Harry Molloy: Fort William British Downhill Series round 2;

Monday, May 10, 2010

Fort William British Downhill Series round 2;

I was really surprised to see that the course had changed quite dramatically when I walked the course on Friday. Probably about a minute of the top section of the course was different. It was definitely better than before where it was mainly just straight and rocky, it was now natural rock drops and switch backs. The whole course had been manicured for the weekend as the BDS was the first weekend the course opened from the winter months.

Madison sorted me out with new cassettes and a couple of saint mechs and a shifter which was wicked so I put some fresh gears on in time for Saturday.

On Saturday I aimed to only do a few runs to get used to it and not tire myself out too much. I managed to do 6 runs, walk the course and pick up on some new lines and then get up again and be the last person down the hill in elite practise. I did all the lines I wanted to do and all in all was pretty pleased with how things went and to top it off we had a dry sunny day.

Sunday I left it pretty late to practise and got 2 runs in at last minute. I did a practise full run down without stopping and it didn’t seem all that hard as I had remembered.

It rained before my seeding run which was a bit worrying but by the time I went down it had all turned to dust again. I pedalled off the start and did a proper cruiser run down and just have some fun. I did a big whip off the triple at the bottom and just had a good smooth run. After everyone was down I came 13th with a 5min 23seconds. I was fairly pleased with it as there were 29 elite riders there including the likes of Chris Kovarik, Matt Simmonds, Julian Camellini, Gee and Dan Atherton, Ben Reid, Marc Beaumont, Dan Stanbridge and many more.

It rained again a little bit before race runs but soon blew over. My race run started off a bit sketchy and I nearly blew out of a berm but it gripped at the last minute. I calmed down loads after the scare and just had another clean run down. I messed a couple sections up but nothing too drastic. I came down with a 5 min 20 seconds just inside the top 20. I wasn’t all that pleased with my run but after a while and looking at the times i was a bit happier. I would have won expert by 6 seconds and I was 18 seconds off of Kovariks time who won the race with a few seconds to spare over Dan in 2nd place.

It’s off to the first race of the UCI world cup series now. A 12 hour drive back to mine then just enough time to get ready to leave a few hours later for the ferry.

Here are some pictures;