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!








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

Mr Blings PORC dh race 23rd May

Mr Bling said to me at the end of last year that his new spring series is going to get PORC back onto the downhill menu. This race certainly is the start of something big! I have known Mr Bling (Rich) for some time now and everyone knows his enthusiasm and passion for the sport. Banners were flying high and so was the atmosphere!

The course was as dusty as ever with a different approach to the last few races. This time it went down the beginning of the 4X into a big flat corner directing you towards the DH tracks again. After a few compressions you dropped back into the DH side to PORC. The course had a couple of new jumps in it and was pretty fast the whole way down. It had most characteristics of a good DH track; with jumps, berms, flat corners, rocks, roots and compressions. To top it off the weather couldn’t have been hotter.









It was good to see some old faces again but also to some new ones. Some motocross lads turned up to give it a go which was wicked to see!

We all had 3 race runs which made the race a lot less pressured. This would pretty much guarantee everyone would have a good run down the hill.

My first run went pretty well. I had a smooth run down the hill and pedalled as hard as I could in the places I could. I did all my lines at a comfortable speed and I got a 44 second run under my belt. After first runs I was leading by a couple of seconds.

For 2nd runs I went full out to get a better time. I hit some sections really good and it felt noticeably faster. As I came into the last wooded section over some small rocks I heard a short loud hiss from my tyre. Thankfully it was my back tyre and not my front as the last section was a flat right hander... check out this picture that Paul Aveil got of me!

I rolled to the finish not wanting to destroy my wheel of tyre and got 49 seconds. My first run time was enough to lead the race after second runs which was a relief.

After a short break I went all out again. This time I had a fast but pretty messy run. I missed a few lines but made up some time with some much needed determination. At the end of the day if you make any mistakes on a 44 second track... you’ve pretty much no chance of gaining any time back. I went a couple of milli seconds slower. My first run time ended up the fastest time of the day by 1.5 seconds.

The trophies were awesome! Just check ‘em out!

All in all PORC is back on the menu and Mr Bling has done better than great! He’s assured me that the standards aren’t stopping there and he’s conjuring up all sorts of plans to make the next one even better!

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

UCI World Cup Round 1 Maribor

The first world cup has come and gone already and it seems the year has only just begun.

I travelled out to Slovenia with Oli Burton and Photographer Jacob Gibbins. We pretty much travelled 12 hours back home from Fort William and then a further 20 hours to Maribor... it was pretty soul destroying but we included a mental hardtail session at some services and still made it there for Wednesday morning which gave us a couple of nights to get used to going to bed at the right time again.

I had some stuff to fix on my bike from the beating it had at Fort William so I used Wed to get it ready again. Mavic hooked me up with a big box of spokes so I built up some fresh Funn rims, I serviced my Fox 40’s and made my bike work as good as new again.

Thursday was signing on and track walk. I was given number 152... Not the best place to be seeded but there were around 250 racers so it should mean that I wouldn’t have any problems like last year. The course was pretty much the same as last year with 3 or 4 new sections and many places were taped differently opening and closing different lines. I spent a long time walking the course but only did it the once as I was quite sure of where I was going.

Training on Friday was from half 8 until half 2 so there was plenty of time to practise. I held back a fair bit and did 6 runs. The course was wet but it was drying up very quickly and it was seriously hot pretty much the whole day. I had a bad fall at the top resulting in a scuffle with a rather large root. The root won and I came away with a nose bleed. Annoying but it got the photographers snapping away. I walked the course again whilst top 80 practise was on and picked up on a few of the pro’s lines. I knew the forecast was torrential rain for the whole weekend ahead and sure enough it started raining Friday evening.

I woke up Saturday and the rain hadn’t held back all night. Through the whole of practise it rained. The course was rooty everywhere so it made it pretty hard to hit sections as fast as Friday. It was raining so much now that if it had started to dry out it would have made conditions even worse as the mud would have gone sticky and thick. The track was really suffering from the amount of riders practising. There were braking bumps and ruts absolutely everywhere and the fire road about 2 mins down was the only brake from the hellish holes.

