm running the new MK4 Burgtec Penthouse pedals which shed mud so easily, Dave and the guys have worked hard on the new design still keeping their huge amount of grip and trademark looks.  Over the morning's practice I got in three runs and was happy with the change to the track and my new line choices.

(Photo copyright of Chris Griffiths)

Time now for my first race run!  After such a confident morning I over cooked some sections and experienced a few stop-start-stop-start moments in the switchbacks which lost me time however the rest of the track ran pretty smoothly and I finished with a 2m 16.517s which saw me sat in fourth place.  I wanted to do better though and decided to go all out on my second race run ... this didn't work out too well as a rather large crash slowed me right down, a total rider error with only myself to blame.  As a result of this I slipped down to sixth place and disappointed wasn't the word!

A good weekend overall, a top course despite the inclement weather and a learning curve for me.  The bike ran superbly with, thankfully, no technical issues this time around.  Next up is Penshaw, see you on the hill punks!


The Development Racing Team can also be followed on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDevelopmentMTBRacing

Northern Downhill Series, Kielder Forest, 20th-21st October 2012

Thought I would get you all the low down on the Northern Downhill's Kielder weekender, here we go....

As some of you may be aware I came into this season after losing my mojo and in between my injuries and crashing out I was pretty cut up with my results this year.  Therefore I was determined to pull out all of the stops with the Northern Champs at Kielder Forest, it would have to be the place to redeem myself.

As has been the story throughout most of the race weekends this year it absolutely chucked it down on the Friday and Saturday!  This was also a new track and not fully bedded in, I knew straight off that we were all in for a sloppy one!  Unfortunately due to wrangling with the good old Forestry Commission the very top of the track was not going to be used for the race, it still left a three and a half minute course though and it certainly wasn't shabby!  The NDH boys pulled out the stops with the amazing RedBull Rampage-style start ramp which rolled you off a high drop straight into the first shoot, excellent! 

The top section was the biggest, gnarliest rock garden I've seen so far in the UK, this would be a real test my TF Tuned tweaked suspension and X-Fusion shock.  The rock garden was incredibly physically demanding and caused a lot of riders a lot of issues, so much so a load of riders pulled out of racing altogether!  I must add here that I have nothing but respect for Carl Davison and the Northern Downhill boys who put these courses together, it's not the first time they've had riders pull out due to so-called 'extreme' sections, however how are riders to progress in this sport if they are not being challenged by this terrain? 

We did say it was muddy! Photo by Richard Easton

The track crossed into the woods which were quite dark with a lot of tricky roots to negotiate. The main trick at the bottom was keep your speed up and keep pedalling otherwise you got bogged down in the mud which became worse as the weekend progressed.

My first race run went half-decently with a few errors and one big stop in the slop which took a lot of effort to get going afterwards.  I finished in third place with my first run, because of this I knew other people were struggling with the course's worsening conditions and I was keen on trying to go faster then the other two riders on my final run.  From the start of the second run I was being thrown all over the place, it was really hard going, I did however stay steady, no stops, no stalls, just took it all as it came, the course was a complete mess of mud, roots and rocks.  No-one bettered the times of their previous runs and I remained in third place, more importantly however I was the Northern Champion for 2012!

Photo by Stewart Dickson

The course conditions were damned tough, the combination of an unbedded in new track and the weather playing havoc! The bike however worked like a dream, I am over the moon with the X-Fusion shock, it came into its own, combined with the TF Tuned forks the whole suspension set up was incredibly supple across the weekend, couldn't fault it.

I would like to say a massive 'Thank You' to everyone who has supported me through the year:

Firstly and foremost Frank Wadelton for supporting me with his brilliant FB10 frames, the guy is a legend, a Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee and an all round lovely bloke, thank you so much Frank.

Then up in no particular order:

Hayes Brakes, Thomson posts and stems, Dave and the Burgtec boys, Urge Helmets, SDG Saddles, X-Fusion Shocks, e-13components chain guides, Pete and Darren at Silverfish, GoPro cameras, Sun-Ringle wheels, the guys at TF Tuned, The Cycle Jersey, Matt at Royal Racing, and last but by no means least Oury Grips.

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Help for Heroes Race, Hamsterley Forest, 29th September 2012

The Development support the majority of races being held at Hamsterley Forest in County Durham, in the North-East of the UK.  The team has a long standing connection with the forest, from building courses, assisting with hosting regional races such as the NEMBA and NAMBS races of old, up to the National Points Series races and everything else in between.  The forest is the team's local training and riding area and as a result we were proud to be part of the Help for Heroes race weekend to raise not only cash for the charity but the public's awareness.  

