MIJ Taff Buggy Welsh Champs – Report

This weekend MIJ Events held two downhill races over two days at the popular Taff Buggy Venue in South Wales just outside Pontypridd.

Taff Buggy has been a well used venue for regional DH events for a long time now, but this doesn’t seem to hamper the track with a great turn out over the weekend pulling riders in from across England, not just Wales.

MIJ, who ran the weekends event, had decided to hold two races over the two days rather than a practice day followed by racing. Although you may not get quite as many runs in, riders lapped up the opportunity to do some more racing against the clock. So the itinerary for the weekend was round three of the MIJ Series Saturday followed by the Welsh Championships on the Sunday.

There is a good amount of hill at Taff and as an established venues there are a few variants on the way down the hill. So Saturdays racing was set to be on a slightly different track to Sundays Welsh Champs.

Saturday practice kicked off at nine and riders started hitting the slick track after a damp week and morning dew. This soon cleared up though letting the track speed up during the day, apart from a minor blip when a downpour hit during the first race runs, but it wasn’t a muddy affair by any means.

Taff seemed to have a bit of everything for the riders. The top section led you around a few jumps and berms before hitting a step down kicker or drop. From here on down you were running at a pretty fast pace hitting numerous rock sections, drops, jumps, berms and fast flat corners testing the best of riders.

The tracker and tailor uplift at Taff works pretty well, with a fairly short uplift route, more than enough vehicles and some fast drivers there was never much of a queue at the bottom of the track and I didn’t hear a whisper of a complaint from a rider all weekend.

Racing kicked off and was pretty much uninterrupted all afternoon with riders getting two runs, second being seeded and then taking their fastest time of the day for the overall result. Second runs were faster for the most by a couple of seconds.

Ride.io rider Emyr Davies stole the days racing by smashing the second fastest time of the day on a BTR Belter hardtail which BTR kindly donated to him for the Saturday. With the Champs jersey in his reach he would be back on the Morewood for Sundays Champs race. Mike Jones took the fastest time of the day with a 1:54.182 riding for Chain Reaction/Nukeproof.

Saturdays Results: rootsandrain.com/race2466/2014-oct-11-mij-3-taff-buggy/

With the track changing for Sunday the MIJ boys got out after podiums and changed the taping of the course, giving riders a great opportunity to check out the track before sundown and have an extra half hour in bed on Sunday.

The majority of the track stayed as the day before for Sundays Champs race but with three main changes. Towards the top there was a new rock hop which caught out many riders over the weekend and opened a couple of lines. Further down there was now the option to take a big old huck missing a whole chunk of track, some of the riders (even elites) took a slightly different line here though faster in slower out or slower in faster out, the choice was yours.

To finish it off near the finish line there was a new interesting line along a ridge with a drop at the end. Riders took this pretty tight which lead to tape being all over the shop for the first couple of runs but half way through practice the lines where getting dialed.

Although it wasn’t just Welsh riders at this event, all eyes where on who could win those national jerseys. In the Elite category eyes were on Emyr Davies and Mike Jones, it was tight to the bitter end with Mike taking the win with a 1:38.274 but by just point 4 of a second! (Until next year Ems!)

Other stand out results saw Fergus Ryan taking the senior win with a 1.44 and Seb Frost winning in Masters. For both it was a one time sit on the podium though, neither riders were Welsh. Monet Adams was back on form taking the ladies win and Paul Burford (B of BTR) took the hardtail win which would have put him 4th in the senior category.

Welsh Championship Results: rootsandrain.com/race3028/2014-oct-12-mij-welsh-champs-taff-buggy/

Everyone racing at the weekend was ultimately a winner. It was a fantastic regional event with a great track, fantastic vibe and lots of riding. After a successful weekend, the double race format is something, which MIJ will be taking I to count for the 2015 series.

For more on MIJ, visit www.mijdownhillevents.co.uk

Words – Rob Lewis
Images – Laura Heal www.rootsandrain.com/photos/laura-heal/