UCI World Cup Round 2 Fort William

An 11hour “Local” trip up to Scotland, the closest world cup to home. I went up on Wednesday evening and travelled through the night until about 5am. I was totally destroyed so I went straight to bed and woke up to sign on about 1pm. The course for the B.D.S a month before was so different to what fort William has been over the years and this time again just as much of the track was changed again. I thought it looked awesome! The woods section was very short and the other new sections on the course were where it was boggy before. The course was looking back up to speed and even rockier. It was going to take something else this year to win at Fort William!

2 words that describe the track pretty darn well!

Friday practise for me was seriously long. Because of my result at round 1 I had number 38 which meant top 80 practise was on! I left it for the first hour of practise but i couldn’t wait any longer so I did a couple of runs. The track was as sick as I thought it would be, but maybe a bit faster again. I always struggle with over practising and it was hard again to hold back. I already knew the course and what lines I would be doing after the 3rd run so I stopped until top 80 practise started. The course would then be warn in more and less congested. I did another 3 runs in this practise and was beginning to get up to speed more and finding loads of things to jump off. I did a timed run too! I didn’t want to do a full run really as I was already feeling it physically so I just cruised down and put some pedals in where they count. I got a 5min 6seconds which I think was about 20 seconds off of the fastest time. I was pretty pleased with this as it’s usually a bit more than that on a long course when I really go for it. I set myself the goal of getting the gap down to ten seconds which seemed pretty doable.

Oliver Burton and myself repping the Nema kit!

Saturday morning I started to feel a bit nervous about qualifying. I don’t know why as I had already proved with my time that I would qualify pretty securely.

Practise went well and I did a couple of runs to wake up the brain and push it that bit faster.

warming up and getting ready

Qualifying runs came about rather quick after top 80 practise. I warmed up at the top for a bit and I was up. I had the top section pretty good and carried my speed pretty well. I held back on the pedalling conserving for the motorway section at the bottom. I came in a new section a bit faster than I had before in my practise. It was too late and I couldn’t brake any harder. I overshot a drop and slowing down for the left corner ahead was to a minimum. I washed out onto my side but didn’t let go of my bike with my right hand. I got to my feet and spun my bike round as fast as I could. Everyone was cheering me on and I pedalled off as fast as I could. I was thinking to myself for the next section that I have thrown away my chances of qualifying. I gave it everything I had for the rest of the track and got a 4 min 58. It felt like the longest wait ever for everyone to come down to see if I had qualified. I was safe at 60th place; what a relief!

Sunday was forecast to rain right in time for racing. I did another 2 runs to up the pace a bit more and get the corner I had fell off on well.

I found myself quite nervous at the top as I got up too early. I knew I could just go down and with a good behind me I would do well. I didn’t even get to the first split before I went straight off track. I was so mad with myself, later comparing my split from qualifying I lost 7 seconds. I had a reasonable run down after this but there’s no way you can make that time up against the world’s best 80 riders. I ended up 68th place with a 4 min 59. I wasn’t happy at all but thinking it over now at least I kept up in the top 80 and should have a low number for the next round in 2 weeks time in Leogang.

Here are some pics of the weekend;

Gee takes the win!
there were crazy amounts of people!


Manon takes 8th in the womens and carry's on as the leading Junior







British 4X rider Max Lenthal looking cool
...best outfit of the weekend
the big screan in the distance elivated out of a lorry and was the largest TV I think i will ever see!

Thanks to Last, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, 2026 distribution, Nema Clothing, DMR, Funn, 661, Maxxis, KMC, Lezyne, Mojo suspension and Shimano.