BDS Round 4 Llangollen – Report

The Saracen Bikes British Downhill Series made its way once again to the slopes above Llangollen.

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The fourth round of the British Downhill Series was held at Llangollen (can you say it?!), Wales. This track has a reputation for steep, technical tracks which are always difficult to ride no matter what the weather. The new-to-the-BDS ‘Squirrel Track’ was used, this had a good mix of tight and techical turns and long flat-out straights. At the start there was a very long straight with a few features to go over, a few corners into an straight and then it dropped into the steep corners.

BDS Round 4 Llangollen – Ride.io Team Headcam from Ride.io on Vimeo.

These corners followed quickly on from each other, and were tricky to get right. One mistake in a corner would mean the next few corners weren’t quite how you wanted. The speed increased the further you got down the hill with a steep right into catch berm, and then a straight into a fun jump into a corner. After that it went into a traverse where a new jump had been put in the bottom. It was fun to hit and a nice change from having smaller jumps on the track.

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Saturday was awesome, a steep track, nice weather and compared to the usual queuing time at the BDS, riders were not actually getting the runs in! I don’t know if this was down to less riders being there, or an improved uplift technique (as tractors were going down a different route), or maybe both! All credit to farmer Martin Sands, it’s fantastic to see the venue working in a larger race. Either way it worked and I had the most runs I’ve ever had at Llangollen*! The track was dusty and bedding in well, and apart from a delay due to a red flag (injured rider, hope you’re all good!) then everything went pretty seamlessly.

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You need to get yourself to one of the uplifts! Martin and the One Giant Leap gang put on awesome days – https://www.facebook.com/onegiantleap.llangollen?fref=ts

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Sunday morning it looked almost as if it might drizzle…. but thankfully it didn’t and the clouds moved on! Riding kept on going well, there was talk of getting 3 practice runs in the morning, which is unheard of in the BDS! Racing began and was uninterrupted until the finish. The track rode well, but was definitely feeling the abuse. Berms started disappearing and holes started appearing. The fastest riders were the ones who could a) go flat out as if they had no self preservation, b) adapt to the newly ruined corners in their seeding and race runs. Some corners would have the beginning, but not the end of the berm. This caught a few people out naturally! All in all a great weekend, well done to all folks involved.

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