Race Results Catch Up. (+ fun videos)

Since my last post races have happened all over the world with riders having to pick between various races on the same weekend.  The BDS round 2 at Fort William was  a good sign for the World Cup for British riders meanwhile Rachel Atherton takes another IXS European Cup victory and Gee tests out the strength of his leg after breaking it a couple of months back. In 4X Katy Curd is making her mark in a big way.

Up in Fort William the weather was pretty changeable, I get the impression there were points where it was pretty nice up there, however long before the event started, the weather forecast was pretty foreboding for Sunday with it being likely the race would be cancelled.

With a month until the World Cup round many of the top British riders and a few from overseas turned up ensuring a world class line up. Current World Champion Danny Hart turned up on the Wednesday before to get some decent practice in. Some people weren’t too happy about this but then there was nothing to stop them from doing it as the track was open to all.

In the end everything was moved forward and just like the IXS round 1 the seeding became the race run so those who had turned up later didn’t have much practice time and the win went to Danny Hart for the men over round 1 winner Marc Beaumont, while Manon Carpenter edged out Rachel Atherton for the women, this could be a battle of the Brits in the World Cup especially with Tracey Mosely returning for round 3 in Fort William.

Dirt Jump hero Sam Reynolds also tried his hand at downhill. Here’s  how he got on.

This weekend saw the star of a hectic few weekends for teams with the IXS European Cup kicking off 3 consecutive race weekends for many top riders. Next week sees the World Cup series re-start in Val Di Sol after a couple of months hiatus followed by round 3 in Fort William a week later.

As part of the Out of Bounds festival held in Leogang Austria, round 2 of the IXS European Cup took place with many World Cup riders turning up to test themselves and check out the opposition. Gee Atherton decided to really see how his leg was holding up in his first race back after breaking it in training .

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150873129752054

The men’s event was won by Greg Minaar by 2 seconds putting him in a definite favourite spot going into the two World Cup rounds especially with his track record at Fort William. 2^nd went to Steve Smith and 3^rd to Brook Macdonald meanwhile Gee came home in 5^th.

The women’s event was won by Rachel Atherton, making that 2 out of 2 for her in this series. 2^nd went to World Champion Emmeline Ragot, and 3^rd to Jill Kintner. Floriane Pugin came 4^th returning from her injury at the World Champs last year. Tracy Hannah crashed and came in 5^th.

In 4X Katy curd has had a winning streak with in women’s events winning a round of the 4X Pro tour in very wet Poland, she has also won Round 1 of the Schwalbe Euro 4X series. With the next 2 rounds of the Pro tour at Val Di Sol and Fort William could we be seeing a Brit taking the series? It would be great to see her take the win on home soil in 2 weeks.

Away from racing here are 3 lads out having a laugh on their bikes; you may recognise a couple of them.

And a team edit from the CRC Nukeproof lads having fun.

My next post should be from Fort William. Also check out www.solidstate-uk.com more to come on what's going on there.

Pushing yourself and the Season starts in earnest.

A few weeks ago a friend, whom I know from working at the Fort Bill World Cup, came to visit with her boyfriend and we headed out with a couple of their other local friends. It was great to actually ride with other people, particularly with keen bikers, while my housemates enjoy mountain biking it’s not their main sport so we don’t push each other much. Out with these guys I was struggling to keep up and launching myself into stuff I would have avoided if I was on my own. Not to say I didn’t chicken out of a couple of things they did without blinking.

It was great to show someone new the trails round here and they were certainly impressed by having such great tracks 15 mins out of the city centre. Having recently been back up to the Nevis Range with a mountainside to play on it’s easy to let that over shadow Ashton Court/Leigh Woods but the trails are easily comparable, in fact there’s one point on the Leigh Woods trail that reminds me of Nevis every time I ride through it. Not only that but it’s so close to the centre and Nevis Range takes a bit of a ride/drive to get to  and the new pump track at Nevis was a bit rubbish especially compared to Brunel way.

While out with my friend I talked about struggling to push myself, as I had no one better to ride with and to try and keep up with, so she told me about a great app for smart phones called Strava. This app has also just been reviewed by MBUK and is great for motivation and for pushing yourself harder and faster, once activated, with GPS turned on, it tracks your ride recording your speed and your times around your ride, then posts it into a leader board of everyone who uses the app. Not only does this help you keep track of how much you’re riding it also gives you competition and from the first time I started using it I’ve been determined to claw my way up the table. www.strava.com

The British Downhill Series started a couple of weeks ago in Combe Sydenham and will continue at the other end of the country this weekend up at Fort William. The first round, down south for the first time in a while was won by Manon Carpenter just pushing out Rachel Atherton, who was competing for the first time this season after taking a bit longer off to insure recovery from injury. The rest of the World Cup season should be very competitive amongst the women. The mens race was won by Rachel’s GT team mate Marc Beaumont, however Gee Atherton was out with a broken Tibia. 2^nd and 3^rd were taken by  Josh Bryceland and Brendan Fairclough, showing it should be another year full of World Cup Podiums for the Brits.

Since then there have been several races at home and abroad, seeing Rachel Atherton take her first win at the IXS European DH and Bryceland take 4^th in America at Port Angeles.  Also the Mac Avalanche took place in Glencoe last weekend with locals Hannah and Joe Barnes taking the wins in the women’s and men’s races, always good to see these two do well, especially as Joe was the guy sorting out my mates hire bikes for Nevis Range the other week.  Check out the Mac Avalanche here, it’s a bit nuts as is the guy who wrote the article having ridden it on a fully rigid 29er.