Pearce Cycles Series Rd #3 – Bala. Race Report
We headed to Bala for round 3 of the hugely popular Pearce Cycles Race Series. Ant Jones reports with photos from Sarah Barrett.
On Friday 12th June I began my long trek up to Bala for the Pearce series Round 2. It’s always a long trek thanks to the smooth running of the M25 on a Friday afternoon. I eventually got there at 11.30pm so far too late to find people or even contemplate walking the track, so I settled in for the night with a couple of ciders and the film Django for company.
Up bright and early (well 8am is early for me!) I realised that I had actually parked up next to lots of people I knew so I spent the morning setting up the new pit tents from DMR Bikes and cooked myself some sausages, always an athlete’s way to start the day! Practice didn’t start until 10am so it was a nice relaxed start. Being pre-occupied with setting up I didn’t get a chance to walk the track so opted just to ride.
The Pearce race series has a reputation for an amazing uplift and true to form everything ran like clockwork. I managed to get in 5 runs (which for a lazy rider is very good!) I didn’t once have to queue and could have easily fit in more runs if I wanted to.
The track started out with a long fast straight that sent you into a couple of bus stops filled with rocks and huge braking bumps, after a couple of wild corners the track passes across a fire road into more fast rocky corners where I had a mega moment in my second run going headfirst into a couple of trees. The rocky section ends as you exit the lower tree line and as you cross the fire road there’s one fast drop and onto an awesome sender that launches you into a huge chute at mac 10. The next section was pretty much a stump field with various corners and stumps to try and navigate through with gaps all over the place to try and hit to get through as smooth as possible.
After you had survived the stumps you crossed a final fire road and into the lower wooded section, only a few corners here so nothing too tricky but as you exit onto the field section you had to keep your fingers crossed that you could keep the grip round the grassy corners as they were deadly in practice. Come race runs they had dried up so luckily, they could be hit much faster. Then it was just a case of crossing the finish line.
I was riding pretty well in practice, took me slightly longer than normal to get up to speed as I didn’t walk the track, but soon got into the swing of things. I had a couple of pretty wild crashes but wasn’t hurt so ended the session after 5 runs feeling good.
I finished the day by trekking up, well half way up, the mountain that stands alongside the track. It was hard work but the view was worth it and meant I could do my Dad duty and check in on the Mrs and my son, Bala is a black hole for signal. I was then a responsible rider and had a healthy meal and went to bed early… Code for I ate lots, drank lots and stayed up late enjoying the company of my fellow riders.
I was actually up early on the Sunday (7am!) and managed to get in two practice runs before race runs. I was feeling pretty good about my riding and was confident at the start, ready for my first race run. Unfortunately I threw it all away once I got going, lots of little mistakes and then left the track completely at one point.
Despite not being on top form the track was amazing and the weekend as a whole was really good. Pearce have lived up to their reputation again and put on a highly professional and fun race weekend!
Full Results Here
Words by Ant Jones
Photos By Sarah Barrett Photography