If you would like to know more about the work they do please see their website: http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk

Now, on with the racing, here's Nick....

The Hamsterley Forest track has a good mixture in it, it's largely tree covered starting with a series of tight sections through the pine trees and then out over a drop into a swooping berms before hitting a rock garden to catch out the unwary.  This is followed by a neat table top and a flat out sprint to the kicker jump that catapults you across the fire road crossing.  Another rock garden keeps you on your toes and you're into the tight lines through the dark woods of the middle section, it's a tight squeeze in there! 

Another road gap looms, hit it flat out and it's straight into the best section through a series of big rock gardens, the FTW frame was made for this type of course, it was just soaking it all up.  Down over some off camber rocks you're spat back out into a flat out shoot which became progressively faster as practice progressed.  After this it was the infamous S-bend into the drop towards the finish line.

Practice was great, the track was dry as a bone and the uplifts which were being run by the northern downhill guys ran like clock work, perfect! 

The next day though was a different story, yeah you must have guessed it, it decided to rain all day! Having said that, the track still stayed pretty much the same, some roots and rocks got slippier but nothing to worry about, I kept the bike set up as per the previous day. 

Photo by Richard Easton

My first race run was pretty much a steady one with a few slips and swears towards the end which meant I was a few seconds off the pace!  It did however open up more lines to me so I made mental notes and was confident of what I needed to pull out of the bag with the race run.

I gave it absolute hell for leather on the race run and caught someone up at the road crossing, unfortunately it's damned tight in there and he couldn't hear me shouting at him, in the end I took my chance stook my elbows out and barged past.   It was a top run and I was gutted, I knocked 4 seconds off my previous time and it will remain as a 'What if?'  I finished in fourth place and it was a great weekend for a great cause.

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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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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

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Burgtec beauties!

Dave from Burgtec turned up with Angie's new personalised pedals....ubercool!

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Scottish Downhill Series, Pitfichie 23rd & 24th June 2012

Angie takes over the crib: Headed up to Scotland on the 22nd to race the Pitfichie SDA, the forecast was to be wet and it held its promise.  I've never seen rain like it.  From Friday to Sunday it didn't stop once, heavy with thunder showers!

I got there on Friday night with Ellen Tipple, it was her first race and we walked the course, it was a new track that hadn't been raced on before so I was pretty excited.  The top bit was pretty much the same as the other courses up there through the open heather singletrack and then it dropped down into the new woods section, there seemed to be loads of line choice and plenty rocks and roots!  I was debuting my new FTW Industries FB10 on this race and was eager to see how it handled.

Gloopy course!

The race was an old school push-up-to-the-top so Saturday morning I got pushing! Managed to get 4 runs in and sessioned a few sections.  The track was running sweet in the morning but after 130 riders had been down a few times it was started to get pretty beat up with more roots showing through meaning every run was different and I had to adjust and change some lines. There were some huge ruts forming that were quickly filling with water as a stream flowed down the track!  Pretty hard going but sooooooo much fun riding in the wet, you can take the girl out of the North-East....!!

(Unknown Photographer - make yourself known to Lee!)

The new FTW took me a while to adjust to, however after a few runs I seemed to get right into it, it just felt so good on the rocks :-) *thumbs up!!*  The new Hayes brakes still needed bedding in a little but after two runs they were awesome, I never thought anything would live up to my Hopes that I had had for four years but they were amazing and I love the fact you adjust the lever reach without an allen key - I only have wee fingers! :-)

On Sunday morning I got one practice run in which went pretty well so I thought I'd leave it on a good note for my first race run.  That first race run could possibly have been my worst ever, I went over the bars three times and had some other moments as well.  The woods was just so physically demanding, with nine girls racing I was sitting in 3rd place with a 4.53, about 15 seconds off the win, feeling pretty annoyed with myself!

I went up for second race run, absolutely cold and soaking wet by this point. I was in more of a chilled mood though (see what I did then!) and seemed to hold a much better run together. Admittedly I did have a little crash but stayed with the bike and got down the rest of the track totally sweet finishing almost half a minute faster with a 4.24 which put me into 1st place. I was mega happy!

 (Another unknown photographer!)

Just a six-hour drive home after that but worth a trip up!

Thanks for sorting everything out Lee, you've been a star!! :-)

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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!

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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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