Fort William World Cup (part 1)

As ever too much fun was to be had and too much work to be done to sit down and write. So here it is a two weeks later.

After worrying about transporting my bike 500 miles from Bristol to For William and back the train was no problem and on the way from Manchester to Glasgow the driver didn’t bat an eyelid, going from Glasgow to Fort William and the guy loading took one look at the bag and said ‘Fort William luggage goes there’ pointing to one of the compartments. The way back was a little more difficult as I ended up on double-decker buses which annoyingly have less luggage space so going from Glasgow to London I had to get out to move the bag out of the way at every stop.  So despite the random rules on the Megabus website if you turn up with a bike you should be ok just be nice and put it in yourself as it’s likely to be over their safe lifting weight.

Arriving at Fort William I threw my bike back together and headed up to Bank Street Lodge, settled in and waited for the others to arrive, as I’d missed the shops being open it was a whisky fuelled reunion courtesy of Jims’ constant supply of good quality stuff. Unfortunately this meant when I rode  the 6 or so miles to the Nevis range the next day I wasn’t entirely sober which resulted in me miss-judging a bridge just before the car park and smacking into it, I stayed on my bike and only suffered a slight graze on my arm.

Work up at the Nevis Range took it’s now familiar routine heading up the Gondola and putting the poles out to mark the track deciding which lines should be left open and which should be closed off and taking note of sections of track as well as spectator routes that needed a bit of work. This also gives us a chance to look at the new sections that have been put in like the new Motorway section.

 The second day was taping the track out moving a few poles where the tape would let people take a sneaky line we didn’t want them taking. Last year we taped the wooded section into the road gap (The Big Doon) quite tightly to force them on a certain line, this year we took the same route but taped it wider leaving a tight but fast inside line, this section was the most debated and deliberated section as it has to be fun for riders and spectators but challenging as well as slowing the riders down before the Big Doon. At the same time down at the car park, the village and pits with all the official tents and cabins were being set up, though none of the teams or shops start to turn up until Wednesday.

Wednesday there was lots of talk on Twitter of teams heading up to the Fort, although few actually turned up on site that day, up on the hill I headed up to flatten out some puncture creating rocks and ended up having to re tape a massive section of board walk after someone had taken it off the pole it was secured to at one end. Not fun. Other bits and pieces needed tidying up and sorting out.

Thursday and the days the teams arrive and the village really takes shape. Most of the track work was done but a few braking bumps needed filling in and some branches needed cutting down to improve T.V coverage.  I say a few branches, this turned into an act of mass deforestation, cutting trees down about 5 meters back from the track all in the name of Red Bull T.V. It was fun but hard work but I came out looking like I had Small Pox from all the midgey bites as I was destroying their habitat. It came out looking superb on the coverage and I particularly enjoyed hanging out off a tree cutting down over hanging branches trying not to hit riders as they did their track walk. Unusually I only saw one big name rider coming down the track, the rest must have come after Peaty obviously delayed by his BBQ halfway down.

Part 2 on it's way.