Borderline Events 2013 – Round 5 Llangollen

Saturday 31st and Sunday 1st September saw the fifth round of the Borderline Events’ UK DH series, held in Llangollen, North Wales. The weather forecast leading up to the event suggested grey skies and no rain all weekend long – perfect race conditions!
This made turning up on the Saturday morning in bright sunshine all the better. Uplifts started at 9am allowing riders to get maximum value for their money, so by the time I rolled my bike onto the first lift at 11am many riders had already ridden two, maybe even three runs.

The race track was the old classic, starting on the right-hand side of the hill as you look up at it, and finishing with the three drops into the finish paddock located in the bottom field & car park. Bar a few minor changes, this track has been raced many times before and is a firm favourite due to its steep, tight and twisty nature. The track was extremely dry thanks to a lack of rain all week, and the exposed nature of the hill meant that the winds had dried up every last bit of moisture on the track.

Practice on Saturday rolled out without any problems. The uplifts worked well, something that the Llangollen venue has suffered from in the past. Some riders were able to put in excess of 10 runs on the Saturday, which meant that there were constantly riders on track. This, along with the extremely dry conditions, meant that the track did suffer in some sections, with corners blowing out some lines literally disintegrating between runs. Many riders though, myself included, enjoyed this element.

Come race day, the uplifts track were being loaded as early as 08:45. With uplifts running to about quarter to midday, this meant that it was possible to put in as many as five practise runs before race runs. Practise went well for most, with a few red flags in the mix, but no long delays.

To the racing, then. Fastest time of the day went to Jack Reading (Jack Reading Racing), with a blistering time of 1:46.67, closely followed by Harry Heath (Cyclestore.co.uk), just 0.40s back. The racing was extremely close across all categories, with the biggest winning margin being just 5.15 seconds in the Juvenile category.

Other noteworthy results go to William Weston (Devinci/Haven/Oneal) who won the Junior category with a time that would have seen him come 2nd in the Expert category, and a stunning time of 1:56.76 by Youth rider Bradley Swinback (RST Racing Team) – a performance that would have seen him placed 4th in Juniors and in the middle of the Expert field.

Podium Results:

Elite Men:
1st – Jack Reading
2nd – Harry Heath
3rd – Will Jones