UCI MTB World Cup Rnd 2 Fort William, Scotland
It's what you've all been waiting for...
Introduction and Practice
The world’s premier race series, the UCI mtb world-cup, has descended on the small town of Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. The event is the biggest on the UK downhill calendar with over 400 of the world’s top elite riders competing on the toughest track the UK has to offer.
The offbeat downhill course in Fort William is tough on both bike and body and offers some of the most technical riding on the planet, five minutes of rocks and massive wheel swallowing ruts greet riders across the lonely, open and windswept top section. Before entering the middle woods filled with drops, ruts, axle deep mud and slick roots. Broken up at the bottom by a super fast jump section, featuring a big new hip jump giving the riders another chance to wow the crowds before you drop down into the finish area to be greeted by the cheers of thousands of spectators. The pit area is buzzing and the atmosphere on the site is electric. It's been described by Dirt magazine as the greatest show on earth and being here you can see why.
The weather has not been kind for the past few weeks and the rain is almost constantly dowsing the already sodden track, making conditions even more tricky to master.
However, the team seem confident and watching them on track you can see their riding hard and are consistently putting in super quick and smooth runs. With Andy manning the team pit area, and making sure the bikes are running smoothly after every run of the monster course. Things are looking good as today’s practice raps up until racing proper begins tomorrow.
To find out how things went and to see a better selection of photos Watch this space…
Race Day
The Morning
After another session of practice, in which the team put in some more fast runs, the sun showed itself for the racing. However conditions remained very wet and tricky. Racing kicked off with seeding runs in the morning to decide who would be taking on the track and the clock for the main event. Three members off the team qualified for the final runs Matt Simmonds 27th, Fergus Lamb 33rd, and Richard Thomas 41st. Unluckily, Dave Young suffered a mechanical just after the exit of the wooded section of the course and just missed out on qualifying for the finals.
The Afternoon…
With an estimated 7,500 cheering spectators lining the course, their was no shortage of atmosphere for the racing. The guys seemed calm and collected as their run times drew nearer. Rich Thomas put in an awesome run to take, a well deserved 46th place joining the 'big air' style club with a whip over the Tissot jump. Scottish team rider 'Flying' Fergus Lamb rode hard to take 48th place.
With only fastest seeded team rider Matt Simmonds left to run, all eyes where on the big screen as Matt set off from the start pedalling hard, you could see he had the open top section pinned, the cameras caught him again coming in fast into the bottom motorway section. Seeing his approach to the new 'hip' replacement section on the big screen was something special, he hit the jump and seemed to have the section dailled, but then in front of the eyes of all, on the exit of the downslope, he went down hard on the very slippery corner. Very unlucky for Matt, however he wasn't finished he got back on his bike to finish his run with style, wowing the crowds with gigantic whips over the final jumps and still put in a fast enough time to take a 71st place.
Well done to all the guys for another fantastic weekends riding, and for a great set of results on the World stage.
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