Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
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.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Racing Roundup SDA Rnd 2 / Dragon DH Rnd 5 & 6 'Welsh Champs'
Two races two Rock Gardens...
We’ve got a double header of racing news for you today, over the weekend team riders attended races at both ends of the country. Up in Scotland we saw Fergus Lamb and Dave Young racing at AE forest (a track made famous by its super technical rock garden) in the second round of the SDA series, there’s certainly no slowing these two down in the lead up to the World cup at Fort William only a few days away. Fergus took the Expert win posting a time which placed him third fastest overall, comfortably maintaining his overall expert series points lead. Dave took a well deserved fourth in the Elite category. Well done to them both.
Down South we saw Jo Smith racing both days and taking first in Youth at rounds five and six of the dragon downhill series at Gethin (another track made famous by its super technical rock garden). Saturday saw him take the win by just over seven seconds, Sunday saw him post a time which placed him seventh fastest overall, Proving he’s got both the skills and the fitness Jo ripped up the fast, technical and flowing track made very tricky in places by the almost constant downpour of rain suffered by much of the south of England. Round six was also the ‘Welsh Championships’ as such Jo adds another Welsh Championship title to his ever growing CV another set of fantastic results for Jo and if that wasn’t enough he also maintains his overall points lead in the series.
The Dragon downhill race also saw some brilliant riding by astonhill/ancillotti rider Matt Kemp who took well deserved sixth and eighth places over the weekend in the Sport Male category which fielded a huge ninety-three entrants on the Saturday.
That concludes our roundup of another fantastic weekends racing, well done to all the guys for another brilliant weekend.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Ancillotti Team Gallery
As the race season continues you can check back here to find a selection of images of the team which aren't used in the main race reports. The first update should be a selection of images from the worldcup at Fort William. Until then, Enjoy this image of Matt Simmonds taken this weekend testing out his new 06 team bike on the trails up at astonhill.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
CRC NPS Rnd 2 Innerleithen, Scotland
Racing at the Red Bull Project...
Riders rolled into the Innerleithen ‘Red Bull Project’ in Scotland last weekend for Round two of the UK’s premier race series the CRC NPS. With a wide variety of tracks available at the venue even the locals had been kept guessing. Again organization proved to be an issue but luckily the chosen track more than made up for short comings in that department. This race saw a visitor coming over to mix it up with our own home-grown elites, who you ask? None other than South African, pro rider Mr. Andrew Neethling. The forecast bad weather held off and made for dry conditions over the weekend. Near perfect conditions for some very fast and close racing down the steep, rocky, rooty and rutted track all interspersed with enough jumps and drops to keep even the biggest fans of ‘air’ happy.
Top performances by Fergus Lamb, Jo Smith and Jules Coventry were the highlight of the teams weekend. Fergus taking a fantastic first place in Experts taking the win over Jonny Cheetham in second and Ben Hall in third, Jo a second with a crash in the fiercely competitive Youth category, coming in between Josh Byrceland in first spot and Bernard Kerr who took third. Jules put in a fantastic ride to take first in Master women, taking the win by 36 seconds over second place Renee Diwell. Very well done to all of them.
Rich Thomas took a 7th in the Juniors whilst sporting a shiny new Troylee, Dave Young and Matt Simmonds (riding with the number one board) rode hard against some stiff competition and took 12th and 18th in Elite respectively.
The astonhill/Ancillotti boys also had a good weekend Nick and Jack Geoghegan put in some great runs building on the experience they got from the SDA race held here a few weeks ago, and came away with 8th and 8th in Junior and Youth respectively. Well done to them both. Matt Kemp took a well deserved 22nd in senior, a brilliant result considering the size of the Senior field at this event.
Again well done to all the guys for a brilliant weekends racing, a short break now before the third round in the series takes place at Pen-y-bont-fawr. See you there !
Monday, May 08, 2006
The Team
Team Ancillotti UK is the largest and arguably one of the most successful teams on the UK and European Downhill circuit. Were very lucky to have had some seriously talented riders on the team over the years and this year is no exception. More...
Alistair Wilson
Jack Geoghegan
Richard Thomas
Paul French
Support Team
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Avalanche Cup, Lyon La Sarra
International Superstars...
Over the weekend another kind of race took place. Whilst some of the guys raced down the welsh hillsides the infamous 'Avalanche Cup' came to Lyon in France. Representing the team was Matt Simmonds who received his invitation earlier in the week and had flown out specially to take part in one of "the" international events of the year along with a host of other well known riders fom the UK and abroad. Unluckily for Matt he crashed on his second run down the promised 'monster' course meaning he just missed out on qualifying for the 'super-cup' third run of the top fifty fastest riders. Unlucky for Matt, but still what a great event to get invited to !
Midlands Super Series Rnd 2, Pen y Bont Fawr
Super racing...
Last weekend the second round of the ever popular Midlands Super Series took place on a brand new track built by none other than Mr. Dan Atherton situated at a private venue midway between Bala and Welshpool. The course offered a mixture of both speed on the open and super fast top section and technical on the lower wooded section, with numerous off cambers and open corners to keep things interesting. Some herald it as a possible classic course of the future, and it just could be!
The team were out in force and the guys did fantastically well with some big winning margins earning four podium places, along with well deserved fifth in Senior for Matt Kemp of astonhill/ancillotti and Jack Geoghegan astonhill/ancillotti with a sixth in Youth. Rich Thomas put in super fast performance in Juniors taking the number one spot by seven seconds over Nikki Whiles in second and Darrell Upton in third. Rich's time would have placed him third in Elite. He's looking very fast in the lead up to the World Cup at Fort William in only a few weeks time.
Youth saw the ever rapid Jo Smith take first by six seconds over Josh Bryceland in second and Danny Hart in third. Jules Coventry took the win in Master Womens coming in just under a minute up on second placed Verity Appleyard. Veterans saw team mechanic Steve Parr put in two strong runs to take second place on the podium only a few seconds off the top spot.
Fantastic results all round, a big well done to all the guys for a great weekend of racing. With places like that things are looking good for the nps round which will be taking place on this course in a few months time.