BDS Round 2 Fort William – Report
Thursday…
…could have been a less stressful start to the trip. I trucked up to Bath to collect my amazing new Morewood Makulu which had landed the day before. We had the pleasure of doing a new bike build at race pace which was good practice for Sunday. Pretty mint that we managed to get the new bike built up in time and we set of at 7:00pm.
A sweet 9 hour drive proceeded along with a class night sleep on the floor of the van.
After a few tweaks to the bike on Friday morning we were all set.
Friday…
For me was a steady start riding pretty tentatively on my new bike at least whilst my brake pads bedded in anyway. Having never ridden Fort William before, there was rather a lot to take in. Learning which blind crests had rocks on the other side and which didn’t took the best part of the weekend; despite all the videos of Fort William I’ve watched over the years I still needed to learn the track, damn!
Saturday…..
…was hard with the wet and cold conditions making the demanding course even harder to deal with also the rumours of cancelling Sunday race day were doing my head in as well. The knowledge that practise was being shortened and seeding being brought forward didn’t exactly make me relaxed. Adding to the pressure of learning the track and how hard I needed to brake to slow my new rig down. It was also ridiculous watching how fast all the quick guys were going making everything look pretty easy and making me feel (and I hope some other people) pretty small.
To be honest Saturday practice was so hard I wanted to be anywhere else but Fort William; I even said I wished I was indoors talking to best mate Mr Anorak about the possibilities of upgrading his Brompton to a 6 speed sturmey archer at http://www.bikeshed.uk.com/ .
The best part of Saturday was when the weather started to clear up towards the end of the day. Come seeding the weather was mint and the track and my shorts had dried out. I could at last do a run without my goggles steaming up.
It doesn’t matter how fit you are a full race run of Fort William is something else. I’ve ridden some long tracks before but nothing as rough as this; my hands have never felt quite as wrecked as that. It really did live up to the expectations of being the most brutal and physical track around. It was great none the less to do a full run in seeding and a good feeling to string a semi solid run together.
Sunday
My two practise runs Sunday morning were class, so much fun. My confidence on the bike had grown and my speed on the track had increased as I’d learnt which way it went. I couldn’t stop myself from smashing it up and I started to feel off the pipe this was shortly followed by an awareness of a deep burning sensation in my hands which would lead to a break.
Then between practise and race runs we’d packed the van ready to go as soon as we’d finished our runs.
Come race runs it turns out I think I forgot I was meant to be racing and my final race run was nothing short of slow. I didn’t have any major mistakes (apart from when I unclipped and came to a stop on the flat bit) apart from my hands I’m sure like everyone else’s where feeling ruined. I don’t like to moan much though.
The things you say after a race….
I wasn’t strong enough…
I don’t ride my downhill bike enough…
Not fit enough….
I don’t do enough….
It would have been different if I’d…..
I knew I shouldn’t have had that for breakfast…
Ooh if I didn’t have a day job I’d be so….
If only I knew what commitment was…?
All in all a top weekend, character building if nothing else…. no it was mint great to get loads of riding in on my new Morewood Makulu best bike around. That gondola was sweet as well keeping us dry and getting us to the top flawlessly all weekend. I didn’t want to win anyway, plenty more races to do that. Best hand pump training around!! I can’t vouch for anyone else’s experience that was mine. There were some other people racing there results are below here check them out some amazing racing went down. Keep riding it out, until next time.
A mad amount of top riders were in attendance for round 2 of the UK national series, it was eye opening to see them in action.
Find the full results on Roots and Rain http://www.rootsandrain.com/race1624/2013-may-12-saracen-bds-2-fort-william/
ELITE MEN – Sponsored by Schwalbe
1st Danny Hart, Giant Factory Racing 4:46.880
2nd Gee Atherton, GT Factory Racing 4:47.745 (+0.855)
3rd Matthew Simmonds, Chain Reaction Cycles/Nukeproof 4:48.178 (+1.298 )
4th Greg Minnaar, Santa Cruz Syndicate 4:48.460 (+1.580)
5th Marc Beaumont, GT Factory Racing 4:48.482 (+1.602)
6th Josh Bryceland, Santa Cruz Syndicate 4:48.983 (+2.103)
ELITE WOMEN – Sponsored by Schwalbe
1st Floriane Pugin, Gstaad-Scott 5:27.072
2nd Manon Carpenter, Madison Saracen 5:30/248 (+3.176)
3rd Emmeline Ragot, Lapierre International 5:32.532 (+5.460)
4th Emilie Siegenthaler, Gstaad-Scott 5:37.788 (+10.716)
5th Tahnee Seagrave, FMD Racing/Intense 6:01.634 (+34.562)
JUNIOR MEN – Sponsored by Fox
1st Noel Niederberger
2nd Taylor Vernon
3rd George Gannicott
4th Innes Graham
5th Gian Luca Vernassa
JUVENILE MEN – Sponsored by Pro-Tec
1st Kade Edwards
2nd Matthew Walker
3rd Joe Parfitt
4th Conor Bate
5th Kaos Seagrave
YOUTH MEN – Sponsored by SixSixOne
1st Laurie Greenland
2nd James Purvis
3rd Jacob Dickson
4th Neil Stewart
5th Andrew Dorritt
SENIOR MEN – Sponsored by Kore
1st Willem Herd
2nd Jake Ward
3rd Darren Evans
4th Matthew Hakes
5th Anthony Jones
MASTER MEN – Sponsored by Madison
1st Rowan Sorrell
2nd Kye Forte
3rd Craig Taylor
4th Andrew Titley
5th Dan Haines
VETERAN MEN – Sponsored by Madison
1st Alastair Maclennan
2nd John Cobb
3rd Stephane Routin
4th Mark Weightman
5th Darren Howarth
GRAND VETERAN
1st – Howard Stuttard
2nd – Tom Sheridan
3rd – Jimmy Docherty
WOMEN – Sponsored by Shimano
1st – Beverly Barnes
2nd – Charlotte Hughes
3rd – Lottie Mallin-Martin
4th – Jessica Greaves
5th – Rebbecca Kennedy
Words – Adam Price (Ride.io)
Images by Jaeson Blythe (www.ii10photo.com)