MIJ Summer Series Round 1 2013 – Forest of Dean

It was back to the Forest of Dean for the MIJ summer series Round 1. The fairly new track “The good, the bad and the ugly” was used for the weekends race so straight away the general talk centered around bike choice with enduro bikes being the best bet and then DH bikes a close second and hardtails not far behind. Out of the start you needed to be on the gas as you hammered through a fairly flat but flowing start straight with a few singles, doubles and nice catch berms – just when you start to think it’s getting easy the track points downwards.

Crossing the top fireroad you are flat out into a fairly long right hander floating over rocks and roots then 90degree left hander into the slab drop which was mega tricky catching out many a rider. The middle section consists of loads of big flatout berms which you needed to be pin point on to carry good speed through then off another large drop into a mega right hander catch berm. You had to get that railed to make sure you had the speed for the next very important section which was the floaty hip straight into two 20ft step downs, if you didn’t get your speed right here the next traverse section had you coughing up a lung before hitting the four-cross track. This was most people’s favourite section with loads of nice floaty jumps and plenty of show boating going down, then one last-gasp sprint to the finish line. It’s a very physical track and shows who had put the training in over the winter.

Being a MIJ event everyone knew it would be well run and a have good atmosphere and that showed with a really good turn out and also a world champion turning up as well. As with every MIJ race you could do as much practice as you needed but with this track being a bit hard on the legs and lungs the clever bet was to get your lines down then sit back for the race but with the bottom section of the track being so much fun it was in constant use with rider after rider sectioning it.

In the pro-am catagory Rich Thomas was taking no prisoners taking the win and fastest time of the day, 5.5 seconds over Dave Smith and William Jones with expert ride Ben Deakin just missing the podium. Other stand-out rides came from Jake Ward (Senior, 5th overall), Tracey Mosely (Women, 9th overall) and Luke Limbrick (Hardtail, 10th overall).

Results:

Pro Am
1st Rich Thomas (Wideopen Mag)
2nd Dave Smith
3rd Will Jones

Ripper men
1st Jamie Emmett (Pearce Cycles)
2nd Drew Whatley
3rd Sebastion Revell

Juvenile men
1st Seth Barrett (Flyup downhill/Pedalabikeaway)
2nd Jack Miller (UK Bike Park)
3rd Joe Parfitt (Mojo/Orange)

Youth men
1st Charlie Hatton (Flyup Downhill)
2nd James Thompson)
3rd Kyle Havard (Team Skene)

Junior men
1st Liam Jones (Flyup Downhill/Pedalabikeaway)
2nd Myles James (BAB/Ram Bikes)
3rd Laurie Arthur (mulebar)

Senor men
1st Jake Ward
2nd Jonathon Weaver
3rd Curtis Saunders (Bournemouth Cycleworks)

Master men
1st Jim Davage (Ride.io)
2nd Brad Hale
3rd Steven Jones (Malvern Cycle Sport)

Vet men
1st Pete Little (Flyup downhill/Pedalabikeaway)
2nd Rich Simpson (Supernovacycles/Schwalbe)
3rd Keith Saunders (Bournemouth CycleWorks)

Women
1st Tracey Mosely (TMO Racing)
2nd Jess Stone (Unior Tools)
3rd Jo Page (Flyup Downhill/Pedalabikeaway)

Hardtail
1st Luke Limbrick (Intrepid/Stanton Bikes)
2nd James Whitby (Slam 69)
3rd Simon Nash (Origin Cycles)

Another success for the MIJ boys, if you haven’t done one of their events before then shame on you and make sure you put that right and get along to their next one. Check out mij.eydev.co.uk for more details on coming races. Thanks again boys. Peeedddddaaaallllllllllllllllll!

Words – Jim Davage (Ride.io)
Images – Mark Evans (photo-bike.com)

www.mij.eydev.co.uk