Borderline Events 2013 – Round 3 Moelfre
The British Downhill season has well and truly kicked off, but the British spring has still to come. This didn’t hamper the efforts of just under 180 riders, making their way to Moelfre near Oswestry for Round 3 of the Borderline Events Race Series.
As usual everyone’s eyes were on the weather channels and sites. At the beginning of the week everything looked promising, but with a chance of rain on the Sunday night ever looming. As the weekend came round, Saturday was forecast as dry and sunny with Sunday turning to rain in the afternoon and the winds picking up. With no shelter at the top of the track, the wind always has a massive effect on riding and racing at Moelfre.
Moelfre is well known for being a flat out fast track with no trees or massively technical areas with not much having changed on the track in the years that it has been running.
The track taped out by Mike Marsden of Borderline Events was the usual Moelfre track, incorporating the infamous quarry. The quarry once had a kicker on it, but this was taken out after numerous riders crashed due to the wind. This hasn’t stopped riders still hopping the 40ft+ gap. Clearing the gap is defiantly the quickest line, but who would step-up and do it.
Mike is at the fore-front of having women racing in the UK and is always pushing for more to begin. This weekend there were 5 women present. He hopes for later in the year, too beat his previous record of 31 at Moelfre last October, by having 40+ women race later this year.
Saturday came and so did the sun. The track was dry and with very little cloud cover there would be no rain that day, giving everyone a taste a summer. The tinted lenses and shorts were out for the photographers. Jack Reading came into his 1st run with guns blazing and sent the quarry gap. After I heard this, I was straight on it. Then Team Skene Tom Owens, FMD Intense Mike Jones and Shaun Richards cleared the gap. Team Skene Elite Grant Boyce stepped up to the plate, but came up short and was thrown out the front door.
Not long after Grant Boyce’s dismount, RootsandRain/Team Skene Seb Frost and I decided to do a camera run, thus the GoPros came out and the curse of the camera rose its head. Pedaling into the ‘quarry gap’, I realized I didn’t have enough speed to clear, but had gone past the point of stopping. I pulled up hard to clear the gap, but came up short and hard. I was then bucked onto the front end, then spat out the front door. Fortunately, neither me or my Specialized Demo were damaged in the crash and I was able to finish my run (after having a few words with myself).
Sunday morning came and the clouds had returned along with the wind. Everyone was heading up for practice and to find out what the wind was doing up the top of the hill.
Race runs came, round quickly. However as the 1st riders came down, it appeared that a corner up top of the track had changed, closing a line forcing riders to suddenly change line or being forced into a big hole. Mike was quickly on the case and before the next category came down, the pole/tape was moved back to how it had been for practice. This wasn’t any single persons fault, just a breakdown in communication between the marshals.
As time went on, the wind up the top of the track grew. Many riders were coming down with tails of battling the wind to stay on the track, or even move forward! I was unfortunate with the wind and was blown off the track on the bigger of the step-down-step-downs. Then further down on my 2nd run, leaving me with a disappointing 7th.
The rain came, but fortunately was only a light shower, with the wind blowing it away before it could saturate everything.
The big upset of the day was DMR rider Rich Accott, on his hardtail coming down in 2nd in the senior category aswell as winning the hardtail category!
Elite Men
1. Jack Reading
2. Grant Boyce
Expert Men
1. James Hughes
2. Josh Lewis
3. Billy Matthews
Women
1. Gemma Taylor
2. Terri-Anne Gale
3. Cath Short
Juvenile Men
1. Joe Parfitt
2. Tom Nelson
3. Finaly Grove
Youth Men
1. Nial Oxley
2. Lewis Bradley
3. James Thompson
Junior Men
1. Mike Jones
2. Tom Ownes
3. Shaun Richards
Senior Men
1. Jake Hancock
2. Richard Accott
3. Danny Bradford
Master Men
1. Seb Frost
2. Shaun Bevin
3. Brad Hale
Veteran Men
1. John Cobb
2. Rich Simpson
3. Conrad Slack
Hardtail Men
1. Richard Accott
2. Ste Tomlinson
3. Aaron Chorlton
Full results here – http://www.rootsandrain.com/race1715/2013-apr-21-borderline-events-uk-dh-3-moelfre/
For more events by Borderline visit their website or jump on the Ride.io FORUM
www.borderline-events.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/borderlinemtb
Images – Chris Smith (www.facebook.com/twentytreesgallery)
Words – Brian Anderson
