Harry Molloy: UK Bike Park re-vamp DH Race 30th May/ My birthday

I went up Sunday morning and the course was pretty wet from the practise on Saturday. Some guys said to me that it was raining the whole Saturday. The course looked pretty cool. I had ridden it before but this time so much work had been done to it and it was a lot different.

The track was definitely a lot better, more rocks, better berms, more speed and just more fun really. There was quite a pedally bit at the bottom but without that bit the course would have been well under a min long.

I had a pretty bad stack in practise landing on my face and shoulder. Kind of like a scorpion impression with my legs in the air sliding along on my face. I tried jumping a compression on the track which ironically i had already done but this time I lost the front wheel to the whole... not going to lie... I still hurt now.

I had 3 practise runs and despite the uplift being very sketchy it was pretty good.
My first race run was a bit of a shocker. I stalled out of the first corner and I sort of came off the ledge that kept you on the track. Also a bit lower down there was a corner that you had to get well to jump the roots after it. I messed up the corner but hadn’t practised any other way of getting through the section so I just had to go for it without enough speed. Luckily I didn’t slip on them as I landed on them. Overall not a great run at all but as it happened a few others had bad runs too and I lead after first runs with a 1 min 20secs.

As 2nd runs started I went down to watch. A few people were going a fair bit faster than their first runs as the track dried up. Jimmy went faster and got a 1.19.
Just before I started my run I heard that Will had just done a 1.16.9. I had a pretty good run down the hill. I took it easy in my run but had a pretty good run. I got a 1.17.1. I missed out by 0.12 seconds. I was pretty happy though. I was pleased with it all though. I was fastest elite and had the 2nd fastest time of the day. It was a fun race to do and keep my in the right frame of mind going into the Fort William World Cup this weekend!