I had to wait another 2 hours for the top 80 practise and then 151 riders to do their qualifying runs so by the time my qualifying run came about the course was absolutely destroyed. This made it so much more fun! My run didn’t go very well... I nearly lost my front wheel on a root at the top but got it back with a quick stomp on the ground. It started to rain pretty hard a few riders before me so when I got into around the 1 min mark I couldn’t see anything out of my goggles and when I pulled off a tear off in the field corners I found myself wondering way too far left so I started cranking away thinking I had already thrown it away. I went into the rock section pretty slow but managed to jump and clear some rocks at the bottom in attempt to get some time back. I went into the next section off the road pretty fast and just caught one of many roots that sent me to the unsupported side of a berm on a pretty fast part of the course. If the run so far wasn’t enough to think I had thrown it away it was now. I kept it clean and pretty fast to the finish from there on though running of shire anger. I came through the finish and saw Oli waiting at the finish for me. He said he thought I came through in 40th place but I had to wait to see it on paper to believe it. Everyone finished and I saw my final qualifying position as 41st. I was over the moon!

I watched the 4X finals with Joe Smith and Manon Carpenter. It was pretty crazy... so many people were falling off one this one double. They were all jumping to the left to land ready to fly round a right hand berm but somehow one in 5 riders were jumping too far left and landing the other side of the berm and in most cases nailing themselves into a tree or some sketchy catch netting! I was gutted for Dan though, I really wanted to see him in the finals but unfortunately he went out in the semi’s. However it was good to see that Graves didn’t totally dominate coming 2nd. The competition has stepped up a bit from Graves domination last year.

I walked the bottom of the DH course with Joe smith, which was really cool to see we were both on similar lines and also pick up on some that he showed me.

Sunday morning I planned to do a further 2 runs to try out the new lines I had seen but as it turned out the bad weather continued and the lift had to be shut for a while. A bus and a truck were hired and the UCI official told us that we would only get one practise run before the race. We would be ticked off at the top and wouldn’t not be allowed down again. I was pretty annoyed as that meant i could only ride the course another 2 times before it was travel back to England time. I stuck to my old lines as I was fastest on them and I had a practise run at a fast pace and to see what the track was like. The track was so cut up. Small berms had turned into huge river ruts and braking bumps got so much deeper. The course was really rough but I loved it.

Race runs come around really quick as I had to go up early so that I knew I would get to the top... most racers got their managers and team to take them to the top to get there at the right time but as I could only get the lift up I went up early so I made sure I would be there.

My race run felt pretty slow but I think it was just the conditions. It had stopped raining and the course really was destroyed. I messed up in the rock garden pretty bad and lost a few seconds but apart from that I had a good calm run down. I came down in 3rd place. I was really happy with this as the worst I could do would be 43rd. I ended up 37th after everyone came down. I didn’t really feel like I had the kind of run I should have had to get the result I did but I was so happy to get it. My goal this year was to get a few top 40 world cup results and I achieved it in the first round.

Finally I had to do a drugs test which was pretty god dam weird!

Thanks to Mono for the use of his shower! I would have been a very smelly guy if it wasn’t to him!

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

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;











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

Welsh Champs at Llangollen;

Llangollen was a huge step in the right direction of DH tracks last year and the Welsh champs this year was another great track. The farmer made another course that ran down the open section of the field. It was very steep and pretty flat out. There was a reasonable 30-40 second pedal at the top across the hill but from the first corner it was very full on.

Saturday was dry but the track was wet. The uplift was pretty bad but I managed to get 7 runs in. The course was so fun to ride and was going to be a very hard one to race! People were falling off left, right and centre the whole way down. The course tape was a huge problem as it kept breaking. I met up with seasoned world cup rider Dan Wolfe as he was parked next to us which was pretty cool.

I only managed to get one practise run in on Sunday morning which was annoying as I had a new line to practise which meant I could only do it once before wanting to hit it full speed.

My first race run was going pretty well until the last section before the trees. This is the steepest section of the course and the tape on this part was always broken and re taped differently. It just so happened that by the time I came down the course was actually straight down the hill. I missed out the corners and went straight over the berms and couldn’t slow down enough to hit the corner at the bottom and just hit it and went over the bars. I came down and got a 2.08 which put me in 7th place.

By second runs the course was running a lot faster as it was drying up. My run was really average. I hit some sections really slow and wasn’t really concentrating on what I should have been doing but rather just thinking stay on and get a time. I know its fighting a losing battle when you don’t have any confidence and that’s exactly what I did on my second run.

I ended up 8th place with a 2.02 which I was far from pleased with but I really enjoyed the riding over the weekend.

Here are some pictures;







It’s off to Fort William this weekend for the National. I know this course as well as any other and I can’t wait to have a better race. . Bring it on!

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