Northern Downhill Series, Ramsgill, 23rd June 2013

Stepping back in time a bit here with the next two blog updates, there's been a lot going on behind the scenes and all will be revealed in good time.  Anyway here's Nick with the low down from Ramsgill.....

Ramsgill in North Yorkshire has been the home to some amazing races back in the days of the NAMBS (Edit from Lee: and back even further in the days of NEMBA, gosh I'm old!).  The track this weekend was built up by the Cycopath Cycles boys, they have a few tracks across the Yorkshire way which look pretty damned good to hit up later in the year.

The format of the weekend was two days and two race runs on each day on two different courses.  Saturday was the easier course which was aimed at getting younger people involved in the sport.  

The day started with a push-up to the top checking the track as I went.  As I said the track was pretty simple with a number of fast flowing corners followed by a short rock garden and a couple of jumps.  It was a good day on the slope, the bike was handling flawlessly and I didn't need to touch the set up much at all.  At the end of practice I'd managed to work out a line towards the finish, quite a sketchy one actually... it involved trying to make a big S-bend, which was all off camber, into a straight line and which left me drifting like a maniac towards the timing gear, erk!

(Photo copyright of Robert Dickson)

Both of Saturday's race runs went exceptionally well with me being able to shave sometime off on my second run to take the win.  My first podium of the year along with my first win of the year, oh happy days!

Sunday morning soon hit and with it came a new track.  This was much longer, starting with some open sweeping corners into a massive road jump before dropping down into the woods and then joining on to the previous day's track.  To make it a little more exciting it had rained really heavily so everything was gonna be slick.  I was confident that the bike would be fine set up the way it was already and kept the Maxxis 'High Roller' tyres on hoping for the best. 

(Photo copyright of Noah Collins)

Throughout the morning I was laughing my tits off, as the track was quickly drying out I had loads of fun getting seriously sideways motorcross stylee.  So glad I had the X-Fusion shock and TF Tuned tweaked Boxxers on as the first time hitting the road gap I wanted to make sure I cleared everything so put a few extra cheeky cranks in, pretty soon found out this was too much and shot passed the landing zone Henry Cavill style!

(Photo copyright of Robert Dickson)

As with the previous day it was a pretty chilled out atmosphere (which I have to add is rare these days) and I just banged out a load of runs in preparation for racing. 

My first race run was reasonably steady to put a time in I was second just behind SPS (Steve Peat Syndicate) rider Jimmy.  On the next run I just thought 'Sod it, let's get wild!'., a tad too wild however as on one of the open corners my back wheel drifted out and I nearly did a 180 which lost me a heap of time, bollocks!  I got my head back down and pushed on hard shaving a half second off which was good but obviously I coulda done without my backside sliding away earlier on!  Either way I made the second step of the podium.  Top weekend racing by all accounts, I really miss the laid back atmosphere of racing as we used to have and it was good to see it back at Ramsgill.

(Photo copyright of Noah Collins)

Massive thanks to everyone who has helped out, the Northern Downhill Series is going from strength to strength.

Now I need to sleep, 13 hour days are bloody hard going!

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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.

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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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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, 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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