We arrived on Thursday and met up with Will Longden who told us what was going on and what we had to do. He signed us on and I walked up the course with Braithwait, Stanny, Deacon, Thomas and Berny. I was really good to walk it with those guys to see what lines they thought of. We all came up with pretty much the same thing which was good to know. here are pictures of the whole course from bottom to top;
Practise was from Friday midday so I had a good sleep and a big breakfast. We only had 3 hours to practise the course so I managed 5 runs at a push. The course started off with 2 fast flat corners then went into a new wooded section. It was fairly steep (nothing has felt steep to me since the last national “Llangollen”) and it was really rooty, fast and had loads of huge compressions and amazing corners. This went on for about a minute then a jump flew you out to an off camber left hand corner that was as wide as the M40 and covered in small rocks. I did some mega drifts here in practise, everyone was getting loose here as it was really fast section. It was back into a thick wooded section that was quite technical and slow with some really hard corners. Into the next open section was really fast and a berm shot you out over some rough ground to a very pedally open section for about 15 seconds before hitting 6 switch back berms. It was then fast into a couple more berms and into another pedal festival to a very rooty fast wooded section. It was back out and over a wooden road gap to a few fast open off camber compression corners. This was one of the fastest sections and was very hard to keep the bike in a straight line. From great speed it was into woods to a jogging pace with many roots and lots of tight compressions to double up. After a wooden bridge the pedal to the end began. Probably 30 seconds of pedalling before a 30ft wooden jump to more pedalling and into a left and right field corner. After a very “whipable” wooden bridge it was another 30 seconds of 9th gear sprinting to the finish.
Saturday morning it was an early start with only a couple of hours to practise so I managed 3 runs before my timed run. A new rule was introduced and seeding runs were not going to change were you were for your race run so I would still be at the back. All it meant was a time. Will Longden said to us to have a fast run down but don’t risk anything just to see whether we would catch people up. I did a relaxed run down and when I came through the finish the commentator said that I took over the hot seat by some 20 seconds. I was on a 4 min 2 seconds. I ended up getting 2nd fastest time behind Berny. Top 2 representing GB. It was a good day.
We were invited over to Fion’s place for dinner and Neven served us the best chicken pasta and salad ever. It was good to have such an amazing meal before race day too. I got to know Paul (Fion’s mechanic) and he helped me out with tools and advice over the weekend.
Sundays practise didn’t go very well and I ended up crashing in both of my training runs. I hurt my wrist pretty bad and bruised my sides from hitting tree’s. I was trying to go way too fast when all I really needed to do was another run like the day before with more pedalling. Will had a chat with me and gave me some good advice. I calmed down a lot and just concentrated on what I had to do.
I hit all my lines right in my race run but messed up a section at the top and stalled on a rock. I took all the wooded section very conservative and felt pretty slow but I kept loads of energy for the bottom section. I kept a lot of speed out of the last woods by taking a more simple line and pretty much went all out pedalling on the final section. Around 10 seconds from the finish I heard Will cheering me on which gave me that little extra to pull harder on the bars and spin to the end. I came through to the finish in 1st place with a large lead over 2nd. I was on a 3min 56seonds which was 4 seconds off of the fastest elite time of seeding. I was sat in the hot seat for a good quarter of an hour which was pretty cool. The guy before Berny came down and took over the hot seat but Berny came down and took it back for team GB. He stayed in it to the end and I was so happy for him, he was really stoked and Will was happy for us both. It was another good day.
We left for Maribor on Monday afternoon after we had cleared our apartment.
Thanks to everyone who helped out and made the weekend that much better!
Thanks to Thanks to Last, DMR, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, 2026 distribution, Funn, Bell, KMC, Nike 6.0 and Mojo suspension.
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