World Cup DH / 4x – Fort William – 2010

June 7th, 2010 • 2 comments Mountainbiking
Tags: 4x, dh, dowhnhill world cup, fortwilliam, mountain bike

Once again the world cup at Fort William has excelled itself. With blazing sunshine on the Saturday the place was a dust bowl, full of happy punters. The pits were open and all the riders were milling around and warming up amongst the crowd. The atmosphere was superb in the finish and on the hill, plenty of banter and seat of the pants qualifying runs.

The track was fast and loose with most of the new additions going down well with the competitors, although a few were a little peeved with the old wood section being changed as it favoured the more technically gifted and was a place where time could be made or lost. Plenty folk were washing out on the exceptionally loose surface. Not least Sam Hill who had a serious off during an early practice run, having to go to hospital and leaving his bike looking like it had been ran over by a tractor. Series leader Greg Minnar posted the fastest qualification run by just .6 of a second.

The 4x is always a brilliant spectacle and the crowd were hyped and vocal with mexican waves being orchestrated by a weegiewith a megaphone. Classic entertainment. Crashes came thick and fast and the dusty conditions certainly slowed things up a wee bit with folk getting bogged down in the flat blown out left hander near the top. The seemingly unbeatable Jared Graves won the mens, his dominance is pretty clear and it’s only when he has some bad luck that he comes in second. Joost Wichman gave him a good run for his money though, so it’ll be interesting to see this rivalry develop over the next 4 rounds.

Sunday wasn’t so bright but still warm and dry contrary to the forecast. The atmosphere in the pits was more serious with team tents closed up and riders hidden away geting psyched up. The crowd was massive and the noise intense, especially when Tracy Moseley and Rachel Atherton came into the finish. Rachel was close to win but lost out to Sabrina Jonnier by 1.1 seconds. The mens final was pretty interesting with young brit Danny Hart holding the hot seat for ages. Mark (boom boom) Beaumont another English man took the seat after. Hyping the crowd into a frenzy of cowbells, air horns and good ol’ shouting. Gee Atherton came in with a very fast time over 2 seconds above the rest and the crowd went wild. Gee had a tense wee wait in the hot seat (well it was more like a been bag) Greg Minnar stormed down the track without incident but failed to better Gees time which turns out to be a new track record. So much Kudos to the guy, pretty stunning result after a non event of a season last year. The crowd favourite Steve Peat had another bad weekend, failing to score in qualifying and scraping a rather demoralising 63pts for finishing 18th. Ben Cathro a boy fae Benderloch in Argyll was just behind him in 19th and this was after his chain came off / jammed near the bottom. He had just won the IXS cup in Innerleithen the weekend before with a hangover from his pals wedding. So definitely one to watch for the future.

Next year will be the 10th anniversary of the world cup at Fort William, so lets hope the folks at Nevis Range keep up the good work and keep developing the track. They’ve done a great job so far. So long my it continue, it’s certainly a long run for one world cup venue and with plenty of other quality, challenging tracks being build around the country lets hope next year isn’t it’s last.

World cup DH / 4x – Fort William 5th -6th June

May 27th, 2010 • Cycling, Mountainbiking
Tags: 4x, dh, racing, world cup fortwilliam

So the annual world cup pilgrimage to fort william is next weekend. Can’t wait. It’s always an excellent event, well managed on a dramatic, challenging track. The atmosphere is always superb and this year the crowds will be even more up for it with Steve Peat wearing the rainbow stripes of world champion. There’s hundreds of stuff to look at in the pits, cool stuff to buy, loadsa free tatt and the factory bikes riders, mechanics all mingling around.

They seem to have been doing a lot of work to the track after a few criticisms of last years being slightly easier than it had been. They have their work cut out at nevis range keeping the track challenging enough for the worlds best and keeping it safe(ish) for your average DH punter. Seeing the track via the gondola at the 10 under the ben registrations it certainly looked a lot gnarlier than it did, although there were still large parts of the track unfinished.

Here’s some videos me and Spad made at the 2007 World championships to whet your appetite